Food's My Security Blanket

I promised to be honest.  I admit it; it’s been months since I’ve run.  Sadly that’s not an exaggeration either, it really has been months.  See I used moving as an excuse to stop running back in July, and then I used settling in at my parents, and then I went on my soul searching trip, and finally more recently it’s been my broken hand.  I know, none of them are good excuses, and that’s exactly what they are, excuses, but the fact is that what I feared would happen when I moved here has…I’m depressed.  It’s a strange cycle.  You’re depressed if you don’t exercise, but pulling yourself out of that depression is a lot harder than you’d think.

Anyone who follows me on Facebook knows that I’ve not been eating well either.  Food is a security blanket for me.  Like many people when I’m depressed I eat and eating makes me depressed.  When I’m happy I eat, when I’m sad I eat, when I’m bored I eat, et cetera!  It’s crazy!  Last night my family went out and ate a big meal at a popular restaurant to celebrate my sister getting a new job.  I ate an entire plate of pasta, a salad, and several rolls!  Honestly although I’m happy for my sister, I was eating because I’m upset that it wasn’t a celebration for me getting a job!  Yup, part of my depression is the fact that I expected to be moving somewhere else by now with a new job and moving on with my life.  Right now I just feel stagnant and I hate that! 

When I got back from my trip I decided to weigh myself out of curiosity.  I had been eating fast food, driving, and had a cast on my hand, but figured I’d do it anyways.  Two weeks on vacation and I had lost 7 pounds!  I thought my scale was broken!  How could that be if I hadn’t paid any attention to eating well, or exercising?  Well I did exercise, the Hanging Lake Trail was quite the workout, along with all the other things I did.  I was happy, at peace, and felt like I was in places that I belonged.  Apparently how you feel has a major impact on your physical.  Since coming back though I haven’t felt that way, everything feels negative…and it’s showing too.  On the scale yesterday, I had gained 10 pounds.  I’m now over the weight that I was when I left on my trip…the same weight I had been maintaining since moving. 

A friend of mine and I are fighting right now.  It’s not important who, or why, or anything about them, but rather how I am dealing with it.  This friend is one of the people that helped me find “happiness” a short time ago.  Today after getting off the phone with them I pulled a bag of Halloween candy out and took a hand full of the fun sized candy bars and ate them.  I even took a picture of them and posted it to Facebook, hoping someone would understand what it meant and talk me out of it.  I don’t know why I thought anyone would read my mind and know what I was going to do, but I couldn’t stop myself and hoped someone would stop me since I couldn’t do it myself.  I now feel guilty about eating those candies.  When faced with an emotional dilemma I cracked and did what I haven’t done in a long time, I emotionally binged on food.  I don’t feel any better about the situation with my friend, and now I feel bad because of what I did.  I’ve been thinking about it though and realize that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this in the past few months.  I’ve been falling back into old habits and using my security blanket of food.  I know I’m depressed and for me that means I eat, but I also don’t know how to stop it this time.  No I’m not in a hopeless state, I’m just really lost right now in so much of my life that I don’t know how to find my direction again with anything, even the simple things.  (Please don’t say things will happen when they’re supposed too, or that it’ll all work out eventually.  I’m so sick and tired of hearing that!) 

So I know this isn’t an upbeat post.  I know that depression and binge eating are not happy topics, but they are real!  We all deal with it, whether we like to admit it or not.  I’m dealing with it.  The candy is now out of sight in a cabinet downstairs.  I’m looking at classifieds to try and find a job just to get some money in my account to pay my bills and save to move when I do find a job where I want.  I’m not allowing myself to crawl back into bed and pretend the world isn’t there, it doesn’t solve anything.  It’s hard, and just like every time before it doesn’t get easier, but I know I have to keep going.  I can’t ignore my problems, I can’t allow other people to bring me down, and I can’t think that things are never going to get better because I know better.  None of this gives me the excuses I’ve been using for months now, so tonight I’ll run, no more binge eating, and I’m going to try and find the bright side of every dark cloud.  Please remind me of this for the next few days, lol.