Day 45 - I struggle (and use a lot of profanity - don't read if that will offend you)

(Note: I'm generally very careful about my language when writing here or writing anywhere online because, well, it's part of a public persona that could, one day, be visible to potential employers, to folks I go to church with, to my mother...you get the picture. Today, however, I just have to get this poison that's festering inside me out so that I can start healing, and I fear that this requires some profanity. Please, if you think you might be offended, skip this entry and come back tomorrow when I will - undoubtedly - be back to my old self. I might even delete this entry after a few days...we'll see.)

I was going to write that, "I've been struggling to find something to write," but then I realized that I've truly just been struggling, end sentence.

I was cruising along nicely (in my head and on the scale) for weeks before I went to visit the doctor and started dealing with the crap at the back of my (proverbial) closet that I've been avoiding for about 12 years. Wading back into the scary world of being diabetic and having to test my blood sugar threw everything into chaos inside my head. The program I'd been so carefully - obsessively almost - following for weeks suddenly betrayed me when I saw how high my blood sugar readings were and how high in carbohydrates the meals, meal replacements, and fruit and vegetables they recommended were. So I stopped following that program little by little. I also stopped taking my blood sugars because they weren't going down and there wasn't anything I could do about it (I was already obsessing and freaking myself out over the carb count of everything that went into my mouth), so why bother?

I thought I could just ease myself back into eating normal food in smaller, healthier size portions plus exercise and I'd get the same or close enough to same results: lower weight and hopefully lower blood sugar, too. But I didn't. Instead I have descended into the same Hell I lived in for 12 years before I started HMR back in January of starting out with good intentions and then eating a little bit of crap here, too much of a good thing there, not tracking anything that's going into my mouth, and binge eating. Oh yes, the binges...hello Darkness, my old friend.

The truth is that this thing I'm facing - diabetes - it's scary shit. I will one day die from a complication brought on by my inability to go totally OCD on this thing and never eat a single thing with carbs in it again. As I write this, the extra sugar in my body is slowly but surely destroying me from the inside out. Yes, my blood tests, eye exam, and blood pressure are all pretty good for now, but the odds say that they won't stay that way, even if I do manage to get my eating under tight control which doesn't really seem likely to me given that I'm a binge eater sometimes in recovery. Yes, I'm exercising consistently - 30 minutes of walking every work day plus an hour of yoga twice a week plus at least one long walk per weekend - but that's not going to be enough if I can't lose weight and get my eating under control. Must. Stop. Binge eating.

But if it were that simple - "I don't think binge eating is serving me well anymore, so let's give it a miss!" - I would have done it years ago. I'm starting to feel sort of hopeless about all of this, which is totally counterproductive, and I know that, but what had me losing weight is now "bad" for my long-term health, so what the Hell am I supposed to do? (Of course, I'm pretty sure the answer to that is NOT binge eating wasabi almonds as I've been doing on and off throughout the day.)

Here's the straight skinny on this:
1. I binge eat to deal with discomfort
2. Thinking about dying from diabetic complications makes me extremely uncomfortable
3. Doing what I thought was good for me, weight-wise - tightly controlled diet using packaged meals and meal replacements - turns out not to be good for my diabetes
4. The binge eating is making it worse because now I'm not losing weight AND my blood sugars are still high (I'm assuming this because I haven't had the guts to check in like a week now)
5. I did weigh and measure my stomach yesterday after avoiding doing so on Sunday because I was too scared, and I'd gained nearly 3 pounds - my first gain since starting to focus on my health again - but my waist measurement was the same

Where am I going with this post? I'm pretty sure I had a happy/upbeat conclusion in mind when I started but I can't seem to find it any more. I need to get in to see an Eating Disorder specialist pronto and I also need to make weekly acupuncture appointments to get this blocked energy/frustration cleared out. I can't just sit here, stewing in extended, seemingly endless, frustration (which, by the way, always leads to depression...see if it's not true for you) because that most certainly will NOT lead to a good outcome. Dear Jesus, I just remembered about my menopausal crap going on (hasn't been much of a problem since I started eating right and working out) and now I wonder how much of this mess is hormonal. God, I am such a mess. Seriously.

OK, enough. Enough. Seriously, just enough. I'm going to pause here to call the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) to get another referral for an eating disorder specialist as well as booking in to see Judith the acupuncturist. Be right back. OK, I now have appointments both for acupuncture (Friday) and to see an eating disorder specialist (tomorrow)...at least that's movement in the right direction, right?