Leaky Life Preserver

For many years now I have struggled with anxiety attacks. Although my food issues preceded the anxiety attacks, the combination of the two brought the food issues to a new level.

My anxiety, interestingly enough, began at the end of a very difficult season. After 3 1/2 years of extreme stress through the very difficult process of my son's nightmare adoption process, when the dust had settled, I began fighting very bad anxiety attacks. My understanding is that after living a long period of time with heightened adrenaline levels, the adrenal gland can begin to misfire and the sense of "fight or flight" it causes manifests itself in the form of anxiety. You want to kick butt or run and you don't really know why, so your mind begins to run through all the reasons you might be feeling the fear, and then you really do become overwhelmed with the negative thoughts and the anxiety escalates.

This morning I woke to heavy anxiety (the morning tends to be when my attacks occur) and since there is actually a lot going on around here that legitimately is frightening and stress-inducing, it wasn't easy to shake. I spent much of my morning feeling very anxious and had a heavy sense of foreboding. For the near seven years that I have been battling this anxiety, I have often been relying on food for my comfort. The habit is firmly established, and old habits are hard to break.

I had my quiet time this morning with the Lord and part of what my holy conversation with the Lord was today you can read here, but the battle was still very heavy for me against my desire to go to food.

Most of the day I did a pretty good job of putting up the fight, meditating on the scriptures and keeping busy at work, but when I got home and was all alone, I made the mistake of not going back to the Word again when the anxiety rose. Instead I went to food. The problem is, grabbing hold of food as a life preserver, is a mistake, because although it may feel like it holds me afloat for a short time, the reality is there's a leak in it, and eventually, I am still going to sink, possibly deeper and further from a safe place than I would have if I hadn't grabbed hold of it in the first place. I needed to go back to the Lord and have another conversation with the Lord and press through.

Although I was truly hungry and eating dinner shouldn't have been a problem, I needed to wait until the emotions and anxiety had leveled so that I could have more easily stopped after satisfying the physical hunger. Instead the two were still too intertwined, and after my stomach was satisfied, I went to dessert to feed the ache and want in my soul.


Today's weight: 218.2

Today's battles: Was an extremely emotional day for me. Going to food for comfort is a long time habit, it was a huge temptation to resist.

Today's better choice: I gave away my half of leftover sandwich to Jake in his lunch today and only ate a small cup of coleslaw for lunch today.

Today's defeat: Despite my great desire for a second bowl of homemade chicken tortilla soup, I resisted (reminding myself I could have more tomorrow) but the stress of the day finally overwhelmed and I hit the sweets after dinner.

Today's victory: Although I blew it in the end this evening, I did get through the whole day at work without giving into the desire to indulge, the only sweet I had at work today was 2 lifesavers.