eating to numb

Hi Maggie,

I also recognize the pattern, and I am trying to be gentle with myself.  I feel empty or something.  It's not quite sad, but almost.  I feel like staring, I guess.  It is strange that I have such a poor emotional vocabulary. 

I feel empty and so I forage for something to eat.  And of course, I choose a trigger food to stop the emotions I can't even identify.  I choose wheat or chocolate or sugar.  I actually made Aunt MJ's chocolate zucchini bread, telling myself the vegetables made it - not so bad!  Once I have the trigger, though, I keep picking.  And as I forage and find things to eat - I berate myself.  Then I feel bad and I am delivering bad messages, and so I try to shut myself up with food.

Actually, this time I knew I was doing it, and a part of me stood aside, observing, smiling, accepting the drama.  And what stopped it was cabbage.  I ate a wedge of raw cabbage,  I think sometimes when I am foraging, I am looking for a specific nutrient.  Our foods are so dead, that I can't find them and so I keep eating.

The smiling, knowing part of me simply reminded me that the next day would be a little uncomfortable, and then I would be back to my normal diet...the one where I don't keep wheat in the house, and if I want chocolate I have to walk to the store to get it!  I'm not saying no!!

I know that my inner Muse is at war with some frightened part of me.  This may be the time when a damaged part, a memory emerges and I understand my weirdness just a little more.

The other thing is that I have been losing weight, slowly, and I want to like this new me and be this new me, and then I want to be braver.

I think our attitude toward children is changing.  I think we are not the only ones trying to make sense of the senseless violence many families have become.  My dear friend who was here yesterday came from a background of violence that makes ours seems paltry.  And she knows she doesn't have a reference for family life and it has impeded her parenting, and lots of painful things happened.  But her kids, although still struggling, are keeping their families together better than she did.  She is another brave soul who is not afraid to admit what she did, and who is not afraid to look at what happened to her, even though it hurts like hell.

I don't know what happened in our sibs families, and I am not proud of what happened in mine, but our parenting was better than what happened to us.  And as we expose what happened to us, others will come out too.  It is getting better.  I just wish it was happening faster.  My heart bleeds for all the kids, all the pets being neglected or abused.  I wish we could just change and go through the pain of thawing once and for all...but are we strong enough?  Do we have the resilience?  Or is this thawing little by little the way to retain our resilience?

Lots of questions, feeling hopeful...no chocolate in the house!

Love from Clare