Brave Enough To Be Bliss

and fatter. I want to not care about that and just let myself truly get obese, but then I wake up and try only to eat as little as possible and am happy if my daughter has plans so I don’t have to eat dinner.

If I never had to eat, I would feel better and look better and be happier.

Not Eating I feel better when I don’t eat. I’m happier with myself when I don’t eat. I feel like I look better when I don’t eat. I feel healthier when I don’t eat. When I am happy, I don’t feel hungry.

Food/Eating=bad Not eating=good Guess I could have just said that and been done in 15 seconds...

From: Ginger Bliss To: Ginger Rothhaas Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 12:36 AM Sorry for typos...no edits, didn’t read over it. Just raw, totally honest, didn’t hold back. If I did read it, I wouldn’t sen d it. This is my secret and shameful habit. I am a failed anorexic/bulimic wannabe unable to even hurt myself properly. Ginger and I spent most of that two- hour session discussing food and it wasn’t quite as hard as I thought it would be. As usual, she broke it all down so I could understand it in a way that made it possible for me to view myself with a little more compassion than disgust. And as with all my secrets, she took it in stride without batting an eye, making it easier for me to start letting go of some of the shame I had always tied to this secret. I thought if people knew that I could eat four of those big cupcakes or a whole pizza at one time, they would think I was disgusting and never want to talk to me again. I felt that way about myself, so it seemed reasonable that’s how others would feel.

We discussed… ▪ How I was making up stories in my head about how other people feel when I eat or don’t eat; how I have no idea what other people are thinking or feeling unless I ask them specific questions and how I don’t have control of how they feel. ▪

How I do have a right and responsibility to make my own decision about whether to eat or not eat. ▪ How my food preferences reflected my life: bland/no flavor, and no feeling. ▪ How I was willing to hurt myself by eating when I didn’t want to, to avoid conflict. ▪ How I was using food to numb. ▪ How my disdain for food crossed all my senses (sight, smell, taste, touch and sound). I didn’t write it, but we discussed how I was sensitive to people talking with their mouths full or chewing with their mouths open and if I had been hungry before, I wouldn’t be after hearing that. ▪ How I would prefer for food to go away entirely and that I would disappear too.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin

In the bottom right-hand corner of the whiteboard, Ginger drew a “mountain” that has a line at the bottom. That line represented base camp where we started to tackle my issues with food. In order to get to a healthy place with food, she said it was important to take our time and slowly work our way up the mountain. She explained working through issues with food are generally more difficult and there was no quick fix for this one. She said it would take time and effort but assured me we could get there.

That’s the thing I liked about Ginger, she said “we.” I never felt alone in the mess of my life. I felt I had someone with me to help figure everything out. It might have been overwhelming to me otherwise, but with someone

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