From my own experience, high carb food 'works' to shut down my emotions. That's the trouble - it actually works to smooth things over, make me a bit sleepy and sluggish, and as a result, I don't feel what I feel quite as much.

With regard to reasons and excuses, I think that if we're talking about something in the past - there are reasons, and perfectly valid explanations. For instance, if I fell off plan on a particular day - then it's good to tell myself, "You did the best you could under the circumstances."

This prevents the person living in my head from taking over too much. If I keep telling myself how bad I am for having screwed up - for something that happened yesterday, last week or even five minutes ago, it doesn't bode well for the present or the future. I simply cannot do as well if I'm constantly berating myself for having failed - and the thing is - the 'failure' is in the past. By being mean to myself about my so-called failures, I'm allowing something from the past to influence my present and by extension, my future.

I don't want to make the fact that I'm human and screw up pretty regularly mean something more than it means. If I messed up yesterday, it doesn't mean I'll screw up today. Yesterday was yesterday, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. Ranting and raving in my head about how awful I was yesterday practically guarantees that today will be just like yesterday.

Here's another take on it...

A long time ago, a good friend of mine once asked me, "Sara, which five minutes of your life would you like me to judge you on?"

What she was saying was why should anyone zero in on a particular day, or a particular week or month - when it's the whole body of work that counts. Good days and bad days. If someone is going to judge me (including myself), are they only going to focus on the minor day-to-day mistakes? Or will they look at the whole picture?

Getting back to the idea of reasons and excuses - I must admit that I've been struggling with getting on my treadmill. I have a new treadmill that I received for my birthday last spring, and the first few times I got on the thing, I overdid it and ended up really lightheaded, and feeling faint. Scared me, and made me think I shouldn't use the thing. Went to the doctor, everything checked out fine - it was just that I'd overdone it.

I haven't gotten back on it.

I'm not sure if my lightheadedness/faint feeling is a 'reason' or an 'excuse'.

Truth be told, I think it's more like fear. Fear that it'll happen again, or maybe even....fear that I'll get through it and start becoming fit.

And then what? I'll probably be expected to do a whole bunch more things.

Like appear in public in a bathing suit. Or participate in games in the backyard or what have you.

Speaking of excuses - I strongly suspect that I use my extra weight and my useless 2006 (didn't lose any weight really), as an excuse for not living.

Being able to write in this great thread of yours is bringing up a few more 'aha' moments.

It's like - if I succeed, then I'll be expected to show up more. Be something more than I am, or somehow better. So really, in this respect, fear of success (for me) is more about fear of failing. Having to do things I might not otherwise do, of people expecting better of me. Of me expecting better of me.

Geeze....

The whole thing really is just an excuse isn't it?

But then again, I still stand by my idea that when we're talking about something in the past, we should always strive to be kind to ourselves about it, so as not to let the little failures along the way become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy or something.

Gah...now my head hurts.

At least I'm not the only one with a headache..OR an angry voice scolding me in my head.

I'm guilty of "What iff-ing" myself into a tizzy at times over things, and the carby numbness sounds like the effect I get sometimes...for me, though, it's the last vice I have. I gave up smoking, can't indulge in more than the rare glass of wine since I have to be able to take care of the boy at a moment's notice, ditto for drugs (which I was always too scared to try anyway) so I get the same kind of rush from a secret ice-cream bender as I would in the old days with a few beers.

I'm sure we can all come up with a long list of "rewards" for our lapses, just as we can think of all the ways we try to punish ourselves for our transgressions.

I'm just glad to have other people to talk about it with.

I don't want to compare my situation with any of yours, because I can't imagine losing or even coming close to losing a child. Heres when I started getting fat. I got fat every time I was pregnant, but lost that quicklly. April 3rd of 2005 my Dad died of liver cancer. He was diagnosed and died within about 2 months. My husband and I moved into the den and moved my Dad into our bedroom. I must mention my Dad raised me since I was 2 when Mom decided to split, so Dad and I are extremely close. He was my best friend, the only person who had ever been there for me in life. Anyways, he died and I didn't react. After watching him wither away in front of me, I didn't react. No tears, no yelling and screaming, nothing. It really freaked my husband out to see me so flippin calm. There is much more to this story, family that refused to help in ANY way. Nobody attending his service. Him having to sit in a refridgerator 5 days while I borrowed money from my inlaws to have him cremated. Too many things to list. So I did what had to be done. But for a couple months straight, almost all I would eat was those giant chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwhiches from tollhouse. I'm talking 4, 5, sometimes even 6 a day.!! Almost nothing else. My husband even noticed it. I wasn't thinking about it, its just all I could stomach. I don't think I even tasted it. I don't remember much else about that time period, but somewhere in there I got both fat and malnurished at the same time. Long story short, I don't think I created excuses for myself to eat and get fat. I was more like a zombie putting something in my mouth, and for some strang reason, it had to be that. I don't even like the things anymore. Go figure

You described the feeling exactly... the numb zombie-like putting one foot in front of the other and just doing what needs to be done... it's hard to even NOTICE, let alone care what you eat when eating itself is just a part of moving along until it gets a little easier to breathe.

Potato, I spent 10 days in the hospital with my daughter who is now 15 YO. She had RSV, so this in no way compares to what you go through with your son, but I never left her side, I ate what the nurses brought me. I never gave what I was eating or even if I was eating a second thought. I knew I had to eat something to keep my breast milk. She was only 3 months old, and it was one simple illness.
No you do not make menu requests when you are with your child who is ill. The gentleman who made such a suggestion to you must never have sat in that chair.
As to pulling my self together after be shoved off the "cliff" of losing my 17 YO daughter... I free fell for so long... for so very long. My precious children kept me from hitting the ground, THEY pulled me back, THEY loved me back into this life.
Oh Sublime, loss is loss. My dear your father was so much to you and no loss is any less significant. It is what we learn from our losses that make us who we are.
I know what you mean when you say you didn't eat for any taste or reason... it is a hollow place we try to fill. Odd to try to put it into words!!!
I appreciate being able to talk about my loss, as I near the anniversary of Jenny's death it is constantly on my mind. But this is part of who I am... and I thank all of you for your kindnesses!!!

Ladies, I'm a hard person at times, and I don't cry much, but here I am. I was just thinking earlier tonight about him. He died 27 days before my birthday. I still think about him everyday. Every single day. I laugh sometimes. When I do cry I don't share it. I think I'm handling it ok, then I know I'm not. I've given up talking to my husband, not because he doesn't listen, he does, but because nothing anyone says makes me feel better. And its not their fault. I get so damn mad!!! I feel like a child screaming inside , ITS NOT FAIR ITS NOT FAIR ITS NOT FAIR!!! Honestly, I don't think I've even begun to heal, and I don't know how. See, I'm getting all mixed up again, I can't keep my thoughts in order. And your right, I can't breathe.

You know what?

I honestly think that when we're in these really tough situations, maybe it's ok that we're not perfect.

The hope is that the tough situations don't happen all the time, and that we're able to be kind to ourselves when finding ourselves stuck in some horrendously painful scenario. That we don't clobber ourselves over the head for our coping mechanisms when the going gets really, really tough. Because, when we do that - we start inviting those coping mechanisms into daily life.

We make ourselves feel so bad about the things we did to get through something, that we make today just as painful as the day when it really was bad....and sometimes it almost seems as if we're re-living that day or week over and over again.

Why would we do that to ourselves?

I hate how some of us are so good at telling ourselves how awful we are for the way we handled, or didn't handle, some particularly tough day, week or time in our lives.

Eating some ice cream bars when Dad dies or eating off a hospital tray when dealing with tremendous stress and high emotion - well, I seriously don't think there's anything wrong with it. Again, I'd like to say..."yeah, whatever".

So what if somebody ate a dozen ice cream bars or macaroni and cheese on what feels like the worst day ever?

That's not what counts - what counts is we don't let the bad days, or our judgements of how we coped on those bad days invade our 'ok' days.

These sound like regrets. And judgements.

And yet - we *are* talking about the past.

So what if on a really stressful day, we're not all that great at sticking to our eating plan? I mean....geeze, we do the best we can when things hit the fan.

How many bad days are there? Maybe a few.

But do those days have to run the rest of the days?

Healing isn't a straight road with a finish line at the end, that much I know. Sublime, the "hard" is another way of making sure nobody can see the squishy parts and hurt you... but it's not workin' for me very well. Scary to let someone else in, isn't it?

You're right, Citrus, we shouldn't let the bad days run the good ones. I used to be SO all-or-nothing about things. I remember feeling SO ashamed of eating a bun I actually, LITERALLY, felt like I was worthless.

That's when I decided that something had to give....

Sublime... how well written! Yes every day every moment I think of my DD. Accepting this as part of my reality is what has made me able to live with it.
Knowing that my DH cannot fix this, but he can love me through it is key. Sometimes I feel like a spoiled child, too. Like if I 'hold my breath' someone will change what "is". But it doesn't!!!
We can look at it as something BAD that happened to us, or as life was meant to unfold and what have we learned from it, have we gained compassion and understanding so that when we come across someone who needs our wisdom we are able to help one another along the way.
We don't have to be tough or hard, we just need to become stronger, and we do!
Citrus Kiss,
It is not as simple as 'eating on plan'. This is deeper than simple frustration at eating.
How many bad days are there? For me, Potentially every single day I wake up. I must be very focused and vigillant. Remebering that life is good. Life is important!!!
As I read Sublime's post, she works pretty hard at staying ahead of the pain and not letting the bad days overtake the good days.
Then re thinking Potatoe's posts... wow... maybe each of us aren't "broken" people. We are all just works in progress. We aren't isolated by some sad reality, we are here together.
Bad days an ice cream and macoroni & cheese days are hit and miss, and we can't regret them!!! That's for sure!!!
No judgement, but learning as we go.

Letting go, too... not forgetting, necessarily, but not holding ourselves to an impossible standard of how we "should" feel, act, or be... it takes a lot of forgiveness to get up every morning and live each day with optimism and feeling joy in what we DO have. If we can forgive life for hurting enough to keep moving ahead, there's really nothing else that can't be forgiven, is there?

How beautiful Potato! That sounds funny calling you Potato!!! What you wrote is lovely. So perfectly put!!!

Now my brain doesn't hurt, it's just empty.

My name is Barb, btw. I don't mind potato, tater, late-for-dinner (as Grandma used to call me) or JUST about anything else, though.

I almost called you tater the other night in a PM, but didn't want to make you mad Yes, its scary to let anybody in. I feel its my own pain, and if nobody can touch me, nobody can hurt me. I'm scared to death of falling apart. It happened once a couple months after Dad died. The doors got blown of the hinges. It came out as anger(not uncommon for me). I either laugh everything off or hold it all in and explode. I've always been more comfortable with people being mad at me than feeling sorry for me. Does that make any sense at all? I numbed myself for a couple months with prescripion meds(bad combination), then everything came to a head. I hate telling people about this stuff because I'm ashamed. But I'm trying to forgive myself for a lot of things right now, not just eating poorly. I'm rambling again. To many thoughts at once. Couldn't sleep last night. I need some coffee I believe.

Oh, it makes perfect sense. I can hold it together in grand style, running on auto-pilot, but let somebody get that "I'm going to hug you!" look on their face and BLAAAAHHHHHHHH!

I still feel ashamed for falling apart during my move, to the point I'm avoiding going back up for the last of my stuff! I had bronchitis, Steven was sick, I was trying to get everything packed all alone, and i finally broke down and called the pastor next door and a friend of mine... I don't even REMEMBER much of it, but I remember bawling like a baby, having flashbacks to my Dad's nervous breakdown.

It doesn't HELP that I sent gifts and notes of thanks and appreciation to the friend and the pastor, and have yet to hear any kind of word back from them.


that's how I "handle" my shame... avoiding. NOT a good way to deal,either.

I know, the only people I'm comfortable with hugging or touching me is my husband and kids. I even get offish sometimes with my husband. The situation your in with the people that helped you, I can relate to also. But 90% of the time its in my head what I think they are feeling. I can't say for sure in your case because I don't know them, but considering your situation, I don't think they would be put off by what happened.