Hi all,
I have been away from this forum for a while, dealing with life stuff. At the same time, I have still been seeing my therapist to deal with my binge eating disorder and food addiction. These are issues I've been working on with her for a couple of years, and we recently started delving deeper into them.
One of the things that I spoke about in my last session was how sometimes I have binges and/or periods of poor eating triggered by someone saying "wow, you look like you've lost weight!" She pressed me to figure out why I would mentally turn a positive like that into a negative. The only emotion I could concretely put my finger on was "disappointment" - IE I am afraid that if I don't continue to lose and do well, I am a disappointment to the person who complimented me (even if I hardly know them!) It's completely irrational, of course, since my weight loss is about me and for me, not for anybody else, but it's like a subconscious thought in my head that I've never been able to figure out before.
It sent me for a loop, because I had never thought about it that way. In losing weight, I am becoming more "visible" (for lack of a better word), and since I gained weight to hide away from the world a little bit, anybody noticing or commenting on my weight is liable to trigger that instinct to run and hide so I can't be seen, or be a disappointment to anyone.
After I figured that out, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. I can't stop people from commenting on my weight, because that's not the world we live in. People notice weight loss, see it as a positive (which it is) and feel that they're being nice by saying something. So it's my job to work on ways to accept those compliments without letting them overwhelm and trigger me into a binge.
Anyway, I just thought I would post that in case anyone else was dealing with these particular issues - maybe my thoughts could help someone else! I'm glad to be back on these forums and actively losing again - I've maintained for nearly two years now, but I'm tired of the weight that's still left after my first big loss, so I'm jumping back in to get the rest of it off.