How to handle my emotions?
I started working out about a month ago... for two weeks I was eating perfectly and working out on a daily or every other day basis. I lost a total of 8 lbs in those two weeks alone.
I get depressed often... I go trough stages where I'm really low, sometimes it's gets debilitating. And then sometimes I feel ok. Not great but a bit happier and a little more energetic. For those two weeks, that's how I felt. I was feeling better and better by the day. And I thought that this was finally going to be the time it worked ... that I was going to stay on my diet and exercise regimen, lose weight, get healthy and fit and happy.
Well, week 3 was a bad week. I was sad because my husband has been working in New Orleans and can only come home on Sundays and by then he's so tired that all he wants to do is rest. And I really don't hold it against him since we need the money and the clients in the city need his services. Plus on Saturdays he has to help his dad fix the flood damage on their house.
This has been the situation for a few months already and I've always been sad about it, but for some reason, that week it really got to me. I didn't eat as well as I should... going between not eating at all and eating to much, which is what I've done for years. But at least I was still sort of trying.
But everything fell to pieces when I learned some really bad news about people I'm close to. That whole week, I fell to pieces. I barely slept. I ate junk food, sweets, drank Dr. Pepper. I didn't exercise at all. I probably gained all the weight back in one week, but I'm too scared to weigh myself again. I just can't handle stuff like that. For the whole past week, I've been nothing but worried and angry and sad and I'm trying to make myself feel better with food.
I don't know what to do. I want to get back into the swing of things, but I just feel so horrible right now. And I don't know how to properly handle how I feel. Part of me is relieved that "it's just eating" because I used to be prone to more extreme forms of self harm, but the other part of me knows that this is hurting me too, just in a more seemingly acceptible, not so visible way. My mind tries to justify it by saying that some people I know use drugs, some drinking, some smoking to try and reduce stress and make themselves feel better. I just eat. But it's killing me. It's making my life so miserable. It's preventing me from being happy and enjoying everything that I would like to do. And I know that if I don't control it, I'm going to get up like my dad's side of the family... with heart attack after attack.
How can I channel this into something positive? How can I learn to not let these emotions control my life? How can I keep myself on track when dealing with unimagineable stress, anger or grief?
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