I’m trying to practice what I preach. I’m trying to slow down. I’m trying to breathe.

I will admit that you are meeting me at a vulnerable time for reasons I will delve into in future posts. Maybe this vulnerability is why writing is especially important to me right now. I’ve recognized the importance of this process, the process of getting the thoughts out of my head and onto paper. The process of searching for the gray and holding on to it. I’m in a black and white moment and this is me actively finding the gray.

I am writing tonight in one of my more anxious states. At the current time my thoughts are something along the lines of, “chips and queso, chips and queso, chips and queso.” Why? The most simple explanation is that earlier for lunch I ordered chips and queso along with my burrito bowl. I did not eat the chips. I was distracted with work and I was pretty full from the bowl. In other words, at the time, I did not feel I needed the chips to satisfy me.

But now it is 10:25 pm and the chips are calling my name. The thought of them being a few feet away nags at me. I have to keep refocusing my brain on something else. It is hard work. There is no denying it.

The more complicated answer to the “why” question above is that food and I have a messy relationship. Food is my comfort. Food is also my drug. It is the reason therapy was a necessity years ago and it continues to be one of the reasons I am still in therapy to this day.

I was 18 or 19 when I stuck my fingers down my throat for the first time. I am now 34.

It has taken me approximately 16 years to admit what I just did. I gave you my name and I shared something so very personal about myself with you. I am bulimic. It is part of me. It has shaped me. But it is not me.

There has been an undeniable fear of writing these words. A fear that these words would take on an identity that I could never rid myself of or that they would be turned into something so meaningless, so degrading.

“Oh you know Sarah? She is bulimic.” As if that is all that I am.

“Oh you remember Sarah? She is still bulimic?” As if that is all I have to show for the last 16 years.

I realize now that many of the fears I put onto you were projections of my own self-hatred.

Eating disorders and shame go hand in hand. At times, it has felt like I am living a double life – the one where I keep it together in front of other people and the one where I privately fall apart. But this double life has come at a cost – my sanity. Secrets are dangerous and they are heavy. They weigh you down.

Over time I will share more about the eating disorder and many other things.

For now I will focus on tonight. I got home from a date. I was feeling pretty good, but I was also feeling anxious. I’ve learned that anxiety is not all bad emotions. Instead it seems like an excess of emotions or sometimes extreme emotions. For me, anxiety is almost always in the form of racing thoughts that won’t turn off. That is, until I find something to focus my brain on. This is where chips and queso come in. Focusing on food offers this false promise of a quiet brain. I go somewhere else when I binge. It is temporarily quiet. When I’m anxious I crave this quiet even if it lasts for a very short time.

And part of me, even after 16 years, is afraid to let it go. I want to let it go. And then I don’t.

It is not one or the other. It is both.

And it is gray.  

Cue “Secrets” by OneRepublic