I have a confession to make… When I was a teenager I was emotionally broken. To get through this part of my life I used to cut myself.
How can cutting help with emotional pain?
Creating physical pain was a distraction for the emotional pain. It is way easier to deal with the physical pain then the jumbled mess inside my head and in my heart. When I cut my arms I felt a euphoric high. I would sit and cry, with a sharp knife or scissors and let my emotional hurt guide the knife across my arms. I don’t do this anymore. It just stopped as I grew older. I did go to therapy but it was not the reason I stopped cutting.
This past week has been a very emotional one for me. My girlfriend lost her 5 year old daughter. There really are no words to describe the pain and grief that all who knew this child are feeling. How is one supposed to handle emotional trauma like this?
My Current Coping Mechanism: Comfort Food
So as to comfort myself I did allow myself to eat. And eat I did. I ate lots sweet stuff and I ate a lot of bread. I ate and I felt comforted.
It is not the healthiest way of dealing with distress, but I did notice a relationship between my cutting and emotional eating. I did them for the same reasons. I ate to distract from the emotional pain. I got a similar euphoric high when I ate some sweet high carbohydrate food. I sat, I ate and I cried. Just like when I was cutting.
As a result of this emotional eating I gained five pounds in less than a week. It is nothing that going back to low carbing won’t get rid of, but I am amazed at what impact insulin has on weight gain.
One thing I have realized through all the grief is how much women need to support each other. I reconnected with friends that I may only see a few times a year and it felt good to just share… I remember in my early breastfeeding days how important La Leche League meetings were to me. In these meetings there were mothers with young babies just like me going through the same emotional, hormonal and physical issues.
There is power in just sharing your feelings. There is power in knowing that you are not alone on your journey.
Reach out, share, love, laugh and cry.
