I posted this in my journel but thought I would throw it out to the forum for support.

I'm having a really bad week. Not weight/eating wise but a bad, bad week. My weight this morning is 249.5 which is another 1/2 lb loss from yesterday. God is blessing me with a whoosh as I go through this struggle.

My mother in law is in the hospital and after a couple of days in she seemed to improve, however, about 4 days ago she started to decline and now I'm worried that we might lose her. My father in law came into town last night to visit with my MIL, they have been divorced for a long time, and gave us some bad news. He has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I dont' know how much more I can take of this. My youngest daughter has been sick for over a week and the Docs don't know what it is. They first started treating her for strep throat but the culture came back negative. She has had a week of antibiotics and has gotten worse. Her throat is so sore now that she isn't eating and I have to force her to drink. I took her back to the doctor yesterday and they did a sinus x-ray and said that she has a slight sinus infection. Yesterday she started vomiting. Now she is on another week of antibiotics.

I broke down last night and realized that my old ways of coping with stress were to binge and drink alcohol. I downed a small bottle of wine and got completely buzzed. Then I started looking for food to make me feel better. My family ordered pizza for dinner with garlic bread. I ended up eating the top of 6 slices of pepperoni pizza, then I ate about 3-4 T. of peanut butter on a spoon. This wasn't making me feel better so I started eating the garlic bread dipped in pizza sause. How sick is this, I was so afraid of eating this stuff that I just chewed it and spit it into the trash. I never swallowed a bite. I was still feeling really bad/sad and took some left over turkey and mixed it with mayo and ate that. I knew what I was doing with the food, I was using it to cope. I was stuck in a binge and no matter how much I ate I still felt bad but I kept eating. As I sit here now I can't help but have tears running down my face because I did this!! I having a really bad week!

*hugs*

I am having pretty much the exact same week (right down to mother in law in hospital).

I don't know what I can say to make it better--because nothing I've come up with yet HAS made it better.

But you're not sick, and you're not alone. I've had binges that are just like yours--only I've eaten worse things. I've spit out half chewed cookies into the garbage can. I'm binging on sugar free foods, which make me sick, but I'm so terrified of eating real sugar that I keep doing it.

I don't know if knowing that you are not unusual helps--but seeing that I'm not alone helped me.

Thank you for having the courage to say these things--because I did not. And knowing that I'm not alone has helped me.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make much sense...

I think you have made a giant step in looking objectively at what you are doing and what is causing the problem right now (extreme stress!). Even though you haven't conquered your old habits 100%, you are fighting them, right down to posting here and looking for support.

You have some very unfair pressures on you right now and it sounds like everyone will be looking to YOU for support and strength. Think about eating in a way that will make you strong. Eat protein and plenty of veggies so you will feel healthy and have good digestion during this time of stress for everyone. When you are feeling good cook up a bunch of chicken breasts or make a meat loaf so you have something to reach for later.

Let us know how things are going.

Lauri,

I'm so sorry you're going through such a tough time right now. To be honest, I'm still working on coming up with ways to cope with stress & depression that don't involve food, alcohol or drugs. I do find that a good workout seems to help. I think this helps because it gives me something other than my problems to focus on. I also like putting on some inspirational music on the Walkman. I'm sure in southern California there must be some wonderful hiking spots. You & your DH might want to try & get away for a couple of hours.

Also try to lean on your friends during this difficult time. I nursed my MIL through a 2 year terminal illness and, looking back, I wish I would have taken more people up on their offers of help. I think I was so busy trying to show everyone (including myself) how strong & capable I was.

Most of all, take care of yourself & know you have this forum to always help you keep on track.

Lauri,

My heart goes out to you in this stressful time. While the binge eating is still there, it's good that you can retain mostly the reasonable foods. I too know this intimately. No details required, but I too am having an eerily similar week, including bad food choices although they are pretty well remaining LC.

Diane has a good suggestion to get out for a walk. And don't beat up on yourself. Can you manage to do something special just for you unrelated to food, like a manicure or pedicure, or even a long warm bath.

After almost a year and losing a whole whack of weight, I thought the binge feelings would be gone, but they are right here waiting for any chink in the armour -- but we'll prove they can't win.

Take care

Lauri (and Bree & Louise for that matter) - hugs to you all. What a difficult time it sounds like you are all having. I wish there was something I could do to make it better.

I think Diane had an excellent point that eating on plan is ultimately going to make this tough time easier than if you have to deal with your family's illnesses and eating poorly. If you can find any other way to deal with the stress, walks, baths, reading, massage, sleep, anything other than high carb food, I think it will be helpful.

Hope things start to sort themselves out quickly.... and everyone feels better soon.

Valerie

Lauri sorry to hear you are having such a rough time of it. You know our bodies have a tough time dealing with stress and one way it goes about is requiring an increase in our seritonin level by craving carbs. There are other ways of raising it like exersice if you can do it. But it is easier to do it with food and faster so that is the way most of us take. I don't have an answer for you because I am guilty of the same thing as well but know you are among friends who don't judge you by what you do at a time like this. You do what you must to cope and it will come around to where you want to be when the time is right. What you don't need right now is you beating up on yourself. I pray your daughter gets well soon and it is nothing serious.

Lauri,

Not sure what else I could say that hasn't already been eloquently stated, but I just wanted to offer my support. Will keep you (and your family members) in my thoughts. Please keep up updated on how you and they are doing.

Thank you all for your kind support. I knew that I could count on all of you and that many of you would understand. This morning after I had just posted this thread I got a call from my MIL's Doctor and he said that she was about to go into respiratory arrest and that they needed to know if they should put her on a vent, also known as life support. I told them that I had to talk to her and rushed as fast as I could to the hospital. I was able to talk to her and she wanted them to do whatever needed to be done to save her. She kept asking me what she should do. I told her that she had to make the call. This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

I realize that I have to find other ways of coping with all of this. I know exercise would help but I don't feel that I have the physical strength to do it, maybe it's actually mental strength. I have slept a while today with my daughter and I feel a little bit better. I also am going to take a nice long soak in the tub after I pick up my other kids from school.

You all are so wonderful and with my friends here, my loving family and God's help I will be fine I'm sure. Thank you all!

Hi Lauri,
I'm sorry to hear about all you've been going through this week. I caught myself seriously emotionally eating this week, and during the process of overeating I realized I was emotionally eating (I usually overeat and don't think about it.). Then, I thought about what was going on to make me feel the way I felt, and I kinna used the fact that I was overeating as an indication that I needed to give myself some attention. I still overate but it wasn't nearly as big of a binge as I normally have....I think it was mainly b/c I didn't make myself feel guilty for slipping up because I realized I was just trying to help myself in the only way I knew how, eating. I just need to change how I take care of myself.

So be easy on yourself, you're going through a lot right now. Maybe you can see the start of a binge as a bell/wake up call to do something sweet for yourself. I agree with an earlier post, take a long bubble bath and find a good fiction book to take you to lala land!

Hope things get better for you soon.

(((((((((Lauri))))))))))

Everyone has said such beautiful things that would be helpful to anyone facing the crisis you are facing. So, I just wanted to add that I care and I am always happy to listen. I will keep you in my prayers.

Orchid

(((Lauri)))

I feel so much for you. I can relate to your family concerns and the depression and food issues that seem to go hand-in-hand. I too have ill family members(Father, FIL, and dh Grandma...all at this time) and it really does help to know you aren't alone.

Thank you for having the courage of talking about things that a lot of us may be keeping to ourselves. I hope that together we will have to strength to thrive in spite of these hard times.


Freedom

Lauri,

I certainly feel for your situation - I lost both my Mom and my Dad in the last 7 months. We are doing well - they were both Christians and in a better place now. Yeah I would have like to have them around for another 30 years or so, but there were different plans than mine in place. The only real thing we can do is to give it to God and let him work it out for us - he asks us to do this, and it is a very freeing experience to hand over these stressful types of problems and concerns.

One of the things to check with your daughter - my next oldest sister's daughter got very sick when my Dad was dying. Vomiting all the time, showing symptoms of other diseases, etc. It turns out that she was so upset by what was happening to my Dad that it made her physically ill. Stress can do all types of weird things, so it might be worth it to sit down with her and see if this may be part of the cause - find out if she is stressed out about the situation with Grandma......that really helped my niece.

Bless you and your family

Lauri - I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles. Just do the best you can with eating and try to take care of yourself. I'll keep you and your family in my prayers.

{{{Lauri}}}

I'm so sorry things are hard right now. Know we all care about you and are sending good thoughts. Don't beat yourself up for reverting back to destructive behaviors, just take care and do the best you can.

{{{Be kind to yourself!}}}