ED issues - do they ever go away?

I love how our Fat Acceptance community can come together to support each other when one of us is feeling less fierce than usual... I'm hoping to find a bit of that support today.

Trigger warning for eating disorder issues, ok, y'all...?



I am really struggling the past couple days with a strong urge to binge on sugars, fats, and carbs. All the stuff I've been taught my whole life is "bad" (which I've struggled, with limited success so far, to re-define for myself in a HAES and intuitive eating framework). I've struggled with a tendency to have disordered eating - and disordered thinking about eating - for what feels like forever. Certainly since middle school, when I'd make up elaborate lies about wanting something to do, being so bored, surely my mom wanted me to go to the store and get some milk or something just so I could go to the store to buy a candy bar and devour it in a fear- and forbidden-food rush of shame. (I wasn't allowed to spend my allowance on candy, cause, ya know, so fat.) I also got caught once stealing chocolate chips out of the deep freezer in the garage... and the shame, wow... I don't think I'd have been more ashamed if I'd been caught masturbating. (Yeah, no body issues there. Why should masturbation be a shameful thing either? But that's another story for another post.)

I think I'm being triggered these past few days because a) I've learned that I'm gluten-intolerant, which means I'm constantly telling myself "no" to things I want to eat, and restriction/the forbidden are huge triggers for me... and b) I had a conversation with a friend who is a 10-year WLS survivor with pretty much the best imaginable outcome. I forget how it came up, but I tried to neutrally respond saying I was glad she had such a good experience and was healthy. Somehow this turned into her recommending other mutual acquaintances I could talk to who also had good experiences, and wham - I was triggered.

Not sure the above two items can possibly explain completely why last night I ate 2 corn dogs and a bacon-wrapped hot dog (after a full meal 2 hours earlier) and this morning a turkey sandwich and a muffin (both v. gluten-ous) and for lunch Taco Bell and then a 3-pack of Hostess orange cupcakes AND a pack of Twinkies. And why I'm feeling so much like a failure and so much frustration and some shame for eating all these things. I know I'll be kicking myself for DAYS as all this grease and sugar and most importantly gluten wreaks havoc on my poor tummy and gut. Why do I do this to myself? How can I give my body the food I know is good for it when intuitive eating says eat what I crave, and what I crave is sugar when my genes give me a high chance of diabetes and gluten which makes my tummy hurt? This is too hard to navigate.

Help me, wise fatties! What have YOU done to struggle through these issues and come out the other side?