I keep hurting myself with food
Last year, after suspecting it since childhood, I got diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), thanks for the DNA, Mom.
Saying that IBS has impacted my life would be an understatement.
Having dinner with friends? 50% chance I get an episode that has me crawling from pain for 4 hours while still at the restaurant or home. Traveling? Extreme amounts of pre planning, limiting in how spontaneous it would be, not worth it. (And besides just the food, stress and climate differences change my bowels in a warzone as well)
Oh, and besides getting frequent headaches/migraines from my neck because of stress (I’m getting treatment for it now, it’s much better than it used to be), apparently IBS episodes and slow stomach emptying can cause that too!
This has drained so much energy and will from me to do anything socially, it might be sad but I’ve gotten used to it.
So when last year I suddenly got very sick for 3-6 months not knowing what the hell was going on, I got diagnosed with IBS. Apparently, it is common to have it get severely worse at a random age. Fun. But hey, at least now my suspicions have been confirmed, and I can actively take steps to learn to live with it and improve my daily health.
Well, that’s what you would think, right? Wrong.
I know how and why I generally get episodes/sick. But still I keep fucking eating the wrong things regularly. It’s maddening. I know I will become a non functioning human being for hours in deep pain. And yet I can’t stop myself from eating the foods I should avoid, or too much of it, whenever I decide to buy some.
Every time I’m at the grocery store I think: “I should try buying some cookies again. This time I will NOT eat the entire box in 1 or 2 days and get sick! I can’t keep not having any bad things in my house for the rest of my life, I have to learn to not binge it.” And then I do exactly that. Maybe I can hold off for one or two days, but then off I go.
I’m doing better than last year, but I still get sick way too much. I think I will need to learn to live with the fact that I need to restrict myself to the bare essentials of what I eat, and restrict myself to only healthy foods.
I would like to be able to have things in my pantry like a normal person, but I am increasingly coming to terms with that never happening.
I get episodes like this (they are mostly less severe now just very uncomfortable and very draining) about 2-3 times a week on average.
That’s about 15 hours each week wasted being a puddle. Which is 60 hours each month. Which is 720 hours each year, roughly 30 full days.
I could do so much fun stuff with that time, while feeling good.
That’s why my main goal for this year is to learn to live with IBS, and take control of my life.
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