those ugly addictions

[stillstanding]

Ok. here it is. i feel like i'm in a hurry. like i have a short time to make up for lost time and get busy doing what im called to do. but i got a lotta cleaning out to do before i can do what i need to do. i came to Oasis while searching some end times stuff. i don't think i've left the site in over a week except to sleep. God has been working crazy things out with me here this last week. But i feel like, as i said, i need a crash course in gathering up the garbage in my life, lumping it all in a pile ( a very large pile) and laying down at the cross...and then running. hard and far and not lookin back again.

What to address first...addiction. first one - food. it's killing me. been killing me my whole life. in particular the last 30 years. i'll tell my life story somewhere else shortly but right now just the down and dirty. At age 13 i started 'dieting'. things happened. i needed to be thin to be pleasing to people. so that is what i have spent my entire life seeking. i think i have control of something when i have control over what goes in my body. Dear God - this is hard. NO human knows this about me. this is the hardest addiction to talk about IMO. because it's so easy to keep it a secret. i am not loveable because i am not thin enough to be pretty. Ouch.

So i became full-on bulimic at 15. added anorexia at 18. Added insane working out at 21. Throw into the mix alcohol abuse at 16. Pot the same year. cocaine at 19, as well as stealing in order to support that. but all in moderation enough so as not to lose a job or draw attention to the fact that i had any problems. and of course i smoked cigarettes from ages 13-24. I stopped doing all of that at 24 except i have held on to the food addiction all these years - I'm 42 next week.

I have severe GERD - reflux disease. I have a hiatal hernia. i have barrett's esophagus. and last spring i blew up the optic nerve in my right eye. all from bulimia nervosa. i have messed up my body so much that if i put any calories into my body during a day i will gain weight. i have gone 42 days without putting anything into my body except ultra strong coffee and diet coke. i frequently go 1-3 weeks doing that and then i will "fail". there are so many reasons i should be dead.

theres so much more stuff to dump. but i think it will be more appropriate in other places. this is my addiction. it has to stop today. i have to control my mind. i have to keep out the weeds.

\o/ Praise God for Oasis and for bringing me here in His perfect timing.

[sbennett]

*angelbounceIm sooo glad you are here!! God will give you what you need to overcome this addiction. You are taking some good steps in doing that. I pray you continue to seek HIS will in your life and you find victory in HIM!!

[deetu]

hey sorta, glad you found us.
have you checked out the CCCC study yet? really good place to start
http://www.christianityoasis.com/cccc/forum.htm

[stillstanding]

thank you all:) for all your posts on all my posts. yall are wonderful and i am blessed!

i am on step 9 today of CCCC. growing bigger and stronger every day and tryna keep the weeds out.

Love you all :D

[realtmg]

Keep it up and in time you will see your growth!

Luv Ya

Real

[deetu]

woo hoo!! that is great!

[stillstanding]

it sees...kinda (started to say sorta...). but lemme try to explain what or how it sees. yanno when you condense a web window and everything on the page tries to adjust so you can still see it all? thats kinda what the stupid messed up eyeball does. the optic nerve like puffed up on the end where it comes into the eye and leaked a buncha fluid into it. now the end of the optic nerve is permanently swollen up with extra fluid. there are about a bazillion things that can cause "optic neuritis" and thedoctor did all the tests to rule out the deadly ones - namely MS and lupus. i don't have those. but i know why it happened. the problem is in dealing with it now.

when a web window tries to smush everything and 'fit-to-page" it keeps the font size and distortion that it has been assigned in its programming. the stupid messed up eyeball is not encoded that way. it stretches and bends and distorts everything and tries to squeeze the whole picture - all the info that's in frontal vision and peripheral vision - around the bubble in the back of my eye. so what i see i can completely interpret as normal...if i close the other eye i see a squished up version of what's really there, with the exception of this big silvery-greyish blob that's a little off center to the right. if i keep both eyes open - which really i hafta do cuz i cant keep one closed all the time lest maybe i taped it shut, or i spose i could wear a patch (aye me hearties, aarrr) - then what i see is like double vision...sometimes confusing with reading and driving. i bet people think 'why is she winking at me' when im at the store and trying to read labels or what have ya, eh?

now that blob is what makes it interesting. the blob spends most of its day being a silvery-greyish blob....but, sometimes it pulses a flashing bright light making it more like someone took a flash picture; sometimes it gets a weird rainbow effect going kinda like looking at oil or gas in a water puddle on the pavement - all shiny and swirly; sometimes it's like an aura like any of you migraine sufferers such as myself may be familiar with (this one causes me HUGE issues); and sometimes - and I am telling you the honest truth so i don't want anyone to think im nutball - sometimes i swear i see stuff in that blob like visions...faces, places, things. crazy, eh? go figger.

but back to the migraine aura thing. i have had migraines since i was 13. and they have more triggers than i can count. some of those are drinking too much water at once, getting dehydrated, drinking iced beverages, too much caffeine, not enough caffeine, cheese, almonds, too much salt, too much carbohydrate rich food, etc. but whenever i get a migraine i always feel like i need to eat something to help it go away. the only medication that eases the pain is tylenol and if i take 1500 mg as soon as i recognize the aura starting then i can keep the pain under control for the duration of the headache, which may be 8 hours or 5 days. and of course continue the tylenol throughout the whole thing. and for whatever reason eating something carbs and protein seems to shorten the duration and washing the whole mess down with coffee of course.

so when this stupid messed up eyeball takes on the migraine traits i feel like i hafta eat something, but of course nothing helps cuz its not a migraine its just tricking my brain into thinking it's a migraine. and dun dun dun - freakin eating disorder brain is making this sooooooooo hard. it's such a struggle sometimes...ugh. anyways thanks for listening. TMI i'm sure but any thoughts you wanna share i'm open to hearing.

love y'all...God bless you each and every day full up and overflowing!

[stillstanding]

my body is so messed up. i dont wanna dwell because He has done so much for me in the short time since He brought me to oasis. i have destroyed what He gave me in my human desire to be perfect - or even good enough to earn love. i would like to ask Him to heal me. sometimes i just rant at Him about it, but not in a while because He is sooooooooooooooooo good to me. i have to do what i can to get as healthy as i can NOW. for the first time ever i actually care about making this body - his temple healthy...why? why try after all these years? because i want to be closer to Him. Because He deserves glory. Because i am His...this body is his and i have been disrespectful of Him in the way i have treated His gifts. I know i cant fix it anything. i know i cant do anything in my own strength, but thru Him who strengthens me, i can. To God be all the glory.

there are things i cant eat and i call them all yuk. the reason i call them yuk is because they are things that are easy to throw up. and because they are easy to throw up i have abused them and have eaten them with the intention of throwing them up. and because i have abused them this way my brain now associates them with throwing up. soooooo even the thought, and especially the smell, of these foods makes me nauseated to the point of vomiting if i dont quickly think on something else and not dwell on the trigger food. talking about food in chat - i say yuk to many many foods that may not have ALWAYS been yuk to me, but now they are. People will ask me "sorta, is there anything u DO eat?" a few things i actually like the flavor of that i havent abused my whole life, yes. i have said before...its my heroin.

sorry. i have been struggling with putting this out here for a while. this is a better place than the chat room and if i dont get it out there in the light it will continue to fester and poison me.

Praise God for His love and faithfulness. Thank you, Father for bringing me to this Oasis, for Your Spirit who comforts me, for your people, who love You and have loved me and for the love You have given me for them. I am continually amazed by You.

Saved by Grace.

[Christnundrconstruxn]

Dear sorta,
I wanted to tell you of a story
I dated this girl in high school, beautiful blonde hair blue eyed girl I was amazed daily at the fact that she was my girlfriend I couldn't figure out why she would want to be with me
city girl but for some strange reason she had a accent like she just stepped out of alabama I LOVED IT!!
she didn't weigh 100 lbs soakin wet with rocks in her pockets, gettin the picture?
I think she hid the same thing as you were and I think she was doing the same methods of staying skinny but the problem she wasn't as lucky as you, she weakend her self to the point her body started to shut down, now over time the doctors done this and they done that and she made some progress but in the end this beautiful sweet girl died at age of 32 and left behind 2 daughters that I haven't seen in years but I wonder if they are following mommies footsteps..I hope not
ok now let me tell you as much as I like the way this girl looked all the way into her 30s she could have put on 30-40 pounds and would have been JUST AS BEAUTIFUL, I just commented earlier on a popular site named ----book about women feeling old at 29, PLEASE!!! that's when you are the most beautiful, I was married to my wife for 14 years and even though we are seperated I think she is still as beautiful as the day I met her (and she older than 29) is there things she could improve well sure I could use some of my hair and teeth back too but I loved her for who she was just as the girl in high school now it didn't hurt that they both were easy on my eyes .
I guess what I'm beatin around the bush to say is you ladies don't have to look like those fake supermodel pics to be attractive, be who God put you here to be and anyone that don't like it isn't important!!
May God bless you and help you to become the beautiful woman He created you to be and not what this sick world has brainwashed you into thinking you have to be
good luck now....GO EAT!!!
Cuc

[stillstanding]

thank you cuc :D
thanks all yall for being here. for being you. for being His. readers: this is long. i hope you read thru to the end. I pray this touches someone.

So i wanted to post an update. as for the anorexia and bulimia. i haven't binged/purged since the first post i made in this thread. 2 months 1 week. \o/ not only have i not there have only been a couple times that the thot even entered my mind...and those were fleeting thots that the Holy Spirit quickly enlightened it so i could see the lies. \o/
i have gained weight, but thats to be expected.
i spent 30 years eating basically nothing. yes, most days i would put food into my body. however, as a bulimic, you take an inventory of your food - as it goes in AND as it comes out. i know it sounds disgusting...it IS disgusting. but someone out there is needing to hear me talk about this. and as much as dont want to - i feel like i need to. when you spend 30 years in this disorder you learn things about your body and food...things like what digests first, what comes up easy, how much to drink with certain foods, what kind of smells can trigger vomitting, etc. so as you learn these things and take inventory you know when as much of what has gone in is going to come out.
but its an addiction. surely some of you readfing this must think 'wouldnt it be easier to eat something small than to go thru all this?' i thot that very thot many times. the answer is no. because an addict cant stop. i have said before if one tiny crumb went into my mouth i could not stop eating until i was so full it was painful.
the alternative? not eating. the longest i have gone without eating is 40 days. i have done this twice...gone 40 days on coffee - sometimes with a lil 2% milk in it, but usually i would feel guilty for the calories and because i was such a failure i coldn't even stand by this commitment i'd made to myself not to eat, i wouldn't put the milk in - diet coke, and a lil water. besides these 40 day fasts there were countless fasts that lasted 3 days to 3 weeks.
30 years of this behavior...coffee with a lil low fat milk and non-calorie sweetener and diet coke until evening. then a huge amount of food at dinner time. then throw it all up and drink a cup of coffee to combat the sweats and shakes. the sweats and shakes come after throwing up. they are miserable...painful. but you know i knew i had emptied my stomach well. a cup of coffee right after would ease them. but still with eating no food you still hit the plateaus where there is no weight loss - or even a weight gain...so frustrating. that is when i would implement a fast. then back to the bulimia...and i had to maintain this behavior because if i went ONE day without purging i would gain weight. not a pound or 2 but 5 at least. just from a regular human meal of maybe 400 calories max. then more drastic measures like insane amounts of exercise. weight lifting and cardio 3 hours every day 7 days a week. but even with that any calories = weight gain. so if i ate and didnt purge i would do specific amount of additional exercise to burn twice as many calories as what i had eaten.
so since 2 months 1 week of eating i have gained weight. its so very hard to look in the mirror and say to myself 'i am beautiful and loveable to God' when what i see, my mind, my human thinking, my learned thinking, is fat and ugly. but even when at an ideal weight, size, perfectly toned, tan, and muscular i couldnt see anything but the flaws.
but i'm ok now with gaining weight. because God is working in me. God is healing me. God is making me whole. God is showing me who i am. God is growing me in His light and making me who He always meant me to be...the little girl finally let herself get some real love and she's not giving it up! no way hose B! i am beatiful in my Father's eyes and He loves me!

[Mackenaw]

Hello Sortamorta

God is so very Good!!!

I love you, Sortamorta, and I love hearing how He is working in your life.

Woooooooohooooooo!!!

God bless and keep you.
Love,
Mack

[stillstanding]

I love you, sister mack