Old tapes and recovery

Hi All,

It's pouring down rain here in the pacific northwest. Started raining yesterday afternoon and is suppose to last all week. I'm sitting here with my doors flung wide open enjoying the cool morning. It's been a most dry and warm summer so this rain is making the air smell and feel exquisite. I am loving the sound of the rain. I feels like an old friend come to visit.

Before breakfast, Sweetpea and I took a walk around the yard. I stopped in my garden to pick some summer squash for dinner and noticed my neighbor watching me from his kitchen window. I was barefoot, wearing a tank top, and drenched from head to toe. He must have thought that I am a little crazy. Oh well—give him something to gossip about I guess. <lol>

A year ago I would have freaked out just knowing I was being watched. I probably would have scurried right back inside. I wouldn't have been caught dead wearing a tank top. I didn't even own one. Today all I did was chuckle to myself and continue on with what I was doing. It's all grand.

Something that I've been getting more in touch with lately is that I still have this creeping uncomfortable feeling when I have extra food sitting around. Not so much that I'll binge, but that it will spoil or otherwise go to waste before I use it up. Like I will be responsible for wasting it and something awful will happen. When I was a kid, wasting food was just not done. It could result in some pretty severe consequences.

A while back a friend stopped by who was hungry. I had already eaten and told him to feel free to look around and make himself something. I was astonished to see him use a whole can of tuna to make one sandwich. I thought it took quite some gall to do that. How wasteful—I would have made four sandwiches out of that can of tuna. I didn't say anything to him but it did really bug me at the time. Upon later reflection, I realized that I had simply been doing and thinking what I had learned as a child. There was no really good reason for him to worry about making that can of tuna go as far as it possibly could. He had every right to make his sandwich as filling and enjoyable as he pleased. And, there was really no good reason for me to put such a thin spread on my sandwiches.

There's still a lot of these old tapes in my brain. I don't need them anymore but they keep popping up and trying to control me. Even when I figure one out, like the tuna sandwich tape, I still have a hard time letting go of it. It's like I'm tenaciously clinging to things I pretty much despise and the tighter I cling to them, the tighter I am bound to them. Letting go is not so easy.

So back to my current issue. When my refrigerator is full, I feel an uneasy anxiety. Right after I do a major shopping trip I immediately start trying to figure out how I can use all that up. I don't buy too much. There really is no problem, but I feel an almost insufferable urge at times to do something about it. I get some of this same anxiety when I make a big pot of soup or something and freeze it up in meal size portions. I start to worry about how I can incorporate it into my meals and use it up before too long.
I still haven't figured this all out because the frozen foods sure aren't going to spoil any time soon.

Even though I am gratefully solid in my recovery, I am still in some ways compulsively thinking about food. Not all the time, but enough to where it is an issue. I wish I could just let go. Intellectually I know the anxiety isn't logical, but none the less it's powerful. It's a part of my eating disorder. It's a piece of the puzzle of why I use to binge.

Love, Dave