Our brains are amazing it helps us tomake decisions everyday shaped by the experiences we have had through our lives, how we feel at a particular time, people who are around us and the information we have access too but what do we do when our responses are based on fight, flight or freeze and we have no idea.
We use our experiences to shape our decision making what we think about, food, people, situations and often do not evenrealise that sometimes (or all the time for some people) the trauma we have endured throughout our lives no matter how far we have pushed it down is a huge part of these decisions. We don't consciously allow these horrible experiences to take the wheel but sometimes no matter how hard we try to keep it in the deep recesses of our brain it seeps out. This not only has an affect on how we view other people but alsoourselves, it shapes our self worth, how we trust others and our reactions to others/situations.
I have felt myself spiral a lot without any way of explaining why rationally in the last wee while. I am very practised at seeming very sure and in control but bubbling underneath is someone so unsure of the decisions i make, stuck in my own head until im not sure what to do. Normally we would draw on our experiences we have gathered all through our lives this can and should be drawn upon as we go through life as it can be a great source of information but what do you do when the majority of these experiences are negative, self sabotaging and you find it hard to trust the decisions you make?
My experiences are so very negative in lots of aspects of my life but my weight in particular when i lost weight when i was younger i had periods where i would eat nothing for days and the weight fell off….did it stay off? no it didn't because once i lost weight i would sabotage myself by overeating. Ive recognised that in actuality these are behaviours of an eating disorder, now ive never been anorexic or had bulimia and these are really the only things we see when we read about eating disorders so you think well i don't have those so i dont have a problem….do i? Yes i absolutely did is the answer because these disorders begin in your head and are about how you see yourself and view your body. The brain is a powerful organ capable of amazing things but also capable of tricking you into thinking unspeakable things about yourself. What do you do when in addition to this you have trauma never admitted always ignored, how do you then trust anything your brain tells you.
The answer is you don't, you stop the bus get off and look for help. I always thought my relationship with food and my body image was all that was wrong, should be pretty easy to sort out then!!! Nope because opening up this delightful can of worms has triggered other deeper issues that have been buried deep inside and that's a bit scary. Writing these and unpacking it I've come to realise how much of a problem this has become, not sure how i got to be 47 years old without managing to admit any of this to myself or realising how much it has seeped into all the areas of my life like a poison.
The last three weeks i feel like I've been so lost, been getting in my head too much, punishing myself for any mistakes way too harshly and just in general getting in my own way. I didn't weigh myself for a few weeks because i got caught up in mistakes i have made and felt it was just going to be awful news and didn't want that excuse to derail the good i had done because this time its about my health and i need to be serious about that. Thankfully i am still losing weight and being careful about my choices, ive also put my big girl pants on and asked for help because none of this is going to matter if my mental health isn't addressed too. I'm proud I've reached out but terrified about what i am going to find because if its been deep in there all this time its not going to be pretty but its got to be better than what is happening now!!
So is my brain my friend or a foe?Right now definite foe but I'm hoping very soon that's going to change.
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