First Baby Step Taken
I had my first appointment with a psychologist from The Emily Program, a center that specializes in eating disorders. Although they typically deal with anorexics and bulimics, because my behavior surrounding food has a little bit of everything compounded by surgery, they feel that I am a good candidate to qualify for their assistance. The first few appointments are all about getting history and determining the levels of disorder, depression, anxiety, etc. My next appointment is next Friday.
I did have a bit of an episode on Sunday night at dinner. I had spent two days preparing for a wonderful meal. I got out the good china, had a great table setting, uncorked a really good wine (Stag's Leap cab) and cooked an amazing meal. I got through the salad course fine, but as soon as I sat down when all the courses were out and I put food on my plate, I had a sudden panic attack. There was too much food; I had eaten too much because I was tasting throughout the day; I couldn't eat; I shouldn't eat. I mean, I panicked, had to leave the table and even had to partially undress because I was breaking out in a cold sweat. After I calmed down, I tried to go back to the table, but it was a no-go. The funny thing is that I had pretty much the same stuff last night and got through it fine.
I realize this seems crazy to most. Hell, it sounds crazy to me, and I'm living it. Right now, I'm trying not to judge myself and just work through the issues. I hate how I know what I'm supposed to do and pissed at myself that I can't do it.
In the meantime, I have started my vacation week. So much of the weekend was spent around getting to Christmas and then celebrating it that I didn't do anything around the house. I've started that today, beginning by finally filing some new CDs, some of which have been piled up for a year. I've laundered all my table linens, ironed the cloth napkins, organized most of the china hutch, culled some ceramic/glass bakeware and have begun the daunting task of going through my stemware. Holy crap - how many wine/martini/beer/margarita/champagne glasses do two people need? I mean, even if I hosted glamorous dinner parties (which I don't), I wouldn't need half that stemware I own. Part of the problem is the number of commemorative glasses we have. There are four Super Bowl champagne flutes, 4 Dick's Last Resort beer steins, beer glasses from the Baja Cantina/El Cholo/Firestone Brewery, a hurricane glass from Pat O'Brien's. Not only that, I have an additional 14 champagne flutes (3 different kinds), 8 martini glasses (3 different kinds), 8 beer steins (not including the commemorative ones), 4 brandy snifters in 2 sizes and 22 wine glasses in 5 different styles. What am I doing, running a bar?
Needless to say, I am busy trying to figure out what ones to donate, what ones to store in the basement and what ones to keep within reach. I was also going through vases, decanters and crystal bowls that I stored in the china hutch in hopes of getting rid of a few more items. I have a beautiful Tiffany decanter that has never been used in 7+ years, but I just can't part with it. The vases are from Waterford and Nambe and have also never been used. I hope the rest of the planned de-cluttering goes a little smoother.
There is already a fairly good-sized pile of things I know I am donating - table linens, glass bakeware, coffee mugs, picnic plates, etc. In other words, things I haven't used, in some cases, since I lived in New York (circa 1995). These items have moved from Los Angeles to New York (2 apartments) back to Los Angeles (3 apartments, 1 house), to Minnesota (1 house). The eye-opening moment for me on de-cluttering was when I came across a hard brick of dark brown sugar in my pantry in a plain wrap Ralph's label. I could date this back to at least 2003 since the last baking jag I went on in Los Angeles would have been Christmas, 2003 and we moved in October, 2004. So, yes, a package of brown sugar moved from Los Angeles to Minnesota and I still had it, 3 years later.
Besides doing some de-cluttering and organizing, my main project is getting some framed photos hung and order some photos so I can finish some photo collages. I also need to take my car in for servicing, which is massively overdue for a check-in. This is in addition to mounds of laundry, winter cleaning (delayed from the traditional spring cleaning), vet visits (Jager has a partially torn ACL which we are treating with experimental, 2x week shots for 4 weeks to, hopefully, avoid surgery), finishing 3 in-progress books. Oh, and, yeah, spending of some of the many gift cards we received for Christmas!!
It looks like a busy week, but I know I need to check in here often for my own benefit, so look for some more frequent postings.
I did have a bit of an episode on Sunday night at dinner. I had spent two days preparing for a wonderful meal. I got out the good china, had a great table setting, uncorked a really good wine (Stag's Leap cab) and cooked an amazing meal. I got through the salad course fine, but as soon as I sat down when all the courses were out and I put food on my plate, I had a sudden panic attack. There was too much food; I had eaten too much because I was tasting throughout the day; I couldn't eat; I shouldn't eat. I mean, I panicked, had to leave the table and even had to partially undress because I was breaking out in a cold sweat. After I calmed down, I tried to go back to the table, but it was a no-go. The funny thing is that I had pretty much the same stuff last night and got through it fine.
I realize this seems crazy to most. Hell, it sounds crazy to me, and I'm living it. Right now, I'm trying not to judge myself and just work through the issues. I hate how I know what I'm supposed to do and pissed at myself that I can't do it.
In the meantime, I have started my vacation week. So much of the weekend was spent around getting to Christmas and then celebrating it that I didn't do anything around the house. I've started that today, beginning by finally filing some new CDs, some of which have been piled up for a year. I've laundered all my table linens, ironed the cloth napkins, organized most of the china hutch, culled some ceramic/glass bakeware and have begun the daunting task of going through my stemware. Holy crap - how many wine/martini/beer/margarita/champagne glasses do two people need? I mean, even if I hosted glamorous dinner parties (which I don't), I wouldn't need half that stemware I own. Part of the problem is the number of commemorative glasses we have. There are four Super Bowl champagne flutes, 4 Dick's Last Resort beer steins, beer glasses from the Baja Cantina/El Cholo/Firestone Brewery, a hurricane glass from Pat O'Brien's. Not only that, I have an additional 14 champagne flutes (3 different kinds), 8 martini glasses (3 different kinds), 8 beer steins (not including the commemorative ones), 4 brandy snifters in 2 sizes and 22 wine glasses in 5 different styles. What am I doing, running a bar?
Needless to say, I am busy trying to figure out what ones to donate, what ones to store in the basement and what ones to keep within reach. I was also going through vases, decanters and crystal bowls that I stored in the china hutch in hopes of getting rid of a few more items. I have a beautiful Tiffany decanter that has never been used in 7+ years, but I just can't part with it. The vases are from Waterford and Nambe and have also never been used. I hope the rest of the planned de-cluttering goes a little smoother.
There is already a fairly good-sized pile of things I know I am donating - table linens, glass bakeware, coffee mugs, picnic plates, etc. In other words, things I haven't used, in some cases, since I lived in New York (circa 1995). These items have moved from Los Angeles to New York (2 apartments) back to Los Angeles (3 apartments, 1 house), to Minnesota (1 house). The eye-opening moment for me on de-cluttering was when I came across a hard brick of dark brown sugar in my pantry in a plain wrap Ralph's label. I could date this back to at least 2003 since the last baking jag I went on in Los Angeles would have been Christmas, 2003 and we moved in October, 2004. So, yes, a package of brown sugar moved from Los Angeles to Minnesota and I still had it, 3 years later.
Besides doing some de-cluttering and organizing, my main project is getting some framed photos hung and order some photos so I can finish some photo collages. I also need to take my car in for servicing, which is massively overdue for a check-in. This is in addition to mounds of laundry, winter cleaning (delayed from the traditional spring cleaning), vet visits (Jager has a partially torn ACL which we are treating with experimental, 2x week shots for 4 weeks to, hopefully, avoid surgery), finishing 3 in-progress books. Oh, and, yeah, spending of some of the many gift cards we received for Christmas!!
It looks like a busy week, but I know I need to check in here often for my own benefit, so look for some more frequent postings.
Labels: Home, Weight Issues
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