Surviving NJ

I got totally sick on the way home from NJ. The last hour of the flight I felt awful, then when I stepped outside I thought I was going to faint. I made it home, changed clothes, got into bed, and left only to through up or use the bathroom for the next 24 hours. Poor Bella, I'd been gone a week, then couldn't move for 24 hours. Her birthday party was Sunday. She was worried I'd be too sick to go, but I was pretty much recovered by Saturday. The birthday party was a hit and it's good to be working from home for the next few weeks. Keith's getting a new bed this afternoon, lots of cleaning up this AM.

After being sick I've seen how much I really eat and how much a part of my day food and thinking about food is. It's not cool. I'm trying (of course) to retain some of this perspective as the illness is gone and my mind takes over. I woke up in the middle of the night last night going over a memory I have from childhood. I have thought about this often, I think it is the first memory I have of food compulsion. I was somewhere between 8-11, and it was summer vacation. My mom worked nights and I'd have to keep myself busy for hours a day while she slept. I remember taking frozen fruit and a big coffee can sized container of honey and sitting behind a chair and dipping the fruit in the can and eating it. Someone pulled up (probably Jan or Joan E to rescue me for the afternoon) and I had to hurry and get rid of the evidence. Like I said this memory comes to mind often, not daily but enough to know it's not new. Last night I thought about the pressure my mom put on me regarding my weight, and how at the same time I was left alone for hours. I remember about 11 or 12 being told to go ride my bike. I was an only child, without friends in the neighborhood and the food/exercise issue was on the table. It occurred to me that these are pretty adult problems, one most adults don't solve, and it was put off on me like "Go fix this". It makes me sad, that child needed more care than she received and I am that child now. I care for myself, and I think loosing weight would be a better way of demonstrating the care and regard I have for myself, but at the same time caring for myself some how means this problem shouldn't be on the table, I should be loved as is. I know Bella needs exercise, so we go out and get it. I know she needs to eat well so I prepare it. I know what compulsive eating looks like, and duh she's not left to her own devices for hours and then blamed for the outcome.

What now though. Do I continue to carry this around and blame her? That seems to be giving her a lot more power in my life than I am willing to hand over. I haven't got it all figured out but if it's waking me up in the middle of the night there is something there. It makes me feel a little sick to write this out even.