I may have mentioned this before, but it occurs to me that I use sugar in much the way I used to use self injury. When there's an emotion I'm not comfortable with, I tend to want to get rid of it rather than welcome it (I know, to some of you that may seem like common sense, but I believe there is great value is being able to tolerate and get along well with emotions). The quickest way for me to get rid of a feeling was self injury, and is now sugar. Sugar kinda numbs me out... much like marijuana or an opioid sort of drug might (not that I've ever tried any of those... ahem... hi, grandma!).
So I'm gonna try to treat my sugar addiction in ways similar to how I treated my cutting addiction (yes, people, self injury can definitely be an addiction). When I was stopping self injury, it was important that I have other means of coping in place, in order to keep myself safe (and by safe I kinda mean, not suicidal). It was important that I address some of the underlying reasons for my self injury (that has turned out to be quite a process, but immensely helpful). And it was important that I not take away my most familiar and effective coping mechanism all at once, cold-turkey style.
So I kind of have a plan of attack with sugar. Right now I am not drinking anything with a sweetener in it (aside from honey). I am also only eating more "natural" sugars (ie, No hfcf or highly processed white sugar stuff. I'm still eating things with evaporated cane juice, fruit juice sweetener, etc). So that's phase one of my step-down.
As for dealing with the underlying issues, I'm doing individual and group therapies and continuing all that kind of work.
As for alternative methods of coping... I want to hear your ideas! What do you do when an emotion is uncomfortable?
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4 comments:
1. Make myself sit there and just feel it... it helps me learn that I *can* feel it, and nothing bad will happen, I don't have to do anything to fix it, etc.
2. Get online & complain for a bit.
3. Talk to you.
4. Exercise.
5. Go to the beach.
6. Veg out with a book or TV.
7. Take a shower.
I'm going to internally insert "that's not destructive" to your sentence ;)
1) Give myself a time limit on how long I will feel it for.
2) Make a commitment to write about it (either as a blog entry, a journal entry, or a piece of creative writing) and then let it go.
3) Talk about it. (Online, generally.) Sometimes "it" is the feeling, sometimes "it" is the prompting event for the feeling.
4) Look at the things underlying the desire to escape the feeling and look at the things underlying the feeling itself.
I'm not gonna pretend I do a great job at any of these - you know me too well ;) - but it's a work in progress and maybe some of these ideas will be helpful for you.
Other than that, what I do is mainly attempt distraction of some form -- any form, I'm not especially fussy, as you may already know. ;)
My view is that all of our channels of input are valid ways of knowing the world. That includes the five senses, but also other subtler inputs, like emotion, intuition, rhythmic awareness, and on and on. So by changing one's frame of mind so that emotion isn't something that happens to you but a particular way in which one becomes aware of the world (including you in it). Treating emotion as information instead of personal torture goes a long way towards being at peace with oneself regardless of how one feels. This is, in my opinion, why writing about feelings works; it helps to decipher the message that one's emotional state is trying to inform us about.
1. Breathing exercises help. A lot.
2. Online chat.
3. Prayer/meditation. This takes me far away and really changes my mood, if I allow it to.
4. Medication -- usually klonopin.
5. Going outside. Which I rarely actually do, but if I do, it helps.
6. Self care. Showering, healthy eating, appropriate exercise, cups of tea, calming music, talking to myself gently.
7. Knitting, general distracting activities.
I will be interested in more posts about this topic as I am facing my own sugar addiction, though I have not yet made a decision to do anything about it. Good luck!
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