Hey Chelle
You're not being nosey at all. I'm the one "putting it out there" as they say
I think it's best if I give a brief history first to explain how I got to where I am now.
My parents died in 2004 (from cancer) and the 2 years of illness were tough because I was the one (as the nurse in the family) who handled all the medical situations etc. Because I knew the medical prognosis from the start (because of my own job) I realise now I was grieving before they even died. There was lots of extended family drama over my Mum's funeral (from her siblings) so by the time it was all over I was exhausted physically and emotionally. Over the next few years I really struggled to cope with work and life. The feeling I had was that I just wanted the world to stop because I didn't want to deal with reality. I'd always smoked hash socially but started using it alone more and more. I found it helped me stop thinking because everything became focussed on the "ritual" of the habit..... the bargaining with myself on the way home about what chores I had to do before I could have a smoke, the stopping into the shop for Rizla etc. I felt I couldn't connect with my friends (too exhausted) so withdrew from them and my family more and more. I approached various counsellors and each one told me I was having an extended bereavement reaction etc. I tried moving home to Ireland, moving jobs, going travelling etc. But nothing seemed to help. I finally ended up back in London and had managed to stop smoking but now realise it was then that I started losing control with food. (I'd always had to watch what i eat and used to joke that food had nothing to do with hunger for me but had always managed to keep things reasonably in check with exercise etc). I managed to function in work for the next year but life outside work disappeared and I got more and more critical of myself in work. Even though I exceeded all my assessment targets I couldn't gain any satisfaction from that. Anyway cut to early this year and I was really struggling, I was seeking comfort in take-aways and chocolate binges and feeling horrible about myself. I knew something wasn't right but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I was on capability performance in work (because of absence last year for depression) and had attendance targets which I was meeting but I was finding each day harder and harder to cope with. I ended up in A&E with gallstones and spent a week in hospital and that was the final straw. Over recent years I'd become concerned about my behaviour in relationships too. I couldn't seem to find a guy I could connect with emotionally, instead I would find myself in a sexual type relationship very quickly (not necessarily physical, could be texting to an old friend who was now married etc). I couldn't understand how this kept happening. And when it was physical I began to feel more and more that I was adopting a "persona" in bed... that I wasn't being really me but was putting on this act. I knew about psychotherapy from work so looked up names on the IACP website. That's how I found my current therapist. His credentials listed sex therapy and so I thought I might be able to talk to him about some of this stuff. I've been seeing him weekly now since April and it's brilliant! It's hard work and I feel like I've been deconstructed but I know understand so much about why I behaved and believed the way I did/do and now that i know that I can change it. The changing is hard though because I've had over 30 years of re-enforcing those dysfunctional beliefs to myself and it's "easier/lazier" to revert to those than force myself to do things differently. But it is getting easier. I have cut off all contact with those blokes I used to be in irregular contact with (if the contact was purely based in sexual behaviour). I have also cut off contact with ex-boyfriends who I was trying to "stay friends" with even though they had behaved badly towards me. I have begun to recognise the patterns and how certain feelings direct me towards certain patterns of behaviour. I am now learning to find new ways of dealing with those feelings and it's all beginning to snowball and feel more positive. Over the course of the therapy as we have discussed the core beliefs behind my behaviours I became more and more aware of the language I was using to describe them..... and from that became the awareness that I was using language I had heard addicts use... that I misused food and chocolate and hash and relationships to help me avoid reality. I also took no responsibility with money.. I had no idea what my expenses were and what i was spending... i spent more and more on my "drug" and was so disorganised I paid a fortune in overdraft fees and that lead to my falling behind in my bills. I was living in gradually increasing chaos ... apparently this is classic "addict" behaviour ... even though no-one had a clue what was going on with me. As the therapy helped me feel stronger emotionally I began to feel the need to deal with other things... I sorted out my bills, arranged a re-mortgage to release some equity, started connecting with family and some very close friends again, and then finally decided to deal with the weight issue and found CD. By pure chance my CDC is a qualified addictions counsellor so that dovetailed in nicely with the work I am already doing. She is careful not to "therapy" me but it means we can talk the same language and as a former addict herself (most addictions counsellors/therapists are) I feel I can say anything to her and she will understand.
I need to take a break now as writing all this down has been a bit tiring (but in a good way) so will write more later.
