New to Forum but BNis my oldest friend or foe

One of my favourite quotes is By Erica Jong " Eating is never so simple as hunger ". It says it all in such poignant few words.
My story: I love the smell of butter. The milky, creamy aroma and soft, velvety texture leaves me literally intoxicated. Add some warm freshly baked bread and I am lost. I can feel my body responding if it were cocain. It might as well be. I feel just as lost, as helpless and desolate as a long time drug addict. It has bee fourty years since BN was introduced to me by an older schoolmate at boarding school. I have since been engaged in a war without winners or opponents other than myself and the mirror. I do not know how I look. I have an idea by numbers as a rough guide. Recently I had a triple loss in my life, first I didn't need food I lost an enormous amount of weight by stress and sadness alone but than I started to recover. Now BN returned at full force and I feel it is consuming me alive. I do not know what to do. From a head knowledge approach i of course know, but I seem not to have the strength to do the right thing. I am pulled by a million butter sticks on baguette chains. I need some support but I am not sure how to ask for what I don't know it is. Lost.

Hi there witchy...

How you getting on ? I'm another oldie here. I usually feel really alienated on forums because everyone is so young, and my pride finds it hard to take advice from people so much younger - and I feel a total idiot for having not recovered by now. I don't know how it's got to this. I binge every day - every day - without fail. It costs me vast sums of money, and I spend all my free time doing it.
During the day I live in a process of denial - functioning perfectly "normally" as if nothing was wrong. And I genuinely believe I won't binge, and I just get on with things. It's a struggle because I'm so physically exhausted, but like I say - the power of denial gets me through. I sleep when i get home from work, then as soon as I wake up my brain is thinking of binging, and that's it - bam - I can't snap out of it. I can't imagine being able to sit with those thoughts all night - I "know" I'll only give in later anyway - so why put it off. And that's it - another day the same,
I don't know what to try next - I've definitely not given up hope - but I can't face the low down struggle of it all. I hate reading posts from people who are recovering -who have to deal with all the trivial anxiety about what they've eaten, and feeling fat, and the desire to binge and fighting it. I know I'm like that - but I refuse to face that side of myself - the pathetic pettiness of it.
So that's me - a mere twenty-four years of BN. The whole of my adult life.
And still I imagine that I can just stop - because right now there is no urge - I can't seem to imagine that later there will be. It's like I'm two different people - and whichever one I am cannot ( will not ?) understand the other.
I don't know what support I can offer - but I can listen if you want to talk...

Hang in there xxx

Hi you two. I'm an oldie too. It's been with me for 30 years. I don't know why I haven't given up hope of recovery yet but I haven't. I guess I'm trying something different this time. Always in the past there has been restriction in my recovery efforts. Well, I'm still not ready to totally give that up but I am trying a little more food much more often. I keep hearing from people who know, and I know, that restriction breeds binging but I could easily, and have, gone BED. I don't think freely eating is the way I want to recover. But maybe I'm just gonna get more of the same if I don't try something different.

Hey Coloured Leaves - thanks for replying. It's so good to feel like I'm not the only one stuck in this.
Definitely the idea of eating more is the way to go. I know that. It's just hard to make myself believe it at the time when I should be eating. It always seems more sensible just to hold off.

And a lot of my ED is about earning and reward. I avoid eating to earn my meal later on. Stupid I know. Whenever I talk about my ED I feel the need to caveat what I think with things like "stupid I know" because I am so fed up of well meaning advice. I know exactly what I should do - it's not rocket science - it's just actually doing it that's the problem. And I guess that all comes down to motivation.
I need something that I want to do more than I want to binge, but unfortunately motivation is hard to come by because all my energy and time is spent bingeing, and I need space to begin to find out what else I might want to do.
It's all such a vicious circle.
You're spot on about getting more of the same unless you try something different. That old adage about madness being keeping repeating the same things and expecting different results. Something has to change - it's just finding a way into the circle.

Can I PM you ? I'm always a bit self concious conducting conversations "in public" it feels like talking on the bus with everyone else listening !

x