The Fog

It's almost 5pm on a Wednesday. I've been home from work over two hours and what I haven't achieved in that time is frankly staggering. Oh, wait! I tell a lie... I've managed a fair bit of unnecessary and unprovoked emotional eating. Dear me... I've been in a weird mood all day and rather than let it continue I thought I'd try and write my way out of it.

Ever had one of those days when you just can't seem to wake up properly? I don't just mean a day when you're particularly tired but more when you feel foggy, like you're going in slo-mo. It isn't my medication doing it as I deliberately take my Quetiapine at 8pm so it doesn't slow me down the next day. I just feel a bit off today.

I shouldn't have even been at work today. It's my rest day as I have to work this coming Saturday. Part of the deal when the 9-2 shift became a permanent thing was working one in every six Saturdays. This will be my first. When there's plenty of work on, you're permitted to work your rest day as overtime so I did just that. I took my running gear with grand plans of driving to Pitsford to do a long run after work. After sleepwalking through a five hour shift, that plan got shelved but I toyed with the idea of popping upstairs to the gym. Yes, we have a staff gym at work! Free to use and open 24/7. All I had to do was go upstairs and I'd be there... Next thing I know, I'm swiping out of the building and walking to my car.

Within seconds of walking through the door at home, the kettle was on and I was rummaging in the cupboards. One Soreen bar was followed by a bag of salted popcorn then came half a roll with ham and a packet of crisps. Why stop there? Devour some left over Easter Eggs why dontcha? (Sorry kids!) I feel sick now... Didn't stop me having a cinnamon and raisin bagel with another cuppa just now. I Googled 'emotional eating' and read up on it. Diagnosed myself there and then. Yup! That's me. The website was very informative but offered no solution or ideas to combat the problem. Great! Thanks for that...

Part of the reason I wanted to write now was to help me understand what's going on right at this moment. I found when I looked back at posts from earlier in the year, it was comforting to see that I have made progress since then. What I'm feeling now is very familiar and also unpleasant. It's a feeling of "I have so much to do... I don't know where to start. There's too much to do... I might as well not try." I genuinely don't see myself as a lazy person but I get easily overwhelmed and I guess that's part of what I'm feeling now.

Faced with the rest of the day to myself (the children are with their dad) rather than feel excited at the prospect, I felt faintly panicked so I ate.

AHA!!! Fucking hell! I didn't even realise that's what was going on until now. Wowsers! A genuine light bulb moment. What else can I learn from this exercise? Let's backtrack and see...

I got home and thought "Well I have grown up crap to do... Or I could go and see Infinity War again... Or maybe I'll start season 2 of The Newsroom? What's on Netflix at the mo..? I've got more ironing to do. I need to call Center Parcs and where's that bit of paper with that thing to do with my tax that I need..." OVERLOAD!! Solution: foodfoodfoodfood. Eat the food and don't think. Eat the food and don't think. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. What a bloody revelation and all because I decided to avoid my life admin and blog instead.

Back when I first started counselling at the age of 14, I used to find that I'd say things to the psychologist that I didn't even know I was thinking or feeling. I believe so absolutely in the power of talking about your problems which is why I'm desperate to start my therapy. The waiting list is long however and all I can do is just that: wait.

For now, I guess I just proved that this blogging malarkey is helpful. I know some see it as a vanity project and I can't deny that it's fuels that part of my (unstable) personality (disorder) but it can get so cluttered inside my head. This is my way of filtering through the noise and the chaos and at least trying to understand it.

So what do I do now...? I'm actually feeling slightly better than when I started. I still feel a bit sick from overeating and the associated shame will niggle at me for the rest of the day. A To Do list would seem a good place to start. I learned a tip from a pithy little book called Eat That Frog. It's about how to manage your time better in business but the skills are certainly transferable to every day life. You make your list and then rank each task, making sure you do the most heinous job on there FIRST. I mean... If you have to eat a frog (do an undesirable thing) then you don't want it staring at you for hours, do you? You'll never eat it if you have hours to mull it over. So just fucking do it, eh? Makes sense! Another book (perhaps the same one?) suggested allocating time to each item on the list as, Grade A avoiderers like me will make a five minute job last an hour if it means I'll run out of time and not get round to the worst job/ ugliest frog.

A list of tasks. A time in which to complete said task assigned to each item on the list. No faffing. No more procrastinating (I've done at least a week's worth already today!). The fog has lifted (just about), time to get shit done, Katherine Emily.