Have you ever caught a person trying but failing to hide an eye roll? Or worse, when they mask most of their judgment but, deep down, they still want you to see a hint of their mocking eyes?

It feels crappy, doesn’t it?

That’s how I feel after sharing personal information about my twin-flame addiction / eating disorder. Most so-called healthy people can’t receive my self-assessment as my truth. Even alcoholics and drug addicts have rejected my theory outright.

“Addicted to food? Yeah, right…”

That’s what their judge-y eyes and smirking lips say to me. And for years, people’s disdain exacerbated my shame and self-hatred. It still does, sometimes.

But I see glimmers of recognition in some people, when I explain further about the bargaining voices calling to me, the bad foods reminding me constantly about their presence, in a cabinet, in the fridge, around the corner at the bakery…

“How about just one? But two is a nice even number. Then again three has balance. Four, just two pair…”

If a non-addict is still listening, truly hearing me, I explain how I can only control my eating if I get on a wagon with rules.

“I can’t go cold turkey off food, right?”

After that line, the open-minded seem to understand better. Others aren’t so sure they buy it. Their eyes, and the shaming voice in my head, tell me I lack will power. That my free will should fix my visibly obvious and deeply damning moral failing. Their judgment hits me harder than it probably should. The resulting shame only amplifies the emotional eating disorder side of my problem and feeds the carb-craving addiction. At least it did. The further I get into my recovery the less I take on their negativity.

Now, I’m not a medical professional. I don’t have a PhD in anything. I’m not a certified coach or therapist of any kind. I can only say what I believe. So, here goes:

I ate for emotional reasons as a child. I used food to self-soothe into my teens. As my life moved into a dissatisfying career—and perhaps because alcoholism and drug addiction run in my family—my eating disorder became a full on addiction as an adult. Maybe it always had been, and I just didn’t realize it.

I jones for sugar and carbs like an addict looking for their next line of coke or an alcoholic who takes a sip of booze and can’t stop. The only times I feel relatively “in control” or in my version of “recovery” is when I’ve weaned off carbs for a good number of weeks. The overwhelming voices begging me to indulge grow quieter, day by day, until saying “no” is easier, routine, habitual, with the help of rules.

Salmon Caesar Salad

My rules include low-carb basics. (I can’t go carb-free for longer than a week or two as I get very depressed. I’ve heard that’s not just me. It’s a thing.) I get carbs from modest servings of fruit but not from potatoes, sweets, rice, or bread—with two very limiting exceptions. This means no sandwiches or cereal, no chips or crackers, no pasta, no cake, no cookies. Four to six times a week, I eat chicken (or salmon) Caesar salad; I allow my only bread exception for this meal—croutons—even though it’s risky.

When I’m faltering, I hear myself argue over adding way too many of those crunchy cubes:

It’s just a few extra. I’ve been so good! I deserve it!

You deserve being unhealthy? You’re risking a fall off the low-carb wagon.

Get over yourself. I won’t.

Uh huh…Popping the few you remove from the salad into your mouth isn’t helping.

Many times, I don’t heed that smart voice doing battle in my rationalizing addict head.

The second carb exception is the occasional raspberry sorbet. I shouldn’t have it. I know it. But if I stick to this bent rule, I’m less likely to fall off the wagon entirely by eating some other much worse sweet, like a whole box of cookies or a slice of cake bigger than my head. Of note, I’ve been successfully reducing the sorbet by substituting flavored sparkling waters (artificially sweetened, of course) as my dessert.

To date, I’ve lost sixty pounds following this routine. I also put ten or twelve back on by falling off the wagon over the 2017 holidays. I didn’t even want to bake Christmas cookies this year. I hadn’t, until someone convinced me to make just two kinds. It didn’t take much arm twisting to get me to do it. No one had to push me to eat them either. Once I allowed myself to “taste test” one, the rule was broken and ditched until the cookies were gone (mostly eaten by me.)

It sucks. My sugar beast is awake and snarling, grinding at me all day for something decadent, rich, and more satisfying than a salad or a plate of meat and veg. Worse yet, romaine lettuce and possible e coli contamination has been a double whammy on getting back on track.

Still, I’m once again weaning off carbs, slowly and painfully. And I’ll get “clean” again. I know if I don’t, my weight will balloon to an all-time high, and I’ll likely die. My heart will probably suffer the most, literally with heart disease and metaphorically with depression, guilt, and shame.

If I truly want to live, my choice must be to choose it. Life. “Sobriety.” To choose me and the ability to get up and move, to be able to breathe and not pant, to find other ways to be happy, fulfilled, and satiated without food.

I start again in the morning.