November Blue

It has been a trying week for me. A sudden and severe onset of Strep Throat had me bed ridden Wednesday and Thursday and then I developed a stomach ulcer of still undetermined severity as a result of excessive ibuprofen (ab)use. Neither the strep nor the stomach pain  kept me from travelling to the beach for a friend’s wedding. Where I continued my suffering in a more public venue and wound up in the Urgent Care. Travelling is always difficult because of my gluten-free diet, social gatherings can be emotional because of the emphasis on food and to top it all off, my body was staging a revolt of epic proportions. The stomach pains came in scorching waves which increased in intensity with hunger. Combining the lack of available gluten-free foods with the fact that a near empty belly was excruciating with the fact that I feel like a pig when I have to eat every 1.5 hours left me absolutely depressed. It doesn’t take much these days to stir up the pity party about how I fucking despise food. I hate everyone talking about it and eating it and enjoying it and I can’t eat anything but dry lettuce because I’ll have explosive diarrhea in the shared hotel bathroom if I so much as look at a french fry or marinated piece of chicken. “My body hates me.” ” It doesn’t work right. ” “I’m just allergic to food.” “I never want to eat again as long as I live.” And then it starts crossing the lines from frustrated Celiac thoughts to eating disordered thoughts. The hopelessness, the frustration, the grief that I’ll never be able to have a normal life. And for some that may sound like an exaggeration because lots of people have food allergies and what’s the big deal about not eating bread? But at this point I feel like I will never again be able to eat food prepared by anyone but me. I will undoubtedly have explosive diarrhea the morning after I spend the night with any new love interest (which leads to anxiety which means I am unbelievably anxious for approximately the first 6 months of all relationships that my stomachwill make some other worldly noise or I will stink up a bathroom). I will never be able to travel without a grocery bag of food (which totally fucks with my eating disordered voices). I will never be able to be spontaneous. I will never be able to eat Thanksgiving dinner prepared by others.

I am sorry. I am just really downtrodden about the whole thing and I’m not totally sure why it’s coming to a head lately.