Hi Brooke,
August was my first month and I have/had been doing pretty good. Maybe 90% on protocol and working my butt off daily journaling and practicing the tools. I can probably trace it back a week and a half but I started slipping. This is such a common pattern for me. My brain started looking for more and more reasons to overeat/eat joy food. Which then led to me feeling like white knuckling because I was resisting the urges. Which then led to me really feeling like I’m losing it. My husband had a minor surgery on Friday and I am taking care of our 3 kids (one being a toddler and one being a baby) and I could list off all the other reasons why I was stressed out…but I honestly could see this one coming. I was listening to the over drinking calls and it was almost like my brain thought all that buffering talk sounded pretty appealing. I started rationalizing that maybe I tried to make too many changes too fast. So I can overeat a bit to ease off. I have listed off maybe 25 thoughts (maybe even more) about why I overate.

So my question is…as I am easing my way back towards protocol and allowing urges and feeling my feelings, do you have any suggestions for the recovery period after what felt like a major spiral (which in reality wasn’t my worst eating weekend and I still fasted)? I am also trying to be gentle with myself and not freak out about what this all means. I usually beat myself up and think it means I will never lose it (which I did a tiny bit but nothing compared to what I usually do).

P.S. I’m also wondering if labeling it “spiraling” isn’t very helpful. Like it sounds dramatic and scary?

Thanks!
Bethany