It has got to be an entire year ago plus some that I had an experience I knew I had to write about.
Despite taking me awhile to get there I think it is just as important today as I did then, so I’ve finally taken the time to get it onto paper.
The Thing That Happened
Anyone who knows me knows I am a lover of all things nutbutter – peanutbutter, almond butter, cashew butter, hazelnut butter, pistachio butter and so on and so forth.
I am a big fan.
I go through an absurd amount a week. Mostly eaten straight from the jar.
Actually we recently had a laugh about the kilos and kilos and kilos of nuts I’ve consumed over the past year since moving into a new home a year ago. It’s a creative way to mark the passage of time.
Sometimes when bulk nuts are on special, I buy, roast and throw them into a food processor myself to make nutbutter. I haven’t done this for a long time mostly due to just not having the time.
However, about a year and a half ago I did this process with a bunch of brazil nuts, cashews and macadamias. In case you’re wondering it was a super delicious combination! Also, as I mentioned it was time consuming and given that it was about 3kgs all up it was also quite an expensive project.
When I was done making the world’s most delicious creamy nutbutter and moved onto cleaning up the mess, I accidently knocked one of the two huge glass jars I’ve put it into off the bench.
The jar instantly smashed as it hit the floor.
I watched as the nutbutter I’d spent the last half hour or more making spread out and mix with the glass shards. It quickly became evident it was not salvable.
So, after a moment of brief annoyance I got down to clean it up.
As I was cleaning the mess calmly off my kitchen floor and into the bin already moved on and thinking about other things it popped into my mind that when I lived with an eating disorder this experience would have been very different.
This not only would have been a stress due to the time and the money that I’d felt I’d lost but far above those things there was something that would have caused me monumental stress and that was that I would have taken the smashing of that jar to mean something.
The Lies My Eating Disorder Spun
I would have given this mistake meaning where it didn’t actually have any.
The meaning I’d have given it would have been that I didn’t deserve to eat.
The whole process from buying the nuts (spending money on food when I was sick took a lot of effort) to the time it had taken to make the butter would have been a stress and to have smashed that on the floor my mind would have told me it was because I didn’t deserve to eat.
It is so strange and also incredibly sad to know that but it is true.
I know I’d have felt I’d done the wrong thing by making something so decadent for myself (even thought there’s no way I’d have really made it for myself. I’d have made it for myself in a round about way by only eating it with other people and therefore justifying in my mind that it was for them and not for me at all).
I know I’d have felt that somehow by smashing that jar and being no longer able to eat the nutbutter the universe was telling me I was being greedy for having made it in the first place.
That I shouldn’t have and should never again.
I would have dwelt on this for hours, weeks and possibly for months.
Augh what a horrible way to feel about a simple mistake.
What a wild way to feel about a simple mistake.
Skip Forward to My Healthy Mind
When I think about how it felt a year ago for my healthy, fully recovered self to experience this incidence I remember I felt annoyed at myself (because it could have been prevented had I been a little more careful). But the annoyance and self-blame were very short lived.
It didn’t matter.
It certainly didn’t mean anything about me.
The jar and its spilt contents went into the bin, and I moved on with my day.
I do remember feeling how free it felt to contrast that experience to knowing how I would have felt in the past, but I couldn’t have no matter how hard I’d tried to make myself feel that old way I used to feel. Which is a surreal experience to have having changed so vastly in the way I think.
Making Sense of the Senseless
One of my mentors once said that the more disorganised, unsafe and uncertain we feel the more we turn to signs, omens and answers outside of ourselves. I’d not heard that before, but it makes sense in the context of anorexia nervosa.
Why does it make sense? Because being starved and malnourished is about the most unsafe position a human mind can be in given that it is incompatible with life. Imagine existing from a place of fear and worry. That’s what living with an eating disorder is.
In fact upon reflection, I used to do this type of thinking regularly. I was constantly looking for answers and finding meaning out there. In a way I simply don’t any longer from the place of living with a healthy, happy, safe and regulated mind.
Putting it All Together
I can’t really connect to how devastating and how much I would have beat myself up over smashing that jar when I lived with an eating disorder.
I have no doubt that I am not quite capturing the emotions but I hope that if you or someone you love who is experiencing an eating disorder reads this and you can in any way relate to it that you can see it’s not a sign.
It’s not a sign that you don’t deserve to eat.
It’s not a sign to not eat in any way shape or form.
I promise you.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
