My name is Laura.

My name is Laura. I'm a compulsive overeater.

I remember the first time I said those words in my first meeting nearly a year ago. It was scary...no. Deathly frightening. I had avoided saying those words for two years, even though I knew they were true. Even though I've been in program for 10 months, I decided to start a blog now to help me stay on track and regain some of the enthusiasm I initially had when I first started in OA. The format I'm choosing for now (and hopefully it won't get too confusing!) is to post all my OA step-work from the beginning, intermixed with present progress (or lack thereof depending on the day).

I hope you enjoy this blog and maybe even get something out of it. Please leave comments or send me an email at doubthoperecovery@gmail.com. If you have your own twelve-step blog, I would love to see it!

For now, I will post the journal entry I wrote to myself a few weeks before I finally got to my first meeting:

20 September, 2008

For the first time in months I went on the OA website. I do this every so often, write down the times of meetings, debate going, leave the post it with the times on my desk to remind myself that I should go, that it would do me some good, that I'd be no worse off than I am now if I made myself go even once. I don't know why I can't bring myself to go. I guess I do know why. I'm so afraid of crying in front of everyone and showing them how weak I am. It would be so embarrassing, even if they all had gone through it too.

I don't like to show people if I'm vulnerable. I'm supposed to be strong and smart and the person who is the rock for others. But I think it's time for me to admit that I can't do that anymore, I need a rock, too. I'm still scared. It makes me so angry that most people don't have this problem, they can just shed the pounds through sheer willpower. They don't have an addiction. I feel like it would be better to be able to take all my willpower I have with my work and put it towards diligence in weightloss. I just can't seem to do it. I take too much pride in my work and intelligence than to let that go. And then there's Mike. Sometimes I hate him so much for making me feel the way I do. Between loving him and then getting so upset with some of the things he says to me. No wonder I'm a mess. But I can't blame him. Isn't that one of the twelve steps? To stop blaming others and take responsibility? At least now I don't worry about him cheating on me. I just worry about him wanting to, or wondering if he'd be better off without me. God I'm so fucking insecure it's ridiculous. I haven't had a functional relationship in two years. I feel completely incapable of being loved. I feel like my friends don't even like me. Hell, I don't even like me. I don't really like a single thing about me. I used to like my eyes because they were big and they sparkled. But now when I look in the mirror I just get so disgusted with everything I see, even my eyes seem dull and lifeless. My hair is flat. My face is so round my eyes don't pop the way they used to. I look bad in everything.

I can't believe Mike decided to go out with me at all. He must really like my personality, which doesn't even seem that great to me. Sometimes I can fake it. I can be peppy and happy. Sometimes I'm not faking it. But I don't remember half of the things I do or say. People will remind me or I'll read stuff in im transcripts and I have absolutely no recollection of most of it. It's like I'm existing only in a dream. Where the hell am I? More important, where the hell am I going? The only thing I really want to do is travel. I'm getting restless. I want to get out of State College and hop on a train and go to Alaska and see the Northern Lights to remind myself that there is something out there—a higher power? Or maybe that even without a higher power the world contains such beauty that it's worth it to stick around, anyway.