Me and my addiction to sugar

So much to write about, so much time!  Yes, I have time.  Something which i've felt i've done a good job in creating for myself.  Go me.

I'll have to break this post up into several smaller one's as i'm seeing that they are each pretty big topics.  I'll start here.

My relationship with sugar: I've had an interesting relationship with sugar for my whole life.  Growing up in a sugar free household, I learned how to be a sneaky fuck.  I would go to my friend's house, open the refrigerator and silently ease open the bottle of hersheys syrup.  Round two, I would thieve from the animals drinking the red nectar/sugar water that they kelp refrigerated for the hummingbirds.  I have gotten physically sick, either a fever or a cold, multiple times in my life by binging on too much processed sugar, be it cake or candy bars or m&ms.  I was a fiend.  When I read In the realm of hungry ghosts, a book about addiction, a learned just how addictive sugar really is.

Then recently coming across an article written by someone I've met, life is coming full circle.  In his article, Michael Ellsberg talks about his relationship with sugar and mental illness.  The article really hit home hard.  I've had times in my life where I would get sooooo excited, and dream up these big grandiose ideas, and then none of them ever really panned out.  And then there was one time when I walked down the middle of the street at 4 or 5 am.  I was about 20 years old and I felt so full of energy and blissed out.  I was in a really, really happy state.  I told my dad about this and he said something that cut deep.  He said I might have borderline tendencies.  I never forgot this moment, and from then on had a quiet fear of developing mental illness.  I learned in my college phych class too that schizophrenia develops randomly during one's twenties.  I felt fucked.  See when you grow up eating about a half gallon of ice cream every two days during college and just generally indulging in a terrible sweet tooth, i've come to see in hindsight just how much of an effect sugar can have on mood.  I would get so so so happy, and then moods would come over me and my mind would be flooded with negative thoughts, all of the ones from my past too.  Times when I got bullied, when I got rejected by a woman, times when I was made fun of, these would overwhelm my senses and basically put me in a fight or flight mode.  Which is draining.

Which brings me to present day.  I have been curtailing my lust for sugar for the sake of my mental stability.  While i have been functioning my whole life coping with my sugar addiction by exercising heavily and eating lots of raw vegetables, it's exhausting.  I will feel like i'm on a rollercoaster ride while being hung over.  Typically, i'll cut out sugar for the sake of wanting to feel better physically and look sexier.  Now i'm doing it so my mind doesn't get so clouded and I'm not held captive to my mood swings.  This is embarrassing to write about.  I like to think I hide this part of myself pretty well and don't think i've talked to any of you about the depth of this grossness.  Now I don't think I have a mental illness, and nonetheless I see how drastically sugar affects my mood.

I learned from Gabor Mate's book though, that typically one uses drugs/sugar in order to escape feeling bad.  So gratefully, i've been having the capacity to notice and allow to be these less pleasurable sensations.  Things like shame, guilt, inadequacy, unloveableness, anger, fear, I'm getting more and more adept at riding these sensations.  Recognizing that I'll experience them for a bit, and that time and time again, they will dissipate.  And I want to share that i'm feeling good, and I'm proud of myself.  I'm doing a damn fine job.