Rachel’s Room🛋️

Happy Thursday, Cadre crew. Hello. I'm gonna give folks a couple minutes to trickle in on this fine Thursday of the week. In the middle of October? Are we in October? Wow. My days have been so off lately. Pardon me, but I'm gonna be having a snack. We go live because it is snack time, and we don't skip snacks around here. High ball game. Hi, Rage. So today I am going to share with you some. Some things that came up in therapy for me this week that I found really helpful that I thought might be helpful for you too.

Hi, Christina. And I'm gonna snack while we do that, so. Hi, upde. I'm realizing this is the worst snack to have while I'm talking, so I will not eat any more of this while I'm yapping in your face. So I have a new therapist. Yay. Who I love. So that's a huge win. I don't know if you've been joining my lives for the last several months, but it has been a journey to find a therapist, period, let alone find one that I like. So I'm very, very happy to find someone that I. That I really like. So we on Monday were talking about.

We were talking a little bit about how it's been, like. Well, now it's been, like, 75 days that I've been sober. And I was telling her how I kind of expected this to happen, but the longer I go, the harder it gets. Like, at first, it felt. I mean, it was never easy, but at first it felt easy because it was. It was so obvious that I needed to stop, that I could remember, like, you know, the experiences of it being bad. And there's this thing in sobriety called the pink cloud, which is, like, when you get to a place where you kind of.

You've been far enough away from drinking that you forget how bad it was. And I kind of feel like I'm a little bit there, but not quite. I think more than that, I'm starting to notice that my urges to drink are less like a craving and more like, it just sounds really nice. It sounds really good. And. But I'm able to ride out that urge and choose not to drink. And we were kind of talking about who were talking about that and how if I find it really interesting that, like, when it comes to my eating disorder, it is so much harder for me to interrupt an urge than it has been with drinking.

And I. I think that there's a lot of reasons for that. Number one, with drinking, it's concrete. I'm either doing it or I'm not. It's. It's very black and white. Whereas with food, I have to eat still. So there's a lot more nuance around binge eating or restricting, which is, which is what I struggle with because I can't just not have food in my, my fridge or my, my cupboard. I can't just choose not to eat. And then if I go each day without, you know, seeing eating food, then I've done it right.

It's not like, it's not like that you're not abstaining from something. So it's a lot, There's a lot more gray and there's a lot more. I don't want to say discipline, because that's the wrong word. But when it comes to, for example, like an urge to binge, it's a lot harder for me, at least personally, to interrupt that urge because there's so many other thoughts in my brain that I've had to rewire around food being good, around eating being good, around it being okay to overeat, around my body not being the most important thing.

So if I overeat, it's okay. So there's all these sort of combative thoughts that are good thoughts which when I have the urge to binge eat that are like, it's okay if you do, it's okay if you overeat, it's okay if you mindlessly eat because food is not evil or bad. Food is not the enemy. And if you overeat, it's not gonna kill you. Whereas with drinking, that's not. There's not that mindset. And so I'm having a really, I've noticed, I'm having a really hard time with trying to apply some of those same skills that I've somehow like been using or developed when it comes to being sober, to things like binge eating or restricting, and not in a way that is like perfect or restrictive, but in a way where like.

And this is what I was telling her, I was like, you know, I. I feel like in treatment I got so much support for how to have self compassion after I experience a binge or after I experience eating disorder behaviors, which is great. Like, I love that I can be kind to myself and not beat myself up. And at the same time, the experience of binge eating or the experience of eating mindlessly or the experience of having a hard time eating a lot, like, period, is incredibly distressing. Like, that experience feels like I have absolutely no control over my body or my actions.

And it's a really out of body experience. And I would, like. It's not that I would like to feel in control. It's that I would like to not experience that level of what feels like dysregulation and distress. I would like to be able to have the ver. The version of me that is, like, in charge for most of my day, to be able to, like, interrupt and say, like, is this really what I need right now? And. And I struggle to do that. And so we were talking about that a little bit, and then I was also talking to her about.

I've been having just, like, super strange emotional outbursts the last couple weeks. Like, and they're not like, these big outbursts where I'm, like, experiencing, like, fits of rage or, like, huge bouts of depression. But I'm like, I feel. I feel sensitive. I feel like I can cry at the drop of a hat or, like, I'll watch a video and like, all of a sudden I just, like, I feel grief and I start to cry and. And. Or, like, I'll. Something will happen that, like, really irritates me, and I'll, like, physically feel that irritation and that rage in my body.

And I. I'm not about to get my period. It's not my hormones. Like, I know when it's my hormones. Like, I, like, feel the hormones rushing through my body. And there's nothing specific that, like, triggered any of those things, and they're not, like, necessarily about anything specific. And I was telling her, like, it's just been really perplexing. Like, I don't know where these feelings are coming from or what they're about. And she was like, well, how are you responding when those things happen?

Like, how are you, you know, what's your self talk? And I said, well, I am not really responding. I'm just sort of noticing that it's odd and then moving, you know, moving forward. And she was like, well, maybe that's fine. Like, maybe you don't have to analyze where these feelings are coming from. Like, maybe you don't need to know. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's just that right now you're having a lot more feelings for whatever reason, and that's okay. Like, how does that feel? And I was like, well, honestly, it's kind of a relief because I tend to overanalyze everything that happens in my internal world.

And I was kind of expecting you to try and, you know, figure out where these emotions are coming from and the root of them. So it's kind of a relief to be like, well, I guess I'm just having some feelings, and that's fine. So that was a really kind of, like, a nice reframe of, like, maybe I'm just having a lot of emotions right now. And, like, maybe it doesn't have to mean anything more than that. Like, maybe it's not that deep. And. And I feel like that gave me some permission to not, like, attach to these feelings coming up and think of it as, like, something is happening or it's a sign that something is wrong, or if I don't pay attention to it, then I'm neglecting my feelings.

Like, maybe it's just that right now, like, I feel extra tender. Like, and maybe that's okay. So I thought that was really helpful, so I wanted to share that and also just, you know, kind of continue to share with you guys my. My journey through sobriety and also, like, you know, my recovery with my eating disorder, because that's going to be lifelong. And. And also share a win, which is that I love my therapist. So we're happy about that. All right. I'm now actually going to eat my snack because I.

It's still sitting here, and it's important that I eat my snack, but I love you all very much. I'm very glad you're here. Check out my profile for some new videos on the concept of Harvest, which is our theme this month on Cadre. In case you haven't, like, seen other creators posting things about Harvest, there will be some on my. On my page today, so hopefully you can check those out. And as always, if there's any questions you have or anything you want me to make a video about, feel free to let me know in the comments.

And I will see you same time, same place next week. Goodbye. Cheers.