Compulsive Eating Workshop in London

Some of you might know that a while ago I started up a Compulsive Eating Workshop at Sussex Uni. Based in the Women’s Room, we all read Fat Is A Feminist Issue and worked through it, discussing body issues, our disordered eating histories, depression, and anything else we wanted to.

I’m leaving uni this August – I’m moving back to London as my MA has finished – so it won’t really be practical for me to carry on the group. Luckily, the women involved in the Sussex group are totally amazing and are carrying it on without me! But I want to start up a group, in London, along the same lines, to continue my recovery and facillitate other women’s.

But… London is a much bigger place than Sussex Uni… so I need help! I want to make the group completely free, and as such need a venue which is either low cost or no cost. I also need a venue with good transport links (central if possible…) and which is suitable for the group, i.e. has plenty of chairs and is pretty private.

Have any of you guys started groups in London before? Would any of you be interested in joining the group? Got any ideas about venues? Comment below!

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Susie Orbach in Brighton this week!

Susie Orbach, feminist psychoanalyst and author of the famous Fat Is A Feminist Issue will be speaking on ‘The Talking Cure in the 21st Century’ this Thursday (5th June) from 6-9pm.

The event is being held at the Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton (v. easy to get to from Brighton mainline station).

I’ll be there, but if anyone else wants to come email Bob Withers (bob.withers@ntlworld.com) for ticket information. Tickets are £5. Comment if you’re coming – let’s meet up!

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4th jog

I went for the fourth jog last night and my muscles were hurting a bit, but I still did it. I felt very tired on coming home, though, and have decided to take today off, and do today’s run on the rest day, tomorrow.

Effect on my mental health:

So far, the affect has been negligible, oddly. Perhaps I haven’t done enough time-wise to get to the buzzy stage, although I have felt good after the runs and I’ve felt good about my committment to it. I’ve also enjoyed the actual running. Despite this, I’ve been feeling very low and have had some suicidal thoughts, although that’s hardly rare – I have them most days. I think while I feel liberated by the running, I feel trapped by my eating, which has always been a problem for me. Eating is just so complicated and surrounded by emotion it’s like trying to find sense in a Daily Mail article.

At the moment I’ve got the night to myself as S (my boyfriend) is going out to the pub with a friend. I’m trying desperately to work out in my head what to buy for dinner. I’ve already overeaten several times today, and feel pretty dreadful, but I know I’ll be hungry again in the evening. Part of me just wants to have something bingey that I know I will feel bad about, but it’ll mean that for at least a short time I’ll feel good. Part of me wants to eat nothing at all, as if that could ever be some kind of answer.

I always wondered about the different ways people deal with addiction. Cigarettes, alcohol, drugs – to give them up you have to give them up forever. But food? You have to reconnect with your actual hunger and somehow live by it. It’s a nightmarish task. Imagine asking an alcoholic to make sure they drank just three small glasses a day. Or a junkie to have 3 small hits, and 2 spliffs, but nothing else. I know Susie Orbach’s methods are the right way to eat, but I feel like I’m just too messed up to manage them – my eating habits are so f***ed that I would have to give up my job, my life, and concentrate on nothing but resolving my eating for months and months and maybe even years before I could eat properly again. It doesn’t seem a fair choice.

Anyway, sorry for being all depressive today! New Battlestar Galactica is out tonight, so I am looking forward to that. I’ve also recently done a poll with some friends about body size and the psychology around that, so I’ll be sharing that in another article soon. Hope you all have great weekends 🙂

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