Frazzled

The therapist I visited three weeks ago asked if I had ever taken pictures of my body, her intent centering around the distortion of my body image.  I never have, even though I drew a full-body diagram of what I perceived my body to look like while at Ridgeview.  So, this morning, I courageously took the digital camera and snapped away, focusing mainly on my stomach, where I tend to fixate my obsession most viciously.  

I'm sure you're shocked to read I took the initiative to attempt this treatment, seeing as how every time I see a camera I run screaming, making any excuse to not participate in the snapshot, creating a scene so affable I wind up looking like a baffoon caught picking its nose.  Regardless, I captured my body from the camera's perspective this morning, before eating or drinking, and found the images minimally harmful.  I cringed most sourly when I saw my stomach, most bitterly from the peripheral view, but the obsessive thoughts did not follow me out the door as I ferreted to my morning meeting.

Now, unfortunately, the time being 2:30 pm, the insane compulsion is going buck-wild, flipping a light-switch in my brain on and off, on and off, berating me for the extension of my belly.  I have yet to eat lunch.  On my way to my meeting this morning, I stopped a fair number of times, delivering fliers about the ABA meetings to corkboards dispersed around popular coffee shops in the city.  My last stop was Central Market, a healthy, mainly organic grocery store located just a couple of blocks from my meeting site.  The establishment did not have a corkboard, unfortunately, but I did manage to purchase a bottle of sparkling water and 4 dried pineapple rings, reassuring myself all was fine, this was my breakfast, it's only fruit and water.  

The meeting lasted until about 12 pm, and from there I trailed my bike back towards our house, stopping at CVS on Guadalupe to fill my Ambien prescription, my sleeping patterns still plagued with dreams of pizza binges and crinkled nerves.  I also diverted a few other stops along the way, leaving trails of fliers at Spiderhouse and Starbuck's as I saw fit, advertising health to maintain my own.  I almost made it home around 1:30, but I decided to stop at Whole Foods to purchase some more water, knowing full well there wasn't any at home.  I perused the aisles while nursing my sparkling water, stopping at the bulk aisle containing the pineapple rings.  I shouldn't have looked at the nutritional information, but I was compelled - 96 calories per ring!  And I had consumed 4 for breakfast.  For not being a calorie counter, my behaviors are raising a cause for concern. 

I took an image of my belly when I got home.  I have it on the digital camera for you to see.  I look like I'm 4 months pregnant, and I've only eaten 4 pineapple rings and 2 bottles of water today.  Tell me, how do I eat my lunch now?