DAY 100: Starting 7 Day Fast, With Support! by lauray Blog entry

Blog: Lauray's New 10-Day Fast
by lauray

DAY 100: Starting 7 Day Fast, With Support!

Starting a 7 Day fast tomorrow; a curezone friend starting at the same time. I need to work through my (1) misery and (2) fear... and heal! Going on vacation, too, if this will help me fast.

Date: 7/31/2008 3:46:12 PM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 3874 times

I would like to try to fast 7 days.

As of today, Thursday, July 31st, I have achieved 100 days on raw food only. I have not been able to do this in about 3 years. I have always relapsed back into processed food. Although it would seem I am perfectionsistic, it is in fact the case that I am totally dysfunctional on any cooked or processed food. I suffer horribly from anxiety and depression when my diet is not 100% raw. I suffer when on raw food, too, since I need a real healing via total, extended water fasting, and have not yet found the support I need to achieve this; but with a raw only diet my suffering is rather less. The raw diet is essential, I believe, as a support for achieving a program of regular therapeutic fasting in my life.

For several weeks of this raw-only stretch (and I want to commit to raw only for life, so this is something I consider permanent -- again, too extreme for many, but necessary for me: I believe in an addictions model of compulsive overeating and feel I must stay away from triggering foods, totally and permanently: and that raw only can be perfectly safe and balanced)

... for several weeks fo this raw-only stretch, as I started to say, I was -- despite my continued suffering and continued (though moderately lessened) compulsions to eat and painfully bloat myself & incapacitate myself to do work, etc. -- able to increase steadily the lengths of my weekly fasts. It really made a difference to fast slightly longer. My craving/compulsion to eat the more triggering/tempting raw foods was less after the longer fasts. I made it up to 66 hours fasting -- 2 3/4 days -- but then -- possibly because I started summer school and this interfered -- I fell down in this steady increasing of lengths of fasts. I fell back to 30, 36 hour fasts weekly.

This is better than absolutely nothing, but it is frustrating since I just seem to be stuck in the same pattern of being compulsed by anxiety (which is the neurological consequence or manifestation of being intestinally compromised [intestinally toxic, with an overgrowth of parasitic intestinal bacteria which cause cravings for food generally, especially food that will feed THEM])

-- of being compulsed by anxiety to shove down food (despite my feeling that I do not really want to eat), at intervals daily (and this feeding of the bacteria creates more bacteria, more toxicity, more anxiety, and more cravings, in a vicious cycle)

... this compulsion results in extremely painful bloating, with all the consequences of that -- brain fog, and intensifed anxiety (the anxiety I feel when painfully bloated is based, I believe, on the fact that when bloated I am not able to eat food... and eating food is the major way I have of dealing with my feelings. So if I am not in a condition in which I can comfortably eat food at will [i.e., if I am bloated], I am going to feel really frightened since then I am liable to experience feelings that are eally painful and that I cannot repress....

... I say all this not to suggest that I have really horribly serious psychic pain; but that I just have lacked the support to deal with and think creatively about the pain I do have; and thus to succeed in fasting... when I try to talk to professional helpers about this it is VERY hard. These people are not inclined to GIVE support to a person for refraining from eating; which is what I NEED; and besides this, I think my own resistance to fasting blocks my ability to ASK sincerely for this support. AND it is hard to work THROUGH my resistance when there is a risk that the therapis will discount the value of fasting in the first place; and this is demoralizing and intimidating to me even though I know fasting is, absolutely and inescapably, what I NEED. I have a therapist now who is supportive of my fasting, at least in theory; but I cannot feel quite enough trust in her yet to ask with the sincerity necessary... or to work through openly with her my resistance to fasting. Building this trust takes time and it is my primary goal in life... I have temporarily suspended my art school studies, by the way, so as to put fasting first and foremost. This is my way to health, and I have got to achieve fasting before I can do anything else. I do consider my raw-only diet and beginning to increase lengths of fasts to demonstrate the beginning of success in this effort to learn to fast at length and thus heal myself, so I have hope... I just am really not yet in the clear and really am, most days, fulll of ccraving, compulsion, doubt, and fear. I have got to get INTO fasting, by fasting longer; and I have got to let fasting AFFECT me, really affect me. It is scary to surrender to the process of healing, which will necessarily make me for a time weak, vulnerable, and soft, unprotected, chaotic, disorganized. SUCH gentleness toward the self is needed when a fasting process really takes hold. It seems the slightest accustomed self-violence pushed me back into old, food-addicted, violent ways. i am so scared... when I experience healing I feelso weak and fragile and unprotected. It is really scary. This is another part of why it is difficult to fast.

... It seems I am mainly simply too much alone in the process. I know if I had others, others who were experienced fasters, and my therapist is unfortunately not experienced at fasting; though she is not American, and this helps -- if I had others, it would be a lot easier. ... it would also be necessary for me to really have mutual trust with those others; since in order to work through my fears and keep on the fast, instead of gettign terrified and breaking it off, I need to confide in someone trusted.

The basic problem is: I try to fast. i get EITHER scared or miserable. i break off the fast. ... The misery I am sort of addressing, with contact with you and others on the forum... the fear is more difficult. To work through it,as I say, requires SUCH vulnerability. This is so hard to practice.

The solution is for me to examine at depth my resistance to fasting. I am resistant first of all to sobriety from my fix of choice (food) because something in me just isn't getting enough joy/fun in life or enough love... and I habitually use food to suppress the pain of this and substitute for fun/love. Life seems UNENDURABLE without the drug/fix/high of food. Other resistance to fasting is a resistance based on being unable to commit to such "virtuousness."

This is a complicated resistance which I need to address in my blog or somewhere since I am almost out of time here.

I really want to do this fast for 7 days; I know I can do it and know it is very good for me and completely safe; but I also know, from my experience with myself, that I am going to get moderately compelling panic feelings during the fast. I am going to get anxious when I start to feel ill from "detox." It helps to read about the complete normalcy of these symptoms and experiences on the curezone forums; but... I get so scared. I am still working through this fear. The fear could go away if I were able (as I say) to be COMPLETELY honest about it with another.

I have just acquired a TV on which I can watch movies. I remember that during a time 4 years ago when I succeded in some 4-day fasts, sitting down to a series of movies helped. It helped me become able to imagine getting through the day without my fix, i.e., food. I have checked out several novels from the library, though I wish I had some better ones (can you recommend any?). I am at the library now and so I can try to address this matter and get some movies, too.

My thought is also to read about fasting, to increase the positivity of my attitude toward fasting. I am capable of feeling enthusiastic about fsating. The only trouble comes, as I say, when I start feeling ill and get scared.