life is (not?) sweet

may 2007

i mentioned it in passing a few weeks ago like it was nobigdeal but good lordy, is it unpleasant: i’m coming off sugar. again.

this has been the biggest challenge of my health – actually, my life. which might sound like a ridiculous exaggeration, but consider this: marian keyes described giving up sugar as harder than giving up alcohol, and she’s a recovered alcoholic.

i keep getting stuck in this awful catch 22: eating stuff with sugar in (and it’s in everything – from cereal to ready meals to chocolate to soup) causes me to have horrific mood swings and unpleasant physical symptoms. BUT trying to give up sugar causes the WORST symptoms, from terrifying thoughts to extreme lethargy, that i’ve ever had to cope with.

so this time, i’ve been trying to wean myself off sugar slooooooooowly. but i don’t think i’m doing it slowly enough, because i’d quite like to not have to live anymore. not to die, just to go into a hibernation for an unspecified period of time. knock me into a coma and then put me through sugar withdrawal…

it hit me yesterday as i was lolling in a state of extreme misery, compounded by extreme PMS (oh, you had to know mine would be one of the worst cases you’ve ever heard of! i only WISH i was exaggerating.) that maybe i was going about things all wrong. what’s that saying about the definition of idiocy – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? let’s face it: my initial dependence on sugar came from my feeling so depressed a lot of the time. i’ve done every therapy you can name, and a few you can’t, to kick myself out of the trough of the black dog (mix a weird metaphor, much?) and had only the smallest of improvements. so maybe! just maybe, i should stop pushing myself with the therapy and mental health-y stuff and start looking at ways to physically help my depression – gentle exercise, acupuncture, and trying again with the buteyko (i know i hyperventilate, you’re not telling me that doesn’t cause anxiety). i haven’t done anything about all this yet, but just deciding to makes me feel better. so much so, that while i’m still going to come off sugar, i’m going to do so at my own pace. which means having a super-sized hot chocolate today.