Hi Anita,

I’m sorry for a delayed response – I was traveling and a little busy. I’m okay – I found out some diabetic complications have already started (constant tingling in the feet) and I’ve been spending the last several days completely living in regret. It’s affecting my mental health so I’m trying to work around that while still eating low carb. I’m just so young and I feel like this brings on a low quality of life and I haven’t done things I wanted to do – I’ve never even gone on a date or been kissed or traveled as much as I wanted to and I feel like this will stop me from doing things like that. I’m sorry for venting so much – I haven’t really talked about any of this and it just poured out as I started typing.

How are you?

That makes sense about the anxiety and overthinking – it seems like it can become a vicious cycle as they feed off one another.

That’s interesting, I didn’t know about how the food becomes a freedom from anxiety but it makes sense. I’m so sorry you dealt with the eating disorder. I hope you’re better now. That makes sense of finding something else – I used to go on daily walks, about 4-5 miles each day which were a big thing for my mental health but I’d often eat wrong (after the diabetes diagnosis) thinking that the exercising was offsetting the food so it was fine.

I’m sorry to hear about what you dealt with. That sounds so awful and I hope you’re better now. I can totally see how eating the donuts would have a sense of helping with the anxiety – it sugarcoats the anxiety so a person doesn’t feel it as much. (No worries, I didn’t get my sweet tooth triggered! I’m actually working with a dietician to cut out all sweets!). I absolutely relate. Even after the diabetes diagnosis, I would get donuts and have them because they would calm my anxiety, without realizing what it was doing to my physical health, or the many, many sugary cocktails I would have because they would help alleviate my social anxiety. When I went to grad school, I fell into a depressive episode (this was after my diabetes diagnosis), and I ate sweets and drank soda to help calm the depression. I ignored my doctors advice just to help my mental health, without realizing that my physical and mental health were connected. I’ve never really talked about all of this and it’s helping me reflect on my life and how unhealthy of a relationship I have with food. I definitely need to find something else – I love sitting outside and reading which helps my anxiety or exercising (without thinking I can eat anything because I exercised). You wouldn’t know this by my diabetes diagnosis or weight but I love to exercise – I used to workout about 3 hours a day or sometimes 4. My diet was the part that was never good but exercising helps my mental health tremendously.

I’m going to try something new in everything I do, find something to be grateful for. So if I drive somewhere, being grateful for my car. When doing my makeup, being grateful that I can express myself through makeup. Being grateful for even having a computer to type this message and finding the tiny buddha site and these messages with you which have been so helpful.

I’m sorry for venting so much in this message, I’m just trying to get out of a bad mental health place and I haven’t had anybody I can really talk to so this message has been therapeutic in many ways.