Upon recognizing a big, embarassing mistake I made last week, I felt like hiding out. Already overwhelmed with feelings of depression, this would be too much to face. (I explain more about depression in this follow-up post.)
In this audio blog, I describe how my reaction this time wasn’t my typical reaction. What happens when we make peace with what we can’t change? It’s a radical approach to life’s suffering. Do you feel vulnerable for being human? What in your life do you feel “should” be different? Should you be able to control, change, heal, fix? I talk about some unexpected conclusions…
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:31 — 18.8MB)
Karly, I just found this site. I have gained almost 10 pounds in 15 days and feel awful. I have known that sugar , caffiene and chocolate cause me serious depression for several years, yet I think I also saw myself as faulty because of this and that somehow eating these things was saying , “I’m OK now”. I never saw my binges like that until I listened to your audio blog. I was crying along with you as well… I feel like you expressed exactly how it is…the craziness of the cycle of self critical , depression, binge, self condemnation, depression, binge etc…Only to move in to some ‘program’ that will fix me once and for all.I know you understand and even though we are strangers, I feel connected to you because you have walked in my shoes.Thank you so much for being so transparent and vulnerable. I will revisit your site. I pray for freedom and healing for all of us-Susie
What a wonderfully warm and heart enhancing tale of courage and growth- growth of human kindness to you!! Your journey is a gift that only pain can teach; unfortunately in this world pain is a frequent companion.
When we let it teach and not hinder or destroy, then we rebuild our world one step at a time and take away pain’s sting. It is not failure or a character flaw to hurt or to want the pain to stop. It is only human. And kindness and compassion are the remedies for us and our broken world.
Sending you love.
Karly, that was amazing. There was nothing you said which did not completely resonate with me. I too have suffered anxiety and depression all my adult life, and now I’m battling with the pain of bereavement following the sudden and traumatic death of my mother before my eyes.
I’ve tried so hard to follow the sugar programme, but somehow you never seemed real to me and I couldn’t get out of my head the fact that you were some beautiful shiny all-American girl who just had life all worked out. I accepted that you had issues with food, but the fact that your binge food was raisins made me feel that you were somehow ‘better’ than me with my chocolate, and that your program would only work for ‘good’ people like you.
Anyway, I’ve seen now that you’re real. You’re still amazing, but maybe that means I’m amazing too. I too will need to take my antidepressants for a long time, maybe all my life, but I will stop listening to the people in my life who take that as a sign that I am therefore broken and need fixing. I’m also definitely a highly sensitive person, but I listen too much to people who say I’m neurotic, or a worry wart, or whatever else the unkind label might be. Last week the gastric band surgeon who fitted my gastric band – which has left me 20 pounds heavier then when I started – said that I obviously can’t deal with stress in my life and he also implied that this was all my own fault. Judgement, condemnation and pain.
I’m so grateful to you for your openness, because now I can really hear you when you speak to us about what we need to do.
Thank you so much. I’ve a long journey ahead of me but at least I’m on the right road at last.
Hi Julia,
Thank you for your honesty, compassion and support. I learned so much in reading your comment. For one thing, I’m learning how important it is to be honest and open…how we all relax in the face of such openness.
You will laugh when you realize why raisins were my all time favorite binge food: because I can fool myself into believing that they’re not sugar when I’m eating them, since they’re “natural.”
Eating ice cream or chocolate would force me to admit, “Yes, I’m eating sugar.” Yes, I’m bingeing. With raisins I can pretend that I’m not stuffing my face with food….even though I may eat an entire can, several thousand calories of raisins!
So eating raisins for me is called denial! I hope that makes you smile.
Much love, Karly
Karly – I’m sorry I’m so late in commenting on this, but I thought this was a truly beautiful post. I am so glad you could find it in yourself to feel compassion towards your anxiety and depression. You talk about wanting to be perfect, but honestly Karly, the thing that draws me to you (and has for years) is your willingness to admit your faults. I rarely see the kind of honesty that you display here anywhere else on the internet – and that is one of the things I love most about you, because I see a lot of myself in your words. The struggle, the frustration, the ability to rise up and look your problems in the face – those are the things that make me feel okay about myself. I don’t want you to be perfect – if you were perfect, I wouldn’t be able to learn from you.
Another thing that struck me was when you said you were exhausted. I have learned that I can NOT function well on less than 7 hours of sleep. I like to get 7-8 hours per night. My husband is one of those who can go on 5 or 6 hours of sleep and be just fine. If I get 6 or less hours of sleep for more than one or two nights, I turn in to Super Cranky Bitch. It took me awhile to accept that, but now that I have, it’s made things easier. So I try to make sure that I shut down for the night at a decent hour and whatever doesn’t get done waits until morning (or the next afternoon!). Getting enough sleep is ESSENTIAL for my healing, and probably for yours too.
You are awesome Karly, and I appreciate your journey. I really do.
Wow Karly, Listened to your podcast last night and tears streamed down my face thru the entire thing. I have battled depression and anxiety also and often wonder if those two are not related to the sensitivity piece as well. In this culture especially it is easy to not want to acknowledge this part of ourselves when it is still so taboo in many ways. I still know poeple that will not take meds and will only pay cash to see someone so there is no record. So sad.
I remember while listening to you thinking how I see you as this stong amazing woman and I honestly don’t know how you can possibly do all that you do and raise a family too. You are always so here for all of us it is no wonder you slept and slept! I so related to you speaking to feeling broken around not being able to do as much or handle as much as others. I have always beat myself up because I cannot do what others do. I see them working and doing activities after work etc and being involved in all these things and honestly when I was working It was all I could do to get dinner and make my lunch for the next day. We are just wired differently and that is not BAD. Thanks again for sharing your vulnerability with us, you are so brave.
Lynn
Wow. I’m so touched by all of your generous responses to my post, as well as your own vulnerability in sharing your challenges with depression, anxiety, or just life itself! (We are all in this together….)
I feel much less alone in reading your words, and am reminded of one of my all time quotes: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another.” – Mother Theresa
Thank you for helping me feel like I belong. Much love, Karly
Karly,
Thank you for your courage and honesty. I have always felt the same way about taking my medication for anxiety. I hate that I take it and have felt shame for needing it, thus throwing me further into sugar and overeating. It just feeds my low self esteem without me realizing it! Hearing your story is very soothing to my spirit and a reminder that its okay to need some help in order to fully engage in my life. Thank you !
D-A-R-K. This four letter word has become ever-so-poignant to me since Saturday’s “Fall Back”, when darkness shrouds my mornings, evenings, and presently, my mind. In fact, even that phrase, falling back, also strikes a significant chord this evening, as I sit on my couch wondering why I feel as crazy as I did 3 years ago when I joined a 12 step program to help me kick sugar. The worst part is that tonight I taught a Raw/Living Foods class and came home to study for my nutrition program I am enrolled in, and instead have made some concoction out of dates and tahini, calling it healthy, but knowing my mind and spirit are anything but healthy at the present moment. I thought I was done with these patterns. Wasn’t it just two weeks ago I felt trim, powerful, on top of things?
It was a week ago tonight my friend and I vowed we were not going to make any sweets – natural sweeteners or otherwise – until Thanksgiving. Like clockwork, my mind, body and spirit instantly cried “Mutiny! How dare she try to control us”. Since then, I’ve had a daily rendezvous with the food processor and dates. Like so many of you have thankfully shared, I am not alone in thinking that behaving my way into submission is the resolution.
As a healthy woman diagnosed with bipolar just two years ago – a year after being sugar and caffeine free and wondering why I still cycled up and down so much – I’ve witnessed my cycles and can attest to their affect on my food choices. It is a real variable in my daily experience; it is not one to be ignored, hidden, shamed-away any more than I would curse my friendliness.
I like to utilize the phrase “AND” in these moments I find myself caught between black-and-white, right-or-wrong, good-or-bad. How about being friendly AND bipolar? What about being healthy and struggling with food at times?
I called my friend this evening – the one who I’m assuming is eating raw carrots and tree-bark while I consume the world – and left her a message. I admitted I wasn’t doing well on our “goal”, that I was struggling with my food, with depression, with darkness right now, but then I told her that I was ok with this, that I know it will pass, that there is learning in where I am right now. It was the same compassion I’d offer her were she to have called to tell me the same thing. In this small digital gesture, I told my soul that I am ok, right now, right here, AND this gives me space to choose again.
I post both of those quotes because, Karly, I think you are one of the most incredible people I’ve ever encountered. And frankly, it sounds to me like you are right on your way to becoming the next Eckhart Tolle or Byron Katie.
I think we can all learn and be inspired by this. Often the most unusual paths can lead to awakening. Thank you for letting the tears flow, as it allowed mine to flow right along with yours. What a joy to have friends on this oh so challenging path of growing into love.
With sincerity,
Kelley
What a beautiful thing to say, Kelley, about our dearest Karly. And I couldn’t agree more. Karly, you are the most inspiring person I’ve ever encountered.
You have given us so much hope, emotional intelligence and the courage to be curious, to dig deep.
I am eternally grateful for you because of your strength.
Love,
Kaitlin
Byron Katie: Yeah. I was very suicidal, very depressed. Agoraphobic. Paranoid. Really pretty hopeless. Just obsessing the suicide. Many years. So I went to this halfway house and…the women were so afraid of me that I was put in an attic — that was the only way I could stay. They put me in an attic up above. And I slept on the floor in there. And one morning I was asleep on the floor and I felt this thing crawl over my foot and I looked down and it was a cockroach. I opened my eyes and… [pause] what was born was not me…and, the way I tell it is…she rose, she walked, she apparently talked. She was delighted. It is so ecstatic to be born and not born. It sees, and sees everything, without a concept. It’s amazing.
“Could you briefly share with us the main experiences you bad that led you to become a spiritual teacher?” Interview question for Eckhart Tolle who is quoted saying he dealt with depression even in childhood.
Yes. I was about twenty-nine, and had gone through years of depression and anxiety. I had even achieved some successes, like graduating with the highest mark at London University. Then an offer came for a Cambridge scholarship to do research. But the whole motivating power behind my academic success was fear and unhappiness.
It all changed one night when I woke up in the middle of the night. The fear, anxiety and heaviness of depression were becoming so intense, it was almost unbearable. And it is hard to describe that “state” where the world is felt to be so alien, just looking at a physical environment like a room. Everything was totally alien and almost hostile. I later saw a book written by Jean-Paul Sartre called Nausea. That was the state that I was in, nausea of the world. [Chuckle] And the thought came into my head, “I can’t live with myself any longer.” That thought kept repeating itself again and again.
Wow Karly, Here is a hug ((((((((Karly))))))))). I posted a previous comment based on listening to your mp3 but had not yet read what you wrote.
Thank you so much for sharing. I am bipolar and it cost me my marriage, my house, muy car, lots of heirlooms I had been given and my job and almost me my children and my life. Yet I still want to believe that it really isn’t bipolar. I have this inaccurate belief that if I only eat right and exercise and have enough faith and go to enough counseling that I will be well. The whole of society feeds into it. I have two young adult children who have mental health issues yet they continue to tell me that taking medication daily is bad or wrong.
Unfortunately my medication does not always work. That makes it even harder. Also my addictions, my bipolar, my PSTD, my fibromyalgia and my sleep problems are so intertwined that it is almost impossible to understand what I need to do. The doctors themselves even point the finger at each other. And then church and other spiritual based programs that I work on a daily basis just add to the burden by telling me that if I had enough faith i would be okay, I could handle it, I would not be depressed or angry or hopeless. I am bombarded on a daily basis with messages that this is my fault and that I could do something about it if I wanted to.
Part of what makes it hard about giving up the sugar is that I know that on some level the motivation is wrong. I have this false belief that if I give up the sugar I will be cured. I know that this is not accurate. I know that giving up the sugar will help, but it will not CURE me. I will still be bipolar, I will still have sleep disorders and I will still have fibromyalgia. Knowing this discourages me from trying to care for myself. I feel like what is the point. If I won’t be cured what is the point.
I have this belief that I am flawed, that I have been handed a bad hand in life, that I am being punished. I have been unable to reach the acceptance of who and what I am and to look past the pain to the good things that I have. Hopefully working through the Sugar program will help me to accept who I am and to truly feel in my heart what I know in my head and that is that I am a precious child of God. I am beautiful and loving and caring and sensitive and I am a worthy person.
Karly,
While listening to this audio, I was crying right along with you.
I too, have had a horredous week this week. It has been very difficult on so many levels.
Your transparency is encouraging and I excpect that it has opened up a new level of understanding for myself and others and for that, I thank you.
My heart and spirit is so grateful to you and above all, to God for leading me here, just at the right time.
Sending love and thanks your way……
Robbie
Hi, Karly,
I feel your pain and have walked in those same shoes. The thing with depression is that those who are prone to it have a tendency to slip back into it. I used to think that “I was going to be okay now” but have had to accept that it’s something I have to be aware of in myself and manage when it creeps in.
The thing is, along with the hypersensitivity comes a wealth of good personality traits, such as your desire to help others, and the opportunity to grow beyond what you think are your own limits. Open-mindedness and deep empathy for others can also exist. I’ve been viewing depression as a sort of blockage, and try to intuit what has brought me there, and how to find a chink in that seemingly massive wall of depression and bring it down.
I’ve been reading two books that have been helpful: Undoing Depression by Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., and another: Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way , by Nancy Liebler and Sandra Moss. Good ideas for self-treatment.
Take care,
Sue
Amen, sistah. After years of beating myself up for my own depression and generally not being good enough, I’m finally beginning to trust that a few things are true:
–We’re never as alone as we think we are.
–We will always carry some issues with us, so relax and make friends with them. Some of my “demons” get their own room in my head that’s stocked with the things that let them know I care for them, and then they don’t have to shout or take over. Books, toys, a soft chair, a window seat . . .
–Sometimes fairy tales are true. Our worst flaws or mistakes can be the very things that save us. If Cinderella had gotten to the carriage on time, she wouldn’t have left the shoe behind.
Please remind me of this when I lose my way.
Love and love–
cherilyn
Karly,
Thank you for your deep honest sharing. I’ve experienced everything you speak about to the color of the pill I take every day. You have helped me so much accept my sensitivity, which has a component of anxiety. I used to beat myself up and “should” all over myself; but I’m moving past that. The acceptance has lead to the care, the same care you refer to as the cure.
My heart goes out to you – your honesty and vulnerability has helped me immeasurably.
Many blessings
Gina
Karly, thank you for speaking so honestly. I tend to isolate and keep quiet when I’m not doing well and you have taught me that when we share our struggles we help those who are also struggling.
You reminded me also to not judge. As you said, we are all just trying to do the best we can with what we have available to us.
I, like Carol, have spent most of my life pleasing everyone else, not forming my own opinions, being a chameleon and never really developing a sense of who I am. Through this process I’m finally coming to feel that I’m just great the way I am. At the mature age of 58 I am finally figuring out who I am inside and outside and I’m finally accepting who I am.
By sharing your mistake, Karly, you have taught me to watch my judgments, to share all of me, and accept not only myself, but others. There was a higher good to be served through your mistake.
Thanks, Karly!
Karly, I really hope your read this because I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Long story short, ever since the forum password changed and then it may have stopped for a while (??), I’ve had trouble getting back on.
Anyway, I too had to “surrender” and go on an antidepressant a few years ago and I can relate to EVERYTHING you just wrote!!!
I will be praying for you!!
I’ve missed you! Colleen
I can totally relate to everything you said and feel as if I am on a very similar journey. Sometimes I visualize myself sitting on a bench and me scooting over to make room for my anxious thoughts and feelings instead of trying to push them off the bench (which is what I’ve done for over 16 yrs….telling myself “I CAN NOT feel this way…) and that “making room for” helps me to stop fighting myself and my natural tendencies and that acceptance helps me to just let it be. I CAN make room for all the parts of me. The happy, light, giggly me….the focused, serious me and yes the anxious, worried me. Thank you for sharing ALL of you…..you have made a tremendous difference in my life and I’m so thankful for your courage, compassion and generosity. Your friend, Kathleen
Hi Karly. Finally. I see you as a real person. That is really equal to me. Thank you for this blog. I can so relate. I have spent the last 6 years in this quest to heal my bipolar and alcoholism and drug addiction and now sugar addiction. I sat in a mtg last Thursday and cried. That I feel that I am bad and beat myself up because if I had enough faith. If I was good enough or if I practiced AA enough or I prayed enough or I had enough faith that I would be better. The pain that I cannot change the way I am and that I must be bad or doing something wrong is so much greater than the pain of my bipolar or sugar addiction alone.
Thank you for being real and sharing. It helps to know that I am not crazy. When I started reading your book I realized that I need to identify who I am and what I need and to embrace that this is who I am. That God made me this way and he loves me this way.
I have been working on identifying who I am. Not who I think I should be or who I think others want me to be but who am I. I have spent my whole life trying to be what others want me to be so that after 46 years I really do not know who I am. Your Overcoming Sugar Addiction has allowed me to work on figuring out who I am. And as a result of reading your book last night, last night and today are the first times ever in my entire 46 years that I can remember just saying I am …. and I am okay. I do not have to be anything else.
So something good has come out of your mistake. Thank you.