My Love-Hate Relationship with Roller Coasters

I thought I would take a minute to discuss my love-hate relationship with roller-coaster rides….not the kind at the boardwalk, but the kind that exist in my head. 

Fact: I have a somewhat bipolar personality.  My highs are really high and my lows are really low. 

Fact:  Not everybody is like that. 

I started to recognize that for the first time when I got to know my good friend Joanne.  Joanne redefines “stable”.  She lives the most balanced, sane, stable life of anyone I know.  She has had plenty of major traumas and setbacks and yet she just continues to move forward at a steady pace with a remarkable degree of peace and serenity.  I, on the other hand, do not.  I continue to move forward, but there is no such phrase as “steady pace” in my vocabulary. I crawl, I run, I inch forward, I leap, I jump…and it all seems to be related to whether I am currently on the crest of the roller-coaster ride or in the trough.  My life has always seemed to be a roller-coaster ride emotionally.  Ironically, I am okay with that.

I have developed this under-lying philosophy of life over years.  Each of us is like a two-sided coin.  We have our “gift areas” and we have our “weaknesses” or character defects.  As it turns out, many times our weaknesses are inseparably linked to our gift areas.  Our mission in life—should be choose to accept it [not meaning to sound like a “Mission Impossible” show or anything] is capitalize on the “heads”—or gift areas while we minimize (manage, overcome, correct) the “tails”—or weaknesses.  Roughly translated, we use our gifts to make the world a better place and (in AA terms) do God’s will for us; over time we identify our character defects or weaknesses and work through or get them fixed.

So to link that idea to my own roller-coaster ride:  I am a “project person”.  One of my gift areas is the ability to take an idea, a need, a project, or what ever…  and be able to run with it start to finish, non-stop, no time for breathing until it is finished.  As a result, I have done a lot of things that a “normal” person wouldn’t/couldn’t do.  At least they couldn’t do in the same short time frame I can.  For years I just thought that was because I was smarter, more talented, or more energetic than the rest of the world.  I never realized it was a direct result of being slightly bi-polar. I say slightly because I realize that there is a broad range of bi-polar disorders and some are totally debilitating.  Mine isn’t debilitating.  It just gives me that super-human burst of adrenaline to do what ever I am dying to do and than crash on the back end.   When I am on the crest I am amazing and do amazing things.  When I am down in the trough, or depressed, I lay low and most people don’t ever see it.

I am grateful for that aspect of my personality and the ability it has given me to do various things in my life.  But, one of the most important aspects of my recovery process as I have worked the steps is to have been able to acknowledge the associated character defects and weaknesses.  It is not a noble thing to run your body ragged.  It is not good to justify sleep deprivation under the guise of doing something important.  It is not healthy to focus on one single project in your life at the expense of loosing balance in all other areas. One of the most important things I have learned in 90-day OA is the importance of weighing and measuring life just like I weigh and measure my food.  I have the concept.  I am still not very good at the application.

I have found over the last few years that this whole roller-coaster-run-on-adrenaline way of being has two very specific connections to my overeating.  

1)     I embark on projects when I am on the crest of a wave.  Naturally the crest doesn’t last.  This is because either emotionally I start the movement toward the depressed, low energy side, or because simple mortality—the need for rest and sleep—interferes with my ability to keep going.  However, part of my addiction is not being able to stop something until it is completed (another example of a gift area that is inseparably connected to a weakness).  Not being willing to reprioritize, I discovered a way to artificially keep myself on the crest of the wave longer than was normal.  I did this by using my drug of choice: food. 

Three a.m. in the morning.  Project not done.  I’m dead.  Five minute break with a big bowl of ice cream and some potato chips and I am good for at least another 2-3 hours. Simple plan. Insane plan. 

A surprising thing happened to me when I started OA.  My third meal of the day came at dinner time.  After dinner I would start into another long project, only my tank ran out of gas before the project was done.  On the program, I’m not allowed to put any more gas in the tank until the pre-set morning “fueling time”.  Without that artificial burst of energy I was giving myself I had no choice but to go to bed on the empty tank and start over in the morning when the gas station was open.  Shocking change for me!

2)     When something happens that is emotionally intense or worrisome my mind automatically catapults me into over-drive, or up to the crest of the wave.  The adrenaline kicks in and I have this restlessness compulsion to fix the problem.  Unfortunately, at that moment in time there is usually nothing that I can do right then and there.  I am powerless.  I am tense.  I am frustrated.  And so I deal with this unhealthy “crest” of emotional response by reaching for my favorite drug of choice:  food.  Since I can’t do anything else to alleviate my emotions, I eat my way through them until the numbing effect kicks in and I can drop from the crest of the wave to a more normal state of being—generally followed by a very depressed stage.

I thought I had completely overcome that tendency.  I don’t eat to avoid feeling life.  However, it hit me a few days ago that that instinct is stronger than ever right now.  I will be pacing around the house on the phone discussing something that is stressful or worrisome.  Without even think about it, I find myself in the kitchen with this compulsive desire to open the almond canister and grab a handful.  (Trust me—it would be the chips or something way less healthy if I had them in the house.)  I have had to make a conscious effort to say: “you are having an emotional response to something troubling.  Food won’t fix it.” 

Learning to manage highs and lows in a healthy way is challenging for me.  I don’t necessarily want to eliminate them.  They are part of who I am and what makes me—me!  I like the talents and abilities that are inseparably connected to those high.  I don’t like the suffering I feel when I am in a depressed state.  Thus, I really do have a love-hate relationship with my personal roller coaster ride. 

Just like a person with any other addiction, I can’t trust myself to “turn off” that project-mode thinking or keep balance in my life.  I have to acknowledge that my judgment in that area is non-existent.  Instead, I have to set arbitrary rules and accept input from my “higher power” and trusted friends as to what is really sane and manageable.  In effect, I do have to weigh and measure my life just like my food. 

For today, that works for me.