Momentary Bliss in a Bag of Crisps
Content warning: eating disorder thoughts and behaviours
- This was your job, Milda! Once again, we’re not making any progress. The product is your responsibility. The programmers have been waiting for specifications, - my boss growls. We’re behind schedule and nothing is going as well as we had hoped.
I swallow back my tears. I feel like a total failure. What was I thinking? That I can do this job, start this project from scratch? I couldn’t wait to get involved and play an important role, make decisions, create, and take on a lot of responsibility. It looks like I took on too much. I was never sure what my boss or colleagues expected from me. Feeling guilt, pressure, and chaos was entrenched in my daily life. It had also become customary for me to question myself and doubt whether I was good enough for a certain project or the job as a whole.
On days like that, when I hear a remark that forces me to doubt my abilities, I often think back to my job interview. Was I lying? Was I throwing dust in their eyes? Or was I just good at selling myself? Maybe I genuinely believed I could do it. Would I really have been hired if I wasn’t capable of doing my job? Well, perhaps I just managed to charm them.
My thoughts are racing. I think back to my past jobs and keep questioning whether I’m actually good at what I do. Why am I even here? I mentally recount my merits: I have a degree and lots of work experience. But this doesn’t help at all. Over the course of the day I decide that everything – absolutely everything – is my fault. It’s my fault that the clients are unhappy, that they can’t come to an agreement, that the programmers don’t have a set task yet, and that none of us have a vision. I was supposed to be the link carrying everything. But I don’t have the strength to carry it. It’s too much. I don’t know anything. I don’t understand anything. I’m scared. I’m just a failure that doesn’t deserve this job, or the trust of my colleagues, or the money. What do they even pay me for?
Eventually, I can’t take the pressure anymore, and I disappear for a few minutes. I cry my eyes out in a secluded corner next to the office, but even this isn’t of any use. I come back to my desk and I can’t focus. My thoughts are buzzing like bees. I feel the panic – the horror – which arises from somewhere in my stomach and clambers up, grabbing at my throat. I know what’s about to happen. I leave work earlier because I want all of this to end as soon as possible. In the metro, I try to hold back my tears and tell myself that this doesn’t have to end in another binge eating episode. The last sane bits of me remind me that it won’t do any good, but by now it’s too late. I can no longer resist. I stop by a shop and strip the aisles of food as if the world were ending tomorrow. I grab everything my heart desires – pizza, a tub of ice cream, a pack of crisps, gummies, chocolate… Anything that tastes good and can give some satisfaction, anything my eyes land on.
The first bite always helps me calm down. I feel like I can breathe again, I feel the warmth and an odd lightness. I take another bite, then a third one, and while these don’t give me the same pleasure, I continue to eat – faster and faster. Automatically. Not really understanding what I’m doing. I stuff myself with food and the voices in my head become quieter and quieter until they’re completely silent. I eat until nothing is left. There are no smells or tastes anymore.
Illustration by Lina Disciplina
That was the worst summer of my life: I would cry and eat, and then cry some more. After these episodes I would feel even worse, I’d feel disgusted with myself. It was almost like a confirmation that those dark voices were right, that I really was unworthy and incapable. How can you stand up in front of fourteen clients and be a lady boss when you can’t even control your eating habits and you have no willpower? How can you accomplish anything in life? You can’t even eat properly.
I remember food being the only thing that would allow me to forget my worthlessness, if only for a short period. Sometimes I’d wake up and my stomach would already feel weak from the fear of going to work. All it took was thinking about upset clients that weren’t willing to work amicably and find solutions. On such mornings, I’d buy myself a coffee and some pastries at my metro stop. I was calm then – at least for the 15 minutes leading up to work. Those pastries momentarily dissolved my fears and the pressure I was under.
Unfortunately, that summer wasn’t a unique experience. Even back when I was in university, this was the way I chose to deal with my insecurities and overcome the exam anxiety. It was always the same scenario – I would panic that I haven’t studied enough during the semester, and doubt whether I chose the right profession, thinking I might just be too dumb for it. I was used to sleepless nights during which I’d try to cram as much information as I could into my head, while snacking on chocolate and biscuits. I didn’t know another way.
Even after that horrible summer, once I left that toxic workplace and began freelancing as an IT analyst, it took me a long time to get rid of my imposter syndrome. I thought that if as a hired worker I wasn’t able to do my job perfectly and move mountains, then I would never survive as a freelancer. When you’re a hired worker, you’re a little safer. Employers aren’t that quick to fire people, they’ll move you somewhere else, give you another chance; this is at least the case in Austria, where I work. With freelancers it’s much simpler – you can tell them out of the blue that they shouldn’t come to work anymore. For several months, I was drenched in this fear. I’d arrive at my office certain that today was the day I’d be fired and told that nobody needs a person as clueless and inept as me. As if that wasn’t enough, there was all the bureaucracy. The fact that I had to complete tax returns and sort out payments by myself frightened me so much. My mind would paint the worst possible scenarios in which I mess up my accounting and get such huge fines that even my children and grand-children will still be paying them off.
Those fears followed me for a few more months, during which I continued my summer routine: crying and eating, and crying again. Little by little, though, I became aware that those fears were unfounded. I got along well with my team and I would finish all my assignments on time. I also found a financial consultant and learned to deal with accountancy. The overeating episodes were less and less frequent. They would still happen (in fact, they still haven’t completely gone away) when I was struggling emotionally or dealing with too much work at a given moment and not telling anyone because I wanted to be the hero. Because I couldn’t let anyone find out what a loser I really was.
Ultimately, this time spent living in my biggest fears, even if they weren’t always rational, forced me to realise that this sort of existence and behaviour was not normal. I was scared of the overeating episodes and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanied them. So, I finally sought help at an Eating Disorder Treatment Centre. I got diagnosed with binge-eating disorder. In therapy, I found out that the strongest force attracting me to that pack of gummies was pressure, be it self-inflicted or external. I’m learning to live with this and to stop constantly asking myself for 120%. I’m trying to overcome my fears and speak up when I need help, when I can’t do every task by myself. And you know what? People are usually a lot more compassionate than we think. If others are able to hear you out and be supportive, maybe it’s time to stop pushing so hard and start being kinder to yourself.
Written by: Milda Ulozaitė
Translated by: Gerda Krivaite
Illustrated by: Lina Disciplina
