My Addiction & Regret

Regret. We all have it. At some point in our lives and in some form, we all have some regret. Whether it be saying something to someone, wearing something, cutting your hair a certain way, dating someone, doing something, or even eating way too much. It comes in many shapes and in many sizes. Sometimes we learn from what we did that filed us with that regret and sometimes we are just addicted to the way it makes us feel in the moment that we don’t feel the regret till after, which makes us do it all over again. It’s a vicious cycle. Damn vicious.

In high school I had an eating disorder. It started off by me not eating or eating very little. Then I would eat more and throw it up. Things in my outside world at that point were out of control, I felt like I could control my weight. It is so cliché when people say that I know, but it’s true. I needed that control because I felt like I couldn’t handle what was going on around me. Maybe it wasn’t about the control that I needed but more about the attention looking back at it now. Either way, for a short while, I was addicted to that feeling. It was a rush, a high, knowing that I could eat whatever I wanted to because I could get rid of it. Did I regret it immediately afterwards? Absolutely. But that only made me crave it more. Everything around me was so chaotic I blended in the background so maybe I just wanted someone to notice that I was there. In no way was it anyone fault but my own. I knew what I was doing. I knew if I just spoke up the right way, things would change. But I handled it wrong because I didn’t know what to do at that time. I told my boyfriend who then either told my parents or made me tell them, I can’t remember, but I did end up going to see a doctor. I felt like I disappointed my parents which made it worse. What was I doing? My parents loved me and I was hurting myself when I had their attention all along. I stopped after one session.

My addiction to that rush, that high, was nothing. I thought I wanted control at the time but now I know I just wanted the attention and I’m mature enough to admit that. I regret going about it the way that I did because I feel like I hurt my parents in the process. The thing I learned about regret is that you can never go back in time and change what you said, what you wore, how you cut your hair, or change your actions. Instead, you can learn from it, grow from it, and become better from it.