I ate a dozen cookies

I had planned my meals today. Breakfast: 2 slices of whole wheat toast with 2 tbs peanut butter and 2 tbs fruit spread. Lunch: brown rice with broccoli, chick peas, olives and feta cheese. Dinner: veggie burger topped with honey mustard and lettuce wrapped in a lavash. I felt good about this menu. I thought that it would be satisfying and reasonably healthy.

I started off fine, but then, while placing my food in the fridge at work, I came across the remains of a cookie bin. I started eating them at that very moment and actually replaced my lunch with cookies. I feel sick and tired and terrible and bloated and disgusted and discouraged. I could vomit, but I'm really working on stopping that. I haven't done it in a while and it's ultimately not helpful anyway. Also, I'm at work and I don't want to mess up the bathroom or my clothes.

I wonder if I'm a food addict. When I want comfort or feel bored or lonely, I do turn to food. I watch those programs on Discovery Health and TLC about the super obese and I see how much they eat at times and I think, hmmmm, I don't do that nor do I have a desire to, but I do oftentimes feel powerless to stop myself when an eating episode starts.

Why? I know that I want to get my weight under control. I know that my back hurts and my knees hurt and I look like utter hell, so why can't I just do this? I've decided that surgery is the answer, but why has it come to this? Why have I failed repeatedly to get my weight under control? Why is it so much easier to make the wrong choices than it is to make the right? I feel exhausted and disillusioned. Will I ever understand why I overeat to the point of jeopardizing my health and quality of life?

Why did I eat 12 cookies? Today I felt drowsy and distracted and like I don't want to go on anymore. I think the pain and anxiety that I feel about the pain and my growing obesity and about "what's next" make me feel overwhelmed. I don't want to participate or even move anymore. I feel trapped in this cycle of blame and unforgiveness. I work on (or at least believe I do) releasing these thoughts, but I am admittedly not there yet.

Can I be successful with surgery if I can't get a handle on what drives me to eat? How do I find ways to comfort myself and get a handle on the drive to eat? I just want to let go. So, why did I eat all those cookies? All I can come up with is I wasn't satisfied with my breakfast, I'm wanting to eat with abandon right now, I feel fat and ugly and terrible today and I guess I wanted to comfort and punish myself all at once.

Even as I write that I'm not sure that's what it is. I feel like it's something deep that I have yet to access. How do people uncover why they engage in detrimental behavior?

What do I want? What is it? What can possibly be the source of discontent in a decent life? I have to get out of me and into something else.

I suppose we aren't meant to completely understand ourselves. To commit one's life to doing so is very selfish.