B.E.D. Why am I writing about it now?

I’m required to tell my secrets.

I started A Year of Significance  on January 1, 2010. Since then, it’s gotten almost 124,000 hits. Who are you people?

Whoever you are, thank you. I’ve started writing again.

Because I am 200% incapable of thinking small (see what I did there?) my first idea was of a new soul-rending series starting on January 1, 2020. Kind of re-create the glory (?) of 2010 when I posted something significant every single day of the year. I’m really attracted to an ambitious, ordered, and controlled framework. My craving for structure (Read: Control Freak)  is also one of my Binge Eating Disorder symptoms. Eating a whole lot- and I mean, a WHOLE LOT – numbs control freak panic.

So, back to writing. As of today, I have drafts of 16 posts on a variety of preachy and pithy topics.

Fuck that.

Instead, this blog series is starting sometime in February instead of 01-01-2020. And I’m doing it because it’s imperative that I out that pesky and aforementioned Binge Eating Disorder. Out, out, I say!

My pedigree

My name is Susan Fry and I ride a 10-ticket serotonin roller coaster called Bipolar. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have Binge Eating Disorder. I score a 9 on the 10 point Adverse Childhood Experiences test. An unwelcome side effect is that I’ve been suicidal.

I’ve ‘bits and pieced’ the joy that is me (Read: psychotic dumpster fire) into the cyberverse via this blog over time. What’s changed? Why the big focus? There’s never one single reason.

Wayish back when

Several years ago, a woman I greatly admired vehemently admonished me to loudly, bravely, and publicly bear witness. Then she died. No correlation. But, now she’s dead and I can’t tell her that I’ve decided not to so here we are. It took me several years to be ready to dig in and expose myself. So to speak.

BED and suicide are the hardest things to write about. You see, bipolar and PTSD are conditions I cannot eliminate. They are what they are. I have acquired skills at ameliorating their effects but they are inside me and not leaving. Like asthma of the brain.

BED and suicide are a way out. By telling you about these sacred, secret coping methods, I diminish their power. If you know, it can never again be my secret. Secrets don’t flourish in the light. I am required to tell my secrets.

So, do you get that distinction? Stick with me. You will. Or you won’t. It doesn’t matter either way. I’m bearing witness for…

• Pat, the loving and vehement admonisher
• Pat’s bipolar son who killed himself
• Everyone who, over the years, has told me that my writing helped them
• Those who have no clue what this is like
• Anyone morbidly or mildly interested
• Anyone who gets off on finding someone to tear down for what they gleefully deem as weakness. Even you have a place in this world. I live to serve. (Are you buying it?)

And now

The thing that was the final tip toward focusing on BED is when my drug Dr prescribed a new pill specifically to deal with it – the scariest issue ever. This happened on Friday, February 7, 2020 at 11:20 am.

So, I’ve picked Binge Eating Disorder.

Suicide can wait. Forever.

 

Susan Scot Fry is the author of “A Year of Significance” which morphed into “A Life of Significance: Adventures in Oversharing” when it turned out she wasn’t done living after that first year but had developed a taste for saying too much.