I have gone well every day, in my action plan, toward my goals;  exercising and eating, drinking and managing my life, plans, up until yesterday early evening when carer duties being particularly difficult and involving a change in personality that was difficult to say the least, resulted in my eating ice cream and yogurt, (all be it the low carb type), it was still overeating self abuse as I was not hungry and as such it was 'stuffing down my feelings', not finding a better way to deal with them. Then I ate bread, butter and honey, one slice, an hour latter, while still, not hungry, more 'stuffing down emotions to try to stop my 'blowing up', because I lack sufficient skill sometimes when dementia care duties become difficult. THEN, on top of all this, eating while not hungry, I went and ate my husband's chicken breast lunch for today, LOL, :-), have to smile at that one. I could not punish him for being ill, he can't help being ill and would not want to be, by choice, but LOL, I still have a nice lunch planned for me, (if I ever feel hungry again after the binge of eating until I was well beyond satisfied, last night), LOL, :-), Hubby can have bread and duck under the table for lunch as I told him, it was my doing not his, but the stress he put me under last night had me returning to my own old, bad behaviour of stuffing myself, full and risking becoming fat again. NONE of that is my man's fault. The error of my using food for comfort is 100% MY RESPONSIBILITY and one I have to learn to NOT DO.

This morning I spent a lot of time, (yet again), searching for a dementia carer internet forum, I could turn to for advice, venting, and emotional release when I feel the need. I only found paid for counselling sites. I feel it is inappropriate to burden friends by venting about dementia care, excessively and highly disloyal to describe my husband's worst dementia episodes on a public web site. I do need to continue to develop tools to use aside from the tool of 'stuffing the feelings of distress down out of sight with food and I WELCOME, any suggestions especially direction as to where I might find some form of free internet counselling, or support line for dementia carers. I am sure this is a very common need to many people, not just myself. I'll pop this post on my blog, as this need is not one that will go away, though I do continue to develop more coping skills and emotional eating is rarely a problem now, I understand only too well that it is self abusive and does not resolve anything, only wrecks a carers health and makes it harder to do anything.

My research this morning into trying to find a support forum for dementia carers, only showed me that we are. my husband and I, on the right track, in working to keep every spark of physical, mental and spiritual health alive, through our ecotherapy, life style, there is little more we could be doing on our own, to help keep both of us well most of the time and enjoying our life together.

My man truly is wonderful :-). I know if I was the one ill, he would be there for me and indeed has been in the past when it was more, that way and the bonus for me of his illness was that it was a wake up call for me to get myself fit, so I would be better able to care for him. Talking about the situation, does help me. :-)

Thanks for listening :-)
Kathy xxx