i ate 15 oreos for dinner last week. fif-teen.

i was having a bad couple of days and found myself unsuccessfully wrestling through a lot of internal conflict, which led to my usual mood swings, which led to me hibernating for a few days.

i decided to come out of my room to make dinner one night only to realize that my housemate was having people over in less than half an hour. she invited me to join them, but as mentioned above, i was hella moody and anti-social, so i opted for the only accessible thing i could find at the time to feed my mood and satisfy my hunger: a bag of double stuffed oreos with a side of netflix. (i certainly do want you to 'continue playing', thank you very much.)

of course, if you've ever (double) stuffed your face, or used any unhealthy coping mechanism, you know exactly what comes next: guilt and/or disgust, on top of whatever you were feeling before you ate/drank/did drugs/binged your favourite show etc., and that's exactly what i felt that night as i sat there staring at the empty rows of cookies in disgust.

but here's the thing; the eating contest i had with myself didn't make any of my 'stuff' go away; it kept reappearing and will continue to until i stop stuffing it (and stuffing my face) and start dealing with my insecurity and low self esteem at its root.

the truth is, most of the time i feel ugly, fat and undesirable. unsuccessful and alone. moody and irritable. disconnected and lost.

sure, i can chalk some of this up to losing my parents (lost and disconnected), me not being married or having kids (undesirable and alone), or me only being able to work twenty hours a week (and going crazy the rest of the time), but i can't figure it out otherwise.

but what i do know is that temporary fixes are exactly that: temporary; they may make you feel good in the moment (at least up until your fourth cookie), but they don't help you in the long run.

what will help us in the long run, however, is finding the root cause of our pain, working through it and moving towards healing.

for you, that may look like facing past abuse and working through the trauma attached to it or forgiving yourself for a past mistake or someone else for theirs. maybe it looks like facing your family's history with addiction and working through it with a counselor, or maybe just maybe, it's as 'simple' as looking in the mirror and telling yourself that you are valuable until you start to believe it yourself.

for me, it looks like removing myself from most social media outlets for a while and spending the time i'd usually waste (scrolling and comparing) on something productive like worrying about my own life. it also looks like seeing my wonderful counselor regularly, bringing my insecurities to the light and most importantly, reminding myself of the Lord's unfailing love for me - His secure, sufficient love - and putting the oreos down long enough to rest in it.