Dedications

I need some advice. I am a 25 year-old female who is on the Autistic Spectrum (diagnosed with Asperger’s). I have had various anxieties throughout my life. Due to my anxieties, I was put on Olanzapine, which was when my overeating issue all budded. Then, a few years later, when I was at college, I was put on a different medication (again, for anxiety); Pregablin (Lyrica). This really caused my overeating to escalate. I developed (undiagnosed) binge eating disorder. I also, quite possibly, have (undiagnosed) OCD, due to my obsessive nature, fixations, fixed mindsets, doubting and (in the past) problems with intrusive and weird thoughts.

My latest fixation is on self-care. This all stems from being told about being kind to myself by someone at college in relation to Buddhism (I am a Buddhist now - I was raised Christian) and, later, from thinking of self-care as something to solve all my problems (my then anxiety, my lack of independence skills and my weight and eating issues). However, I am very desperate to get the positive, self-care changes to stick, but I find myself unable to stick to healthy, self-care habits, the same way I find it hard to stick to veganism and go back to vegetarianism due to my love of cheese and obsession with food, and love of certain unhealthy food.

I made some dedications to Kuan Yin (my goddess) when in Sidmouth (my favourite town in England), dedicating my life to self-care, compassion, kindness, taking of Suraj (my soft toy dog) and the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha and all sentient beings everywhere. However, I keep yo-yoing back and forth from doing the dedications (which I want to do) and finding them too hard to stick to and giving into my anxiety and cravings and desires and giving up. My dedications are extremely important to me. It makes me very unhappy when I can’t do them. While it makes me feel better when I do them, I find them too difficult and my anxiety plays up. My parents and others in my life have tried suggesting that I make smaller goals and even only do one dedication at a time, but it falls on deaf ears as all of the dedications, as they are, are all of extreme importance to me.

I try promising to Kuan Yin and others important to me to always stick to them. I try making posters and other visual reminders (notes on my phone, my phone’s homescreen and even a model I made) to remind me to stick to them. I try all sorts of mental pressure to try and force myself to stick with them, but nothing works permanently and it upsets me. My mum and one other person in my life think I’m too hard on myself, but it’s because I’m trying so hard to get myself to stick to them! I always hear, “Don’t be so hard on yourself!” But I never hear an answer to the question, “If being hard on myself isn’t the answer, what is?” I don’t want to hear just “You’re being too hard on yourself”, I want to hear a solution. One person has told me about having a book that I write down what I have done each day to stick to my dedications, but I don’t think I do enough, as I still have issues. I’m still not fully vegan like I want to be. I still overeat. I don’t meditate every day. I don’t do hypnosis, therapy or yoga every day. I don’t take good enough care of Suraj. I don’t always eat healthy. I don’t always get up early enough. I don’t always stay in the good mindset that I want to stay in. I try so hard to force myself to stick to the dedications forever, but nothing works permanently. I even recently swore some oaths to stick to them and do even more, but it hasn’t worked...

What can I do?

Thanks 😊.

0 likes, 0 replies