November 5th to June 4th – seven months – 211 days. November 5th was my last binge. I made it to 100 days on February 13th, and it was the longest I’d gone without a binge since I began binge-eating that disastrous year in Boston (2014-2015). Of course, just because I’d made it 100 days didn’t mean I was going to end the streak! In mid-April, around day 160, I stopped keeping count. And yesterday, on a day that I’ve calculated to be Day 211, I binged.

Why? I haven’t got a clue. I said back in February that I tend to binge when I have a lot of anxiety, and it’s especially bad if that anxiety doesn’t have a source that I can pinpoint. The last few days have been filled with that generalized, source-less anxiety, so that I feel triggered without knowing why. I spent three days fighting the urge to binge before breaking down around mid-day. And so this morning, I feel simultaneously gross/shaky from all the consumption and calm because the urge to binge has passed. I still don’t know why, and can only make guesses.

Maybe it’s because this time last year I found out my uncle was dying, and a friend of mine also died, and my house was suddenly totaled in four rooms. Your amygdala stores those feelings and can trigger you on those days for years to come. Maybe it’s because on Sunday, I strained my upper back muscles during my workout, so that they’ve been tight and tense. Since they also get tight and tense when I’m under immense anxiety, maybe my f-ed up brain was misinterpreting those signals. Maybe it’s simply because with school ending, my routines will be upended, and on top of that, there have been multiple last-minute changes for days now, and stress about graduation and grad parties and the million things that will be happening this month…

Does it matter? Not really. I binged. 211 days is a long time, and now I start the count over. I made it all the way to June 4th before having my first binge of 2019, and who knows, maybe it’ll be the only one. Now, I just need to accept, recover, and start again, not dwell on the “why”s.