Lasting

I lasted longer than I did the first time I tried to fast.
I began getting horrible stomach pains and was nauseous to the point of having to stop teaching in the middle of lessons. It did make me realize how serious I need to be with my diet. I'd still like to do that fast sometime. I really don't want to do it alone. I wonder if I've always been this dependent on people. I know one of my biggest crutches is with my paintings. I thrive on feedback and comments. I feel disappointed and not accomplished when I don't receive the reactions I want. So here on out, I'm going to force myself to just paint, paint for me, and love every second of it. Even if those I'm closest to find it appauling, and galleries consider me not a good fit.
It's only been one paragraph and I've jumped all over the place.
Back to the original point. It'll be hard sticking with this severely strict diet, but I think I can do it. Good lord, again, I feel like I need support and encouragement to make it easier. Maybe I should just move to the middle of no where for a year and learn to handle things emotionally alone. That sounds like a pretty good idea actually.
Then again, is it so wrong to yearn for praise, encouragement, support and feedback? In a sense, no, but I think I've become far too dependent on it. I'll have a bad day, or consider myself a horrid person, or a terrible artist, if I don't get a certain amount of those.
I've always been the person to run away from things. So my natural reaction to fix this problem is to stop posting my paintings, stop telling people what I do, since I fear I'll rely too much on their comments. But I realize this is a childish thing to do, so I will continue to paint and post them, and write and speak and tell people the things I do. I'll just learn to be content with myself. Now this is going to be much harder to practice than to say.
I just read an article on food allergies. Less than 2 percent of adults have food allergies. Way to be different huh? And most adults do not outgrow their allergies. So basically there's no hope, and I have to learn to deal with this. All wheat, corn, soy, peanuts, eggs, raw fruits and raw veggies, and their byproducts. Sometimes I wish I could make my friends and family realize how serious it is. That I can't just go out to lunch with them, that having just one piece of whatever it is will be ok, becuase it won't. I'll pay for it later at around 2 am when it gets through my system and I'm covered in hives. I think that's why most of them don't take it seriously. They never see the reaction. Good lord, even my husband doesn't see becuase when he falls asleep, he falls asleep. So I'm left to deal with it alone, standing in the bathroom, looking at the mess all over my body, and crying, because that's all I can do. Medicines only work temporarily and creams do nothing. So I stand there and hold myself. Yes this may seem dramatic. But one day you wake up in the middle of the night, covered in hives that itch so terribly you scratch them only to feel releif for that moment, becuase you know they aren't going away. You scratch so much you begin to bleed. And you look around and realize you have no one to comfort you, no one to hold you, no one to help you in your pain. And you tell me I'm how dramatic you feel. Some days I've wished for the hives to stay around until I come in contact with someone I know, so they can see. But it almost never works out that way. So I don't sleep, and I have these hives that no one ever sees. I'm surprised no ones decided I was crazy.