Self-Reliance. Self-Harm?

I told my friend Dewey that I'd been tired, extremely tired, for quite a while. My concentration was shot, and my ADD just all over me, like the proverbial cheap suit: constricting, restless, relentless. "Tell me," she said, "what you're eating, how you're eating." She said, "I'll ask my naturopath about it."
So I did, and she did.
The naturopath told her:  

I am concerned by the fact that she literally cut everything out of her diet [that she's eaten] for the past 10 years.

And she said:

Of course she's tired...she doesn't eat. Her ADD is really bad because even with all the protein she added back in she still has a long way to go.

The Old Familiars

Here again: relying on my wits and my small tools, dragging information into my tiny, secret universe where I play alone. Not seeking, never thinking of asking for help. 

After years of therapy, years of recovery, this old family thing remains such a powerful driver: Don't ever," my mother would say, "Put your business in the street." And so our secrets, the wordless commitments to keeping them ours, and ours alone, always paramount, no matter the cost.

How can I unlearn this lesson? What would I risk by no longer defaulting to secrecy, to self?  

Here again, too: muscling myself about like some box of widgets, with no thought (much less knowledge or consideration) of the costs to me of change. Here again: powering forward, oblivious to my needs. Still my own unkind and twitching whip hand, lashing, always lashing, because that is what I do. 

The Now 

I'm still reeling from this big flag of my lack of self-awareness. I wonder: How else am I attempting self-care, but causing harm instead? How will I learn to recognize that? What are the signs? 

As For the Food

I'm now following the naturopath's suggestions: 

Tell her to stop the AM blueberries and water and jump right into 3 eggs with beans and meat for breakfast. Lunch should be more meat and a lot of veggies. Dinner she can have all the berries she wants...but a TON of protein for breakfast and a lot of protein for lunch is the key to her energy and mind function.

For the last four days I've eaten 3 eggs and a small hamburger for breakfast (haven't gotten the beans cooked yet), a piece of fish and maybe spinach, a tomato, an avocado and sprouts for lunch. I'm usually not hungry at dinnertime, though tonight I ate another little burger and salad for dinner, because I was craving protein. 

I've been thinking of having a boiled egg by my bedside to eat first thing in the morning (and two later in the morning) as I am really scattered in the AM.

Results so far: the tiredness is...better. I didn't realize until now exactly how flat-out fatigued I've been. My sleep is improved, which I didn't expect, and don't really understand (I'm sleeping through the night, unlike before). 

The ADD is a bit more problematic. It is still a problem, though has eased a bit. Then again, I've only been doing this for four days...

I've decided to follow this plan for the next 3 months, and will consult the naturopath in the next couple of weeks, when I'm more financially sound.

This food "thing": so multi-layered, so very much more than food.