I couldn’t stop. Mind you, I thought I could. I would get a few days, even weeks of abstinence—not surrendered abstinence, but I would get excited and hopeful, telling you how much better it was this time, how this was it. I was done with the food. I would have some revelation from the last binge that I was sure would break through my pattern. Now I was ready to stay abstinent, no matter what. This conviction lasted until some feeling came up that I was convinced I could not live through, and perhaps more honestly, did not want to live through. Loneliness, fear, insecurity, doubt, any or all could feel overwhelming. I would rush to the store for my familiar binge foods. I would chew and spit out the foods, not swallowing, but chewing and tasting, in denial that it was “so bad,” because my weight did not change... Continue Reading
Approximately one year ago, after I had been in FA for 15 months, my AWOL group, in its study of the Twelve Steps, was approaching Step Four, where we take a fearless moral inventory of our personal challenges. I was besieged with fear of this process and the requirements of Step Five, wherein we were to discuss our shortcomings, character defects, and injured relationships with God and another person. How would I do? Would I be found lacking? Would I be told that I was unworthy—told to go back and do this over? These thoughts were obsessive and causing me great concern. I was on the verge of making up an excuse to leave the AWOL. All my life I had been fixated on the notion that I had to be perfect or else I would not be accepted or loved. In fact, I went to great lengths to make... Continue Reading
Making decisions is difficult for me. You wouldn’t believe how long it can take me just to pick out the right kind of dishes, cutlery, clothes, and paint colors. But thankfully, joining FA was a very easy decision for me. I found FA 12 years ago when I was 22 years old and completely desperate. My top weight was 142, but I typically struggled with an extra 10-15 pounds on my petite body, through controlled eating and exercise. I had no idea that the disease of food addiction owned me. I just thought I was unhappy because everyone and everything around me sucked. I was angry, negative, manic, mean to my loved ones, lost, and sad. What I didn’t know was that I was full of self-hatred, and underneath my punk rock, indie, bad-ass attitude, I was scared of life. Drugs and alcohol helped me to cope in social situations,... Continue Reading
I was always obsessed with how much I weighed and how my body looked. I constantly sized myself up in mirrors or tried to avoid them altogether. I battled with what I should put in my mouth and with the guilt that followed eating something that I “shouldn’t have.” My self-esteem was tied to my weight. When I walked into a room, or when I encountered another person, I played the “compare and despair” game. If you were thinner that I was, you were the better person; if you were heavier, I was the better person. I could not look anyone in the eye when I was feeling fat, which was almost always, because even when I was five pounds overweight, I felt fat. I even felt fat when I had eaten something that I thought I shouldn’t have eaten. I felt guilty, and was afraid that you would see... Continue Reading
When I had my first daughter almost seven years ago, I was not in recovery. When I conceived her, I weighed 180 pounds, and when I delivered her I was 239. As I continued to balloon up in my pregnancy, I found myself using handicapped bathroom stalls more and more. After she was born, I learned how to navigate my way through stores and shopping centers with her in a baby carrier seat, and later, the stroller. It was difficult to learn how to do everything with a baby—putting the child in and out of car seats and shopping carts. But most of all, going to the bathroom in a public place was a chore. The bathroom had to be large enough to fit the stroller, and it needed to have a fold-down changing table. It was difficult getting into a bathroom with my 200-pound self, plus the baby, the... Continue Reading