A Story of Recovery:
Such a Pretty Face
I come by addictions quite honestly. I was a sick baby, born to a young mother who was grieving the death of her mother. Mom would cry with me until she could no longer bear the competition. In desperation, she cut cheesecloth into small squares, placed a sweet and a pat of fat in the center, then twisted and tied the small package. Sugar tits, she called them. If I were especially colicky, she added a step, dipping the rough textured, but soft package, in alcohol. I learned to be soothed by this concoction and its delivery. Addictions assured.
When Mom was angry with me, she withheld sweets. Once when I was punished, I offered her a nickel to allow me a piece of dessert. I remember her laughing, but then letting the transaction proceed. From then on, I would buy her favor with either money or obedience…until I started to steal from her. My thievery involved a glass dome bank in the back of the linen closet. Mom stuffed whatever bills she could save from the household budget into that glass bank. I jimmied the bills out with a knife. I never spent the money; I took my booty to Sunday school. When no one was looking, I would deposit it in the little church-shaped bank in the vestibule, whispering, “Please God, make mom love me.”
Sugar, flour, alcohol, painkillers, anxiety, love, abandonment, and self-delusion all conspired to make me fat. I struggled with being big, or as my Belgian grandmother said, grand, throughout my childhood, teenage, and adult years.
When my own daughter was in high school, I was proud of how pretty and normal-sized she was and I enrolled her in modeling school. Being somewhat of an international bohemian, she was appalled and hated it. (“This is the lamest thing you have ever done to me.”) But I made her stick to the course.
At her ‘”graduation,” two modeling agents approached me. My daughter was visibly relieved when the agents said they were looking for attractive, middle-aged overweight women. I wasn’t flattered by the classification “large-sized model,” but was intrigued enough to sign a contract. In describing this new role to my friends, I said “Hey! I’m forty-two, have crow’s feet, sagging body parts, big hips, and I’m a model. Is this a great country, or what?”
I made decent money for what was a part-time hobby and modeled lovely high-end merchandise for Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, and small boutique brands, for runway, print, and television. However, there was never a moment in which I would have chosen this “glamour” over having a normal-sized body.
Once when I was on a Boston TV talk show, the headline guest was a famous actress from a popular sitcom. In the hallway adjacent to the sound studio, I had two minutes to change. As I scurried by her, I heard her sneer, “Dear God! How could you let yourself go like that?” I have since hated her for stealing my confidence at that moment. The truth was that I didn’t “let myself go.” I can’t remember any time in my life when I felt good about my weight.
Encouraged to gain
Several years later, my agent told me she could get me the cover of Big Beautiful Women Magazine if I could get my weight over three hundred pounds. The insanity of the request did not escape me. In response, I asked her if she could, the following month, grab me the cover of Morticians Today or Oversized Caskets Journal. I did not want to abuse or kid myself any longer. I was a pretty, miserable woman.
Still, I could not lose the weight. I tried Atkins, Pritikin, Weight Watchers, Diet Center, NutraSystem, Jenny Craig, the sour citrus diet, the gassy leafy vegetable soup diet, Ayds candies, Metrical, Oprah’s Optifast, four different stays at Duke Diet and Fitness, and some repulsive cow regurgitation protein diet that put me into ketosis. I had B-12 shots, and stopped taking estrogen. I exercised, joined gyms, weight lifted, and hired a personal trainer. I always lost weight, but then I would gain it back, and then some.
I spent close to sixty-thousand dollars trying to control my weight during just the 1990s.
By 2001, I had reached 280 pounds. Soon after the terrorist attacks, I was driving on the Maine Turnpike and became faint, clammy, and sick to my stomach. I quickly pulled off the highway. I think I was unconscious for a few minutes. When I came to, I fished in my purse for some medication or a pill that would magically help me. All I could find was a sweet that had come with my latest restaurant bill. I popped it into my mouth while I kept looking for medicine. Within thirty seconds, I felt fine. Fine, except for that horrible moment of clarity when I realized, I must be diabetic. “Oh, brother!”
I drove straight to my doctor’s office. Tests the next day confirmed blood glucose of 256. Diabetes. That explained why I had lost thirty pounds in less than a month without dieting—another hallmark of the onset of diabetes. Over the next six years, my weight fluctuated wildly, but the new set point seemed to be 230 pounds. It would never budge below that.
At the beginning of 2008, I noticed how well my writing coach’s weight loss was progressing. She had talked with me several times about the Twelve-Step program she was following, but it sounded too rigid for me. Frankly, I thought it was the diet world equivalent of boot camp. However, a fear of a mini-stroke pushed me over the line.
Losing in Boot Camp
I finally agreed to give up sugar, adhere to quantity guidelines, and give up flour. Since I have been following this path, in spite of a life-altering accident and five difficult surgeries, I have lost another 40 pounds. I am no longer obese. The weight is shaving off slowly now, but it is going. My knees don’t hurt. My cholesterol and diabetes numbers are under control. I have a waist. I have a bust. I have hips. For decades, I was a walking sack of potatoes, but now I look like a woman.
In the FA program, I have found I am not alone in this disease. It is not only okay, but encouraged, to ask for help. The support of the group is one of the most gratifying gifts of this life. I always believed in God, but my relationship with my Higher Power, who is always available to me, is much stronger than ever before. There is clarity in my decision-making that was rarely there before. Honesty has more breadth and depth in my life. Thievery and cheating of any type is no longer one of my character flaws.
Intellectually, I know I am almost right sized. Emotionally, on occasions when I still feel like that fat girl with a pretty face, I take extra quiet time, call an FA compatriot, and/or get myself to a meeting. I know the Program works if I work it. First and foremost, I have to guard my abstinence so there is room for all of God’s blessings in my life.