Same Disease, Different Presentation

Last night when I was on my way home in the car I received a call from a  friend who was flabbergasted by a radio show's topic of conversation about people who are overweight. She urged me to turn on the radio and listen, which I duly did and caught the end of the segment. 

Basically what had sparked the 'call-in' conversation was the story of Kim Kardashian's brother not attending his sister's wedding due to a fall out over his weight gain and - if the media is to be believed (which is a hard one I know) - Kim told her brother he was fat and the whole family ganged up on him. (I seriously can't believe I am mentioning the Kardashian family in my blog, but there is a point to this!!)

The radio hosts of the evening time show asked listeners to call in and share their stories of being picked on by family members or anyone who considered it was embarrassing that they were overweight.  Of course there were a lot of calls and the hosts, while listening to the various answers, did interject with 'fat jokes' and derogatory comments about being fat, at the same time as making fun of Rob Kardashian (RK).

Now, while I couldn't care less today about people's opinions of me, my weight and my eating disorder, there was a time when I cared deeply and there was a time when I too would have done exactly the same as RK - disappear rather than be seen dead in public the size I was. In the world of compulsive overeating that is called isolating. 

This radio segment made me realise there's a massive misunderstanding and negative judgement that morbidly obese/fat people have to regularly endure. 

Does the world out there seriously think people like me CHOSE to be morbidly obese?  Do you think we woke up one day and set out to achieve being 200 pounds overweight? Do you actually believe that we welcomed the suffering and life threatening health complications that accompanied the extra poundage?  Do you really think that we are just lazy and greedy, or lacking in will power, weak as *ish people who couldn't care less what we look and feel like?  

I am writing to inform you in no uncertain terms - we are NONE of the aforementioned negative judgements.  

We suffer from EXACTLY THE SAME disease as the anorexic/bulimic/binge eater and we battle with the SAME emotional and mental demons that come with control or lack thereof around food.  We have the same horrific fear of food and what 'it' can do to us, yet we continue down the sad road of self sabotage, despite all the knowledge of the eating disorder's detrimental effect on us. 

Just like the Anorexic, Bulimic and Binge Eater - the Food Addict/Compulsive Overeater is compelled to indulge in their eating disorder against every screaming grain of common sense in their minds.  When we eat there is an instant triggering of negative internal dialogue and intense fear over the lack of control felt. It is utter insanity and it defies logic.  

If one of the biggest health concerns recognised in the western world is obesity and all its accompanying nasty companions WHY in society is the level of respect and concern for morbidly obese people not the same as those who suffer Anorexia/Bulimia?  

Why do we all hear 'fat jokes' but never 'skeletal jokes'? I have never heard nasty jibes about anorexic sufferers' body shape or size. I have never seen anyone pick on a person because they are too skinny. I have never known an anorexic person to be judged by society as stupid, lazy, lacking in will power or weak.  

I struggle to get my head around these questions because I know that I am exactly the same as an anorexic person when it comes to food.  I absolutely 'get' where they are coming from.  We suffer from the same disease.  

Isn't it bad enough that this media mad world drives women in particular to feel 'less than' with all those subliminal, negative messages telling us we are not okay, pushing us to strive for impossible photoshopped perfection on the pages of magazines, without crucifying one eating disorder sufferer over another because the media decides skinny is more socially acceptable than fat?    

A 600 pound morbidly obese patient is as sick as a 35 pound anorexic patient.  Both are fighting for their lives.  Both have dysfunctional relationships with food and both are suffering from a compulsion to self sabotage that will end in their death if their disease goes untreated.  

Educate yourself people: Compulsive Overeating/Anorexia Nervosa = Same Disease/Different Presentation.

Deal with How You Feel

Just recently my cousin posted on Facebook an 'oldie but goodie' photo of herself, my sisters and I taken when she visited us in Scotland many years ago.  I was either 16 or 17 in the photo that she shared and I experienced a surprising and intense emotional reaction when I saw it.   

Tears sprung to my eyes, an overwhelming sadness came over me, along with the feeling of being winded. It was extremely confronting and over the next few days I had to reflect on what was going on inside me.  I also spoke to a couple of people I know I can trust with my emotions and very soon was able to clarify exactly what was going on.  

The photo itself is a lovely memory of a great time spent with my cousin. However, 17 year old Karen in that picture had no idea whatsoever that she was beautiful, she certainly had NO idea that she was that slim - she always thought she was fat and needed to lose weight.  She was a pulsating ball of fear and insecurity and had suffered from horrendous panic attacks from the age of 14 which were still ongoing at that point in time.

Karen, Louise, Julie (back row) Claire, Nicola Angela (front row)

The photo had transported me right back to the intensity of the emotional struggle with anxiety I'd suffered when I was in my teens, causing 51 year old Karen to want to scoop that young, pretty girl up in her arms, hold her close, tell her how beautiful she was, tell her everything was going to be okay and that the nightmares she was creating in her mind were all lies.  I wanted to make all her insecurities disappear and I wanted to infuse into every cell of her being the knowledge of her self worth and perfection just because she existed. 

All young teenage girls battle with confidence and struggle with body image. I, unfortunately, went through an extremely intense period of anxiety for many years that caused me to feel a huge sense of shame at not coping with life.  I felt an absolute failure. 

It was also then that my dysfunctional relationship with food was truly cemented into my psyche.  I used food to cope with life, with the intense fear and emotions I was feeling and was instantly soothed when I ate sweet foods.   So the pattern was set; panic attack, binge eat sweet foods to cope, feel better for a while, then rinse and repeat all through my teenage years and young adult life. The addictive cycle was set; it is very easy to become addicted to something that makes you feel less anxiety and terror.

Needless to say, I sought many avenues of help and recovered from the anxiety neurosis by the time I was in my mid twenties; being a young mother helped - I had no time to have panic attacks!!  

It's clear to see that a major contributing factor to my food addiction was not dealing properly with emotional issues, feelings of shame, as well as being blind to the truth of how I looked while being totally unaware of my own self worth. 

Yet here I am today, happier than I have ever been, feeling beautiful, serene, free of fear and always aware of the lies of my ego that try to keep me 'stuck' in addiction. 

Today, when I have an emotional reaction like I had to the photo, I do not ignore it. I immediately check in with myself to find out what is going on - if I don't do this simple recovery step, I would end up relapsing into compulsive over-eating again.   That is a hell that I choose never to go back to - no matter how intense the emotions. 

I cannot impress upon you enough: deal with how you feel and you will be free from compulsive overeating one moment/day/week/month/year at a time for the rest of your life. 

An Unmanageable Life

Grappling with the concept that my life had become unmanageable due to food addiction did not sit easily with me.  It was an insult to the superwoman I saw myself as. After all, I am a Mother who, between the ages of 21-26, gave birth to four children. My youngest child has special needs. I worked part-time and full-time at different points throughout the years of child rearing. I kept house, cooked, cleaned, exercised, socialised and helped others.  In fact I was a very very busy lady, so how on earth could my life be unmanageable? How dare anyone try to tell me I don't know how to manage my life. I am Mrs Super-organiser extraordinaire!

It took a huge amount of humility and deep self reflection to understand that an unmanageable life comes in a myriad of forms and that at the height of my active disease my life most definitely was off the scale with unmanageability. 

My unmanageability was plain for all to see. In the way it was displayed on my physique. In the size of the portions I would consume. In the way I used to hide food and eat when nobody was around. In the reasons I ate: to soothe pain; to celebrate; to commiserate; to calm anxiety; to cope with stress; in eating when I didn't want to.  I continued to compulsively eat when I knew my body size was beginning to harm me. In fact, I now realise I ate to ignore the truth of my emotional dysfunction at that time. 

Insanely, I also believed that I could easily lose weight if I just put my mind to it. I bought every diet book in the world (ok a slight exaggeration, but close enough). I tried every form of exercise.  I had a crushingly low self-esteem that I hid from everyone by being gregarious, outgoing and seemingly full of life, love and laughter (I think I deserve an Oscar actually), only to get behind closed doors and fall into the black hole of my physically, emotionally and spiritually sick self. I suffered panic attacks from the age of 7 until 27 and ate my way through that whole time to cope with the torturous terror I was feeling. I had body dysmorphia - when I was thin/normal weight I thought I was fat, when I was morbidly obese I thought I was curvy!!  I had no concept of what I actually looked like.  

For those who lived in recovery from food addiction,  the insanity of my situation was crystal clear and in order for me to survive it was of utmost importance that I began to see with the same level of clarity.  

Today I can look back with gratitude for the turmoil I experienced.  It has made me who I am today and enables me to know without a shadow of a doubt what it feels like for people that are still suffering with active food addiction. 

There are not enough words of gratitude to express how thankful I am for the recovered people in my life who extended the hand of help and friendship to me. No judgement, sneering, or put downs, only a complete understanding of how addiction was affecting my life and an offer of a better way of life with loving guidance towards the healing of that black hole in my soul.  

Choosing recovery is the most courageous and positive life changing decision I have ever made. It is also the hardest work I have ever carried out, but the benefits far outweigh one second in active compulsive eating.  Emotions are healed, spirituality is deepened, self development and awareness is a daily practice and the icing on the cake (pardon the pun) is that my physical self is now experiencing wellness and healing.  

There is no greater gift you can give yourself than allowing your recovery program to guide your life into balance and alignment for your highest good. 

Take an honest look at where your life is and decide to make the change today.  Manageability in recovery ROCKS!!! 

What's Going On???

Unlike alcoholism, drug addiction, or any of the other addictions, a food addict cannot put the substance down.  We have to eat to live, to nourish our bodies and keep healthy. It is one of the greatest challenges to continued abstinence in the recovery of food addiction; there is always the temptation to slip into not so good eating behaviours and patterns. 

One of the ways I deal with a slip is to immediately ask myself questions - what's going on Karen? What are you not paying attention to emotionally? Who are you angry with? Are you feeling stressed or anxious? Are you tired? Are you hormonal? Inevitably there will be an answer to one or more of those self posed questions.  

A slip is not relapse. A slip is going off food plan for one of your meals without planning to. A slip is finding yourself in a negative addictive thinking pattern.  A slip is buying something from the supermarket in a compulsive manner that you had not intended to buy. A slip is sitting down to eat something sweet after you've had your quota of food for the day.  A slip is eating because you are in a bad mood. A slip is when you are completely aware that you have just had a blot on the landscape of your recovery program, yet immediately get back on track. 

Relapse on the other hand is slipping, crucifying yourself for not being perfect or being able to commit 100 percent, then giving up being willing to get better and again living in active compulsion without trying to get back on track. Relapse is allowing addictive thinking to criticise you into full blown compulsive overeating in order to numb the disappointment and despair you feel at failing. 

Please remember this:  NOBODY IS PERFECT!  Slips do occur but will become less and less of an issue when you become more and more aware of your emotions and when you work your program of recovery one moment at a time. 

Are you going to give up a life of peace, serenity and abstinence from addictive eating and thinking just because you ate a candy bar that was not on your food plan? 

Hopefully you are at a stage in your recovery journey where brief moments of addiction breakthrough are immediately brought under control by admitting your slip, surrendering your thoughts and actions to your Higher Power and with a click of your fingers, you're right back on track to an abstinent life of freedom from obsession and self hate.  

Do yourself a favour, compile a list of questions ready to ask when you find yourself slipping - this will ensure your recovery comes first and you are safe from sliding down that slippery slope of compulsive overeating into full blown relapse.

Acceptance is the Key

One of the hardest battles I had in accepting I was a food addict was uttering those words. Food Addict. 

My pride was entirely embarrassed by those two words. My ego was screaming at me 'what a load of rubbish, you just need to get your head around following a food plan and exercise like a lunatic.  It is not hard to do.'  

Well, the truth of the matter is,  it's not hard to do , it's IMPOSSIBLE to do when in relapse, or in active compulsive overeating.  

I tried to avoid accepting the truth of the matter for close to half a century!! That alone should tell you the power of this disease. I fought tooth and nail to justify my compulsive food choices, with my ego kicking and screaming every step of the way on my journey. Sure I'd had many times of recovery, growth and learning, but not once had I surrendered absolutely and not once had I fully accepted the fact that I actually suffered from an addiction. 

Increasing insanity and disease ran rampant in my life as I refused to listen to the truth.  I blocked any attempts to uncover that one spot within that was stopping me from surrendering.  Then as the saying goes, '*ish got REAL'.  

I had all the head knowledge in the world about AA and OA. I knew this disease was threefold: a physical affliction with an emotional sickness and spiritual malady.  I had been trying to deal with the physical side of my addiction for what felt like an eternity.  I had sought help emotionally in the form of counsellors to see if they could help me with my food issues and spiritually I had attempted to seek the truth.  However, there always came that point where I put the brakes on, when things got too close to the bone, throwing the work I needed to do in the 'too hard to handle' basket.  That attitude is what kept the disease of addiction active in me all these years. 

Emotional and physical pain are excellent teachers; they absolutely drove me to my knees, to that point of surrender and complete acceptance of the reality of my food addiction. 

It was such a relief!!

Below is a quote from page 449 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It is one of my favourite quotes and I have changed a couple of words so it reads 'food addict' instead of alcoholic and 'abstinent' instead of sober. 

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation, some fact of my life unacceptable and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my food addiction, I could not stay abstinent. Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

Accepting myself and the fact that I suffer from the disease of food addiction without shame or fear has literally saved my life.  The disease of food addiction is a killer disease.  If I had accepted the reality of my situation earlier in my life I could have experienced peace of mind and freedom from obsession years ago. 

 

Choose surrender and acceptance earlier rather than later and save yourself a world of pain.