Meditation: Growth

This last week has been a difficult one.  My boyfriend broke up with me.  My ex-husband took my son to see his family in Texas for Easter.  But most importantly, after looking at the relationship patterns I've gravitated towards, I realized that I use love as a drug - and I'm referring to that Hallmark, Valentine's Day kind of love, not the truly deep and intimate kind of love.  When things get bad, I move from one relationship into another - keeping a casual distance, putting the new person on a pedestal, and waiting for things to collapse before starting the process immediately over again. 

This is just one more outlet for my disease to keep me from coping with life, and so I have a cross addiction that I am now dealing with.  Which means I spent this week managing an empty house and a breakup without food, without alcohol, and without the lure of seeking out a new romantic partner.

Being without my son is always tough, but on Easter it was particularly difficult.  So last night I decided that it was time to do a guided meditation.  When working on my Second Step, I learned a number of guided meditations designed to help me grow closer to my Higher Power. 

My favorite of these meditations is one that involves going into your "inner temple."  The process is simple.  Lie down and get comfortable.  Picture that there is a light (pick a relaxing color, mine is a teal color but yours can be anything you like) that is moving from your feet and filling your body as it goes up to your head.  Once you are in a safe little cocoon of relaxation, let yourself drift up and out of your body.  You are going up and up to the clouds.  Ahead you see a big fluffy white cloud and your cocoon stops there and you step out onto that cloud.  Ahead of you is your temple.

The meditation goes on to tell you to approach the temple and go inside.  You let your mind wander and just watch what you do in there - it's like semi-active dreaming. 

It's up to you to picture what your temple looks like.  My temple used to always be a Greek ruin with a few tendrils of ivy going up the side.  The inside had broken floors - it looked like a place that had not seen a human being in centuries (if not longer).  There was a lone stone altar in the center, but nothing else.  I have always loved my meditation trips to my temple because I thought it was beautiful and special. (A bit of foreshadowing . . .)

I couldn't seem to get into my teal cocoon this time.  Instead I felt like I was being sucked into a black hole.  I was trapped inside this little popcorn kernel shaped shell, curled into fetal position - and it was like this that I went up to my clouds.  I thought about stopping the meditation and starting over, but figured I'd go with it.

This time when I went into my temple, it was like a lush botanical garden.  The structure was the same - the same pillars and vines, but this time the whole place was surrounded by lush plants and hanging vines of flowers. The floors were old and worn, still ancient, but they had that well-kept look that you see in old cathedrals in Europe.  My stone altar was still in the center, but it had a pristine white table cloth on it, with candles and flowers.  On one side of the altar there now was a throne where I knew my Higher Power sat.  Instead of a place of decay, everything was pristine - as though it was millennia old, but had been loved every single day of its long, long life.

Looking around my temple, I realized that the changes I was seeing were a reflection of my growth in program.  I am no longer a barren, broken down human being.  My temple before was very pretty, but this place was beautiful beyond compare.  I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I was given this chance to see the changes in myself.  After how rough this week has been, I'd been feeling like I had made no progress whatsoever - and yet here was the proof to the contrary.

I looked around and didn't see my Higher Power anywhere, but somehow I knew he wasn't far.  I looked down and in my hand there was the little kernel with me inside, and I realized it was a seed.  Down at the base of the throne there was a missing stone with a plot of really rich smelling soil.  I'm not much of a gardener (as my poor half-dead vegetable garden can attest) but if I were a plant, that is the kind of soil I'd want to live in!  So that's exactly what I did.  I knelt down and planted the seed that was me, and stepped back.  I knew that I had planted my seed in a safe place and that my Higher Power was there to watch me grow.  I didn't have to worry about water or sunshine - my Higher Power had that part.

I knelt down next to the plot of dirt and told my seed-self, "I know it hurts now, and I know growing is a struggle.  But keep fighting, because it will all be worth it once you break the surface and see the sunshine."  I was picturing my seed-self pushing against the walls of the seed, breaking out and struggling against the dirt to push up and to the sunshine. I realized that the feelings I'm having now are just that - I'm pushing through the dirt trying to reach the sunshine.

I came to after that and felt this sense of peace.  I know days are going to be difficult, but just for today I can have faith that the sunshine is going to be worth it.

I don't know if these meditations are just my subconscious giving me the information I need or a way for my Higher Power to reach  me, but either way: message gratefully received.

Donor Organ

We are like recipients of a donor organ.  Ours was defective so we needed a new one.  The only catch is that we need to constantly be taking medicine to keep our bodies from rejecting our new organ.  In fact, we have nine medicines we need to take: 1) a plan of eating, 2) sponsorship, 3) meetings, 4) telephone, 5) writing, 6) literature, 7) action plan, 8) anonymity, 9) service.

Do You Know Who You Are?

I watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy that posed three questions.  The patient was a man who had been paralyzed from neck down in an accident.  The doctor was asking if he wished to be taken off of life support as he would never be able to live without machines to breathe for him.  To confirm that he wished to be taken off of the machines he was asked three questions:

Do you know who you are?

Do you know what's happened to you?

Do you want to live this way?

It shocked me just how appropriate these questions were for a compulsive overeater.  Really, for any addict.  Before program the answer to all those questions was a resounding no. 

I didn't know who I was.  Indeed, I spent nearly every waking moment trying to avoid figuring that out.  I ate, I drank, I played excessive video games, I read, I did anything and everything to not think about who I was.  

I didn't know what had happened to me.  I woke up one day and I was 305 pounds.  Sure I saw myself getting larger and larger, but somehow it still snuck up on me.  I kept expecting that tomorrow would be different - tomorrow I'd find the will to change.  Tomorrow I'd eat healthy and exercise.  I'd suddenly know how to act and be like other people.  But tomorrow never came.  So I got a gastric bypass.  I lost the weight but it came right back on.  And again tomorrow never came.

The only thing I knew before program was that I didn't want to live this way.  I couldn't live this way.  I was hopeless.  I was desperate.  I was completely unwilling to surrender my life and will to the care of a power greater than myself.  It took the complete and total annihilation of my willingness to live before I was able to put down the reigns and hand over control. 

That day I waved the white flag and got a sponsor.  That's when the miracle happened.  How different today is.  I went from 305 pounds down to the 169 pounds I weighed today (and I'm still losing).  I went from a size 24 to a size 10.  A size XXXL to a size M.  I went from constantly depressed and angry to a genuinely happy, optimistic person.  My life has never been better.

I now can confidently answer all three of those questions with a yes.  I discovered that the answer was surrender.  Sweet, simple surrender.

Full of Feelings - And Right-Sizing Them

I've had a bit of an emotional week.  After much prayer and meditation, I realized that I needed to have a frank discussion with my boyfriend about what being with an addict entails.  I talked to him about the possibility of relapse, and what that could look like. 

Being a compulsive overeater, my relapse looks very different from that of the alcoholic or the drug addict.  I am killing myself every bit as much as those addicts when I am in my disease.  The difference is that I'm doing so in a quiet way that one simply doesn't talk about.  Sure the concerned family member might note I had gained weight, or someone might ask if I was still going to meetings.  But ultimately it isn't the kind of addiction that you can get court-ordered to do something about.

I asked my boyfriend if he was willing to stay knowing that relapse would always be a risk.  He knows I work a strong program.  He knows I am putting program first.  He knows that I intend to do everything in my power to stay in the rooms, because that's where life is.  But after having a slip, I knew that the only way I could continue with him was knowing that he wouldn't suddenly be blind-sided if I relapsed after we were married with children. 

He took my question very seriously, and has been thinking about it all week.  It isn't so much the prospect of me being obese that concerns him (while he wouldn't enjoy that aspect of relapse).  What concerns him is that he will be watching me kill myself and be unable to do anything to stop it.  In fact, if he tries to interfere, he may be hindering my recovery.  That is the aspect that has him concerned.  In his mind, that is a lot of responsibility and potential conflict.  So he has not ended things, but he is taking time to truly think things over.

I appreciate that he is taking this seriously, because it is something that I take seriously.  But being left in suspense is an uncomfortable and frightening place.  I took the action that I felt was in the best interest of my program.  Food had gotten loud and I realized it was my anxiety over how my relationship might interfere with my program.  So I did what was necessary to resolve that anxiety.  In the process I created a different anxiety. 

Today I was feeling that perhaps it would be better to simply end the relationship.  It would give me certainty and end that fear and that powerlessness that I'm so uncomfortable with.  I would choose loneliness and isolation instead - those are feelings that I'm far more at home with. 

Then I learned that my friend lost his battle with cancer, leaving his wife and their four children behind.  Boy didn't that put my life into perspective.  I'm in a huff because my boyfriend is taking time to consider whether he wants to take our relationship to a more serious level.  Yet my friend's wife is mourning the loss of the love of her life.  I will see my boyfriend on Friday.  She will never see her husband again. 

It was a very humbling and I felt ashamed to realize how ungrateful I was for the blessings in my life.  I have a relationship that for today is very wonderful and beautiful, and I was willing to throw it away because of fear.  I might lose him later so I'll throw him away today. . . when there are countless widows who would do anything to get just one more day with their loved ones.  It is entirely possible that my boyfriend will tell me he wants to part ways when I see him this Friday.  If that happens, I will wish him the best and thank my Higher Power for the time I had with him.  But to throw away the possibility of a future with him simply because I was uncomfortable with the uncertainty is ridiculous.

So for a while I stopped thinking about my problems.  I started thinking about those things I was grateful for.  I spent time getting my emotions shrunk down to the right sizes for the situation. 

Then I spent time mourning my friend, because he deserved to be mourned.  I sat down alone on my sofa and I held a small conversation with him.  I thanked him for the things he brought to my life, apologized for anything I could think of that might warrant an amends (and then a few things that probably didn't).  I sat with a Kleenex box and said my good bye.  Then I moved on to work on my program.  I feel very keenly the void my friend will leave in my life, but I know that I must accept the things I cannot change. Sadly, death is one of those.

Working the Vowels

So I saw something great on MrSponsorpants that was wonderful and wanted to share it here!  This is only part of his post on working the 10th Step

 

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So the quick outline that is both about what I'm doing right and what need to do differently is this:

A, E, I, O, U, and 'sometimes Y' -- Just like we learned the vowels in school. It stands for:

A - A for [Abstinence].

What am I doing/did I do to address my [compulsive overeating] today. Go to a meeting? Talk with my sponsor? Work on an inventory?

E - E for Exercise.

The AA Slogan H.A.L.T., (Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired), just underscores how keeping our body chemistry balanced helps us maintain our emotional and spiritual equilibrium. So E is for Exercise, as in, did I do any today? If not, then I note that down (and I mean real exercise) so that I can over the course of a week look back and go, "Wow, I had planned on doing "X" every day but I really only did it twice this week..." -- or, on the other hand maybe note that "Wow, it's Friday, and I have done real exercise every day this week. Go Me!"

Now look, noting if I did or did not do any exercise is a bit of a stretch to call a part of "continuing to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it", I know that -- but honestly, I've found when I keep my body chemistry balanced (H.A.L.T. and the exercise piece) then I'm more able to be on my game for the "promptly admit it" part, and the "spot check throughout the day."

I - I for me, myself.

What did I do to take care of myself today? This is really broad, and sometimes nothing comes to mind one way or another, but for me this is about healthy self care -- setting boundaries, etc. -- beyond the straight-up 12 Step work in the "A" above. For example, did I take care of myself by making sure I took a real lunch break at work, or did I not put off buying that card and getting it in the mail so I'm not all panicky, or did I make a special effort not to deflect compliments, or was I especially good about keeping to my mediation routine ... anything substantive that underscores the "not only in Red Ink" part of my daily inventory.

O - for Others -- where was I of service?

And for me I regard this as 'Where was I of 12 Step-type service'? Not some bullshit "I didn't yell at any salesclerks today" stuff -- more along the lines of meeting with sponsees, or calling some Program peeps to see how they're doing, or performing my service commitment at a meeting, that kind of thing.

U - Uncover -- what is that thing that I don't want to think about?

I need to write it here. It's not a promise that I will immediately do something about it, but it's about not sliding into denial or anything. Like if I need to call the IRS and I haven't, or I keep putting the scary bills in a drawer and not opening them, or something. I just note it here, so that eventually it's in my consciousness enough that I can become willing to do something about it.

'and Sometimes Y' - for "Yahoo!" (the emotion, not the web service) as in, something especially fun that I'm looking forward to -- the hot date, the concert, the theater tickets -- This is the thing that makes life fun, and can be a building block to some gratitude for the abundance in my life.

So in practice what I've done is simply written them down the left side of a page, "A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y" and then written the 'answer' in next to them -- sometimes I've done it in the morning as kind of a To Do List, left it on my dresser and gone about my day, and then wrote it again the same night to see if I followed through. I like this because it covers the "whole" me but has a real focus on life through a 12 Step lens. It's a little bit "cutesy" I admit it. Works though.

Finally, the aeiou thing is not in the literature specifically, but I've used it on and off forever because I think it encompasses the whole spirit of the 10th Step, the good and bad, etc. Especially once you are in the real habit of 'cleaning as you go' (the 'Spot Check' part of the 10th Step) and don't have a lot of mental, emotional or behavioral trash to clean up at the end of every day.

We Have Recovered

Working with my sponsor, I have made the first run through Section I of the Big Book and I'm now making my second round.  At first I believed it would be a futile exercise - I read it carefully the first time through. . . what did she think I was missing?!?  But I didn't argue - mine is not to wonder why, mine is but to do or die. [Literally.]

I went through the preface, nodding with my great wisdom born of a whopping 38 days of abstinence!  Then I got to the first sentence of the Foreword to the First Edition and it stopped me cold.

"We of [Overeater's] Anonymous . . . have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."  I am not recovered yet.  I am far from recovered.  But when I first read that sentence I glossed over it.  It meant nothing to me - I wanted to get to the meat.  I wanted the answers.  But I missed the first and most important answer of all: this malady is only seemingly hopeless. 

I had envisioned a pitched battle with this disease that would go on the rest of my life, with abstinence held together only by duct tape and a bent paper clip MacGyver style.  I never imagined that in less than a month the miracle would happen.  I honestly didn't understand what "the miracle" meant.  In my mind I thought it was just the weight loss.  It never occurred to me that something actually miraculous would occur!

The miracle is clarity of mind.  The insanity that rages constantly in my mind tuned down the volume from a 10 to a 1.  It is still there, and Marion - my disease - is constantly lurking and waiting for the opportunity to jump back into dominance.  But for now, she is silent. 

I was right in a sense - there is a pitched battle going on for my life, and Marion wants to kill me.  But this is only a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.  If I follow directions, work the steps, and keep coming back she is going to be held at bay.  And there is absolutely a pitched battle going on, but it isn't being held together by duct tape and a bent paper clip.  It is being silently waged in the background, and as long as I make sure my Higher Power's voice and my sponsor's voice are coming through loud and clear it's going to stay that way.

That is the miracle.  Thank God.

The Oatmeal Wars

When I did my thirty day weigh in, I discovered I'd lost 16.6 pounds.  My husband, seeing the results, announced that he would follow my diet as well to lose some of the weight he has gained.  I am obviously supportive.  In the past two years he has gained thirty pounds, and he was already about thirty pounds overweight then.  He went from a size L to a size 2X. 

The problem is, his interpretation of "follow my diet" is have me prepare his meals for him.  There are some aspects I don't mind.  For instance, I was already packaging up the chicken and rice into correct sized servings.  It was not difficult to place them together in a tupperware container for his lunch.  (Although the principle that he is unwilling to measure his own meat and rice does bother me.)

But he won't make oatmeal in the morning.  The process of oatmeal is as follows: add 2 cups water to 1 cup oatmeal in a bowl.  Microwave 2 minutes. Stir.  Microwave 1 minute.  Stir.  Let it cool. Add banana. Eat.  That is too much for him to manage in the morning.  Instead, he wants to drive to McDonald's and get an Egg McMuffin.  I will agree - an Egg McMuffin is far tastier than unseasoned oatmeal sans milk.  But he acts as though he is saving huge quantities of time by waiting in line for the drive-thru.  It takes about ten minutes to get the food and get to work.  He is not saving any time by avoiding the oatmeal, and he is spending more money than he needs to (and we are most certainly on a tight budget).

The part that upsets me about this is how much pressure he has placed on my shoulders to make sure he has his food.  If I don't have his lunch packed for him and I don't have his oatmeal made for him, then he's going to not be able to follow the diet (heaven forbid he should drive four blocks to El Pollo Loco at lunch to get his own chicken) and will continue to gain weight and move closer and closer to the diabetes that runs in his family.

So I will be praying to my higher power tonight to help with this resentment.  I am going to see this as my service to him, and part of making amends for all the times I am snippy with him.  Hopefully that helps.

Jealousy

Last night I made a recipe my sponsor gave me for chicken and rice.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to eat a plate before it was time to go to my meeting so I let my husband graze and grabbed some El Pollo Loco.  This morning, I put together my pre-measured plate of food and discovered how incredibly delicious the chicken and rice plate is!

Then I realized my husband was having this chicken and rice for lunch and felt an insane surge of jealousy.  Yes, I was jealous of my husband for getting to eat the exact same chicken and rice that was sitting in front of me.  I stopped a moment, recognized the crazy, and had a good chuckle.

Red Light, Green Light and the Inventory

When I first came into OA, I grabbed a sponsor my first meeting.  The first thing she discussed was making an inventory of red light, yellow light, and green light foods.  Red light foods were those which I knew I could not eat safely.  Yellow light foods were those that I would have to be cautious around.  Green light foods were those foods I could eat without fear of triggering compulsive overeating.

A few weeks ago I purchased a workbook at my Thursday night meeting.  I turned to the first page and read the prompt before deciding to wait for instruction from my sponsor to begin this workbook.  But the past weeks I have been thinking about that prompt, and for me the thoughts don't really go away until I let them go (i.e. write them down).

The prompt reads: "In OA we are encouraged to take a good look at our compulsive eating, obesity, and the self-destructive things we have done to avoid obesity - the dieting, starving, over-exercising, or purging."  Here is a First-Step inventory of my compulsive eating history.

This isn't going to be a full response to that prompt, but this prompt made me think about why my work with my first sponsor was doomed to fail.  Everything is a red or yellow light food!  I have managed to binge at least once on all of the following [and by binge I mean overeat to an extreme degree often resulting in physical illness or extreme discomfort]:

Meats
grilled chicken breast
chicken/turkey cold cuts
bologna
hot dogs
sausage
(turkey) bacon
steak
ground beef
ground turkey
meatballs
beef jerky
ground lamb
lamb/chicken/beef kebab

Dairy
cheese [everything from goats cheese and brie to cheddar and pepper jack]
(Greek) yogurt
ice cream [not sure that should really count as dairy]
cottage cheese
sour cream [have sat down with a spoon to eat this before]
cream cheese [although I did add some sugar to it before I ate it]
eggs [scrambled, poached, over medium, hard boiled, medium boiled]

Breads/Grains
All [everything from bread to oatmeal to falafel and more]

Fruits
apples [which was a terrible idea since I am allergic to them]
(dry) apricots
avocado
bananas
blueberries
cherries
coconut
grapes
honeydew
mandarin
cantaloupe [also an allergically bad idea - I thought my mouth would never stop itching]
watermelon
nectarine
orange
peach
pear
plums
pineapple
salsa [of various origins - yum]
strawberry
tangerine

Vegetables
artichoke [that was a painful binge. . .]
black beans
chickpeas
green beans
kidney beans
lentils
pinto beans
soy beans
peas
broccoli
cabbage [another terrible idea intestinally speaking]
cauliflower [amazingly tasty with lemon juice]
celery [an unpleasant binge since I hate celery - but I ate it all anyway]
corn
okra
yellow & orange bell pepper
pepperochinis [that was some awful heart burn]
beets
carrots
pickled turnips [so tasty, but so painful in large quantities]
spinach
cucumber
zucchini
pumpkin
potato
sweet potato
yam
water chestnuts

Sweets
All

I have even binged on juices, soda, energy drinks, coffee, tea, and once drank so much water that I threw my electrolites completely out of whack.

That isn't to say I even like all the foods I've binged on.  While a lot of my binging is related to the foods I like to eat, it isn't always about the food.  Sometimes it is about that feeling of being painfully full - full to the point of vomiting.  As in the above-mentioned celery binge, it was about inflicting punishment upon myself. 

A food plan based upon avoiding trigger foods is nearly impossible when everything is a trigger.  That's why my own food plan - eating virtually the same thing every day - works for me.  There is no need to think or plan or be at the mercy of my binges.  I eat my food and leave it at that.  In the simplicity I [usually] find peace.

The Running Dream

I have a recurring dream that I'm running.  It isn't a bad dream, and I'm not running to or from anything.  I can't say how long I've been running or when I'm going to stop - I'm running for the sake of running.  The day is perfect - sunny but not too bright, and the temperature is just right for running.  My muscles don't ache, my lungs fill effortlessly and painlessly with air and I'm in that groove where I can run forever. Whenever I have this dream I feel completely free and at peace.   I am at one with the world around me and the universe.

I remember having this feeling when I was younger and ran cross country.  You get to a point where running is its own form of meditation.  You don't care about how fast you're going or how far you're going to run.  I used to just run until I felt I'd worked out the problem in my mind - not consciously because I never really thought during my runs.  The only sounds in my running utopia are the sounds of my breathing and heart beat going in time with the slap of my shoes on the pavement.  And in that special place of quiet, I found find my center and suddenly my problems would unravel.

Abstinence feels a bit like that when I've had a good day.  But after having that dream I look forward to the time when my sponsor tells me to start exercising again, because I miss the run. 

The running dream is my favorite dream.  It always seems to come when I most need the peace and spiritual healing it always seems to bring.  To which all I can say is, "thanks God, I needed that."

Chapter 1 - Bill's Story - page 1

"Here was love, applause,war; moments sublime with intervals hilarious.  I was part of life at last, and in the midst of the excitement I discovered [food]." - page 1

Growing up I remember my mother's valiant efforts to teach me reasonable eating habits.  Considering that she had her own issues with food, this was more a situation of the blind leading the blind.  Not that she is a compulsive overeater by any means, but she has had a conflicted relationship with food as long as I can remember.  Food was her great love and her great enemy, as she often showed with her almost religious dedication to exercise and dieting.  There wasn't a fad diet or crazy medicine she hadn't tried to help her fight what she saw as her own personal battle of the bulge.  That she never got beyond what someone might call a "normal" weight never mattered.  It was the fear of obesity that rode her back like a pitchforked demon.

So it was with a sense of wonder and awe that I discovered my first weeks in college that there was no one watching me.  No one cared what I ate or didn't eat.  I could binge on Fruit Loops for dinner and no one would even blink!  I had a cafeteria with a wealth of junk food round the clock to cater to my whims and fancies.  I was an adult with my own choices and mistakes to be made, and I discovered food in all its glutenous glory.  I slept at insane hours, shirked my classes as it pleased me, ate what I pleased, spent time with whomever I pleased - I was free at last.

That first semester I gained my freshman fifteen and then some.  I was out the gates and heading headlong into disaster with a smile on my face.

"I was very lonely and again turned to [food]." - page 1

All my life I have had a feeling that there is some part of me that's missing.  It's this gaping hole inside that I have tried to fill with success, love, excitement, sex, food, and even pain during my stint as a cutter. 

I can't say I've gone more than a week without some love interest or another since I was fourteen years old.  In those times when I didn't have some romance to moon over I was despondent.  I would starve myself, vomit up whatever I ate, and exercise like a fiend until I finally attracted a new boyfriend.  And then I would wait until the new rush passed before finding someone new, wait until the new relationship was a guarantee, and then leap between boyfriends.  I stayed with men I was no longer interested in so I would have someone there until I found the replacement because the thought of being alone was too terrible.

When I had my son, I felt like that missing piece had been filled and said "ah ha! This is at last the source of my problem!  I was missing my baby and never even knew it!" With that I promptly quit OA and went on to live my life as a normal person. But nine months later I was back in the program again.  My son does fill my life in ways that I never dreamed possible, but the fact remained that when he was in bed that gaping chasm would open up once more to swallow me whole.  Then I would turn to food once more to help comfort me.

But during those times when I didn't have someone to distract me from the loneliness I would eat and eat and eat.  I would go to multiple drive-thrus, ordering huge quantities of food until I had enough to feed a reasonable person for days.  I would even order extra drinks so that people at the restaurants would think I was ordering for multiple people.  But something tells me that a nearly 300 pound woman ordering multiple burgers, fries, onion rings, and deserts plus a few drinks wasn't going to fool them - especially if they happened to see the three other bags of fast food sitting on my other side.

So I picked food to be my solace all the while hiding away in my lonely little apartment so no one could see me eat away my loneliness.  The bigger I got, the more I turned to food - relationship or no relationship - to ease the emptiness inside.  Even after having had a gastric bypass I'd order food like before and then eat it slowly until all of it was inside my stomach.  I was never able to gain back all my weight, but it wasn't from lack of trying.  I would eat to the point of vomiting, clear my stomach, and then eat again in an unending cycle of binge and loathing. 

I would hate myself before I even started the binge, dread the feelings of misery that would result as I took each bite, but was completely powerless to stop myself. So even as I ordered the food I felt that sense of dread and self-hate, and wished I could just stop those words from coming out of my mouth.   But it was like I was a horrified passenger, along for the ride in my own personal never-ending nightmare.

"I fancied myself a leader . . . . My talent for leadership, I imagined, would place me at the head of vast enterprises which I would manage with the utmost assurance." - page 1

Feeling ugly as a child, I had to find another avenue for self-worth.  To that end, I focused on education as my key to making my family proud of me.  I was blessed that in high school and even in my undergraduate years I was able to excel in honors courses with little hard work.  It was the best of all worlds, bringing me accolades with little real effort.  By the time I decided to go to law school, I saw no reason why this should change. 

Of course I was wrong.  The thing about being at the top of your high school class is that you are the best in your little pond.  There has been no sorting of the students to give you real competition outside of your honors and advanced placement courses.  Then you arrive at college where in theory you are with the top students from high schools around the country.  But then you finish undergraduate studies at the top of your class and believe yourself to be one of the best and the brightest.  And you are.  You are selected for a top law program in the nation and you go there expecting to glide through that program as effortlessly as before.  Except there's one hitch.  You're now among the best of the best in the universities. 

This is a rarefied group where you are no longer a unique snowflake - you are just like everyone else.  And then the real sorting comes down to who is willing to work the hardest, because everyone is of about equal intelligence.  Those who are willing to make the most sacrifices are the ones who will win out in the grade pool.

So it was that after my first semester in law school I discovered that I was in the middle of the pack and in dire need of a place for my first summer internship.  These are already difficult positions to come by - all firms expect you to find something, but no one wants to hire you!  And I then realized that I was no longer a special snowflake, and my intelligence alone was not going to get me to the top of anything.  Unused to having to work hard, I floundered and I began to drown.

My ego took a deathly blow, and with it so too did my waistband.  While I had gained ten pounds from stress that first semester, in the next two years I would go on to gain another sixty pounds.  I went to grad school wearing a size fourteen and left wearing a size 24. 

The bigger I got, the worse my job prospects, and the worse my job prospects the bigger I got.  I tried crazy diets, all liquid diets, medically supervised diets, you name it. Nothing seemed to work!  I dieted and exercised like a fiend, and I don't really recall actually breaking the diets.  I could have sworn that I was giving it my all - exercising what I thought was herculean willpower.  But nothing helped.

I can still remember the day I went to the doctor at age 24 and heard that I would be dead by age 30 unless I got bariatric surgery.  I was reactive hypoglycemic and had what they called Metabolic Syndrome X.  Even if I was able to control my eating, my body was so broken, they said, that I was going to be unable to sustain meaningful weight loss without surgical intervention.  So it was with great remorse that I researched and ultimately had a rou-en y gastric bypass.

God and the Willingness to be Willing

Today I sat in on a phone meeting that I normally would not have attended because I am going to be having [abstinent] dinner with family friends.  So it came as a surprise that the meeting topic was something that had been on my mind all day: the willingness to be willing.

To go back a step, I want to talk a bit about my abstinence.  I love my sponsor, and I love my program.  When I came into program this second time I wanted to be in the driver's seat.  I saw the program as a tool that I could use in building my own recovery.  But after 2 months of being abstinent with my own program and not seeing any improvement, I realized that I couldn't do this alone.

So I told myself I couldn't just wait for the right sponsor to drop into my lap.  I would pick up the first sponsor I could and just run with it until I found my perfect sponsor.  The very next meeting I attended, my sponsor's close friend was the speaker.  I listened to his story and thought he was really wonderful.  He had so many good, helpful things to share.  And my sponsor, who was present to support her friend, stood up to identify herself as a person who sponsors.  It was perfect timing.  The best way to describe it is that I got good vibes from her.  She was lovely, slender, older than me (but not by much), and I just had a natural inclination to like her (and have since discovered that she is warm, loving, supportive, and funny as well - I hit sponsor gold).  My gut instinct said "yes please."  So I approached her at the break and she started to tell me a bit about her program, promising to go over it the next day with me on the phone.

When I heard just how strict my abstinence program would be, my first thought was complete and utter horror.  I didn't want to hand over control!  I wanted someone who I would be accountable to, not someone who wanted to run the show!  I wasn't ready for this, and my husband wasn't ready for the craziness to start right before our vacation.  So I put it off until we got back.

Knowing I'd be starting fresh at day 1 as a beginner, I went on that vacation and thought "what the hell, screw my abstinence.  I don't get credit for it anyway!" (Because, of course, abstinence only counts if someone is watching. . .)  And I went wild.  It was the last hurrah of last hurrahs.  I ate myself silly and managed to gain nearly ten pounds that week.  By the time I got back, I was finally defeated.  I'd been miserable letting my disease drive, and I didn't know how I could stop!  I needed help and I was finally ready to surrender.  The phrase "willing to go to any length" suddenly had real meaning for me: I would do anything to not live in the state of compulsive overeating torture one more day.

It turns out that my sponsor is exactly what I needed.  I discovered that surrendering my food to her was the only way I would find sanity.  My sponsor arrived in my life at the exact moment I needed her, in the exact manner I needed her to, and with the exact program I needed.  It was thinking about her that I was able to make the connection to God.  I'd always had a notion that a God was out there, but I'd never felt he took any particular interest in individuals.  But realizing the serendipity of meeting my sponsor, I suddenly knew that God had put her there for me to find.  He'd heard my prayer and he'd answered it just when I needed it most.  He knew what and when and how - and He made it happen just right.

Well fast forward through seventeen blissful abstinent days living on the pink cloud and I am speaking to a beloved family friend.  She is desperate to return to program, and she told me how she needs a sponsor.  Well, she asked me about my program, so I told her what my days are like.  Immediately she began to go through the same objections that rose to my mind: she didn't want to hand over the steering wheel.  She wanted to be driving her own recovery.  But that wasn't true - she wanted to have a reasonable abstinence, just a different one from my own.

So when I left her house I made a call to my sponsor and my three outreach people, leaving a message to ask them to keep an eye out for a sponsor with the characteristics my friend was looking for.  Even if she never picks up the phone or doesn't pick up the phone to call the people I find for her any time in the next X number of months or years, I'll have done my best to help her find the help she wants.  I also gave her the information on how to find online and phone meetings [since she is often too depressed to leave the house].

But the first thought that went through my head was that she was not willing to go to any lengths for her recovery.  She wasn't willing to be willing.  And this thought has been stewing with me ever since.  Just like no two people are the same, no two recoveries are either.  So who am I to doubt her.  Maybe she is ready, she just needs something different than I do.  There is nothing wrong with that.  There is no one right answer.  As yesterday's Voices of Recovery pointed out, the problem is within.  No one has the answers, they don't even know the question.

I am far too ready to look into other people's lives and other people's recoveries and think about what it is they should be doing.  But I am not in charge of their lives or their recoveries.  That's God's job, not mine.  There was a great quote from my Thursday night meeting:  "The only thing I need to know about God is I'm not Him."

So while I'm thinking that she isn't willing to surrender, that her ego is going to get in the way unless she finds that willingness - I realized that I am showing that same ego I was internally accusing her of displaying.  Here I stand with my whopping seventeen days of abstinence feeling so high and mighty and proud of myself.  Like I have all the answers and have found the cure.  In reality, I should be the one eating humble pie!

Listening to the readings in that meeting tonight, as well as the shares, helped me realize what was bothering me about the situation with my friend.  It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her, it was that there was something wrong with me.  I thought I was doing good by trying to be of service to her - helping her locate a potential sponsor and find meetings.  Being supportive of her and explaining that there are many ways of finding abstinence, not just my own.  But deep down I was being prideful.  It was my pride that was making the gesture feel hollow, not the doubts about her ability or willingness to accept the help.  My sponsor assigned supplemental readings to deal with my issues with my in-laws, but it applied to this problem as well.

What keeps striking me is the random luck of my meetings.  It always seems like these meetings cover exactly the subjects I am needing that day.  It just makes me realize that God is talking to me, I just need to stop talking and listen.

I realized that I'm willing to let God run the show in my own recovery, but I need to be willing to be willing to let God do the rest of his job.  Because if I can't manage my own life, I have no business managing anyone elses life either!

A REALLY Bad Day

Today was a major BAD day.  It really reminded me why I need to be in OA, because today the disease brought on the serious crazy. 

 

I slept later than I wanted to, which meant I didn't have time to get work done. Which isn't the end of the world - I can do it tomorrow - but it means I can't start researching tomorrow. Then we went to lunch and ate at the restaurant, which meant I had to split my food and not have it as my salad. Again, not the end of the world. We came home and put the baby down for a nap, but he only slept for half an hour because he pooped. So we had a cranky and grumpy baby the rest of the evening while we tried to go grocery shopping.

We went first to order his birthday cake. The woman apparently was a perfectionist, because she rewrote the order on 4 slips before it was "right". All the while I am staring at the bakery display. And this isn't your usual grocery store bakery display. There are a TON of cookies, mini-cakes, little tuxedo strawberries with dark chocolate buttons, and all sorts of cookies I have no idea what the names are but that look HEAVENLY. And I'm trying to order a cake that my husband says, "are you really not going to eat his cake?" - "No sweetheart, I'm not" - "Not either day?" - "No, not either day" - "But what about the other candy, are you really not going to eat that either?" - "No, my love, I'm not eating any of that stuff." - "But they make Lebanese food for Christmas, you love that! Are you going to be ok?" - and at this stage I wanted an ice pick so I could start stabbing him repeatedly with it. My poor husband was oblivious to the fact that this was going to upset me.

The baby is fussing so we grabbed a few of the items at Gelsons - although they didn't have the seasoning - they didn't even have a Latin food section! - and then I was looking at their chicken display and it was obscene how much they were charging. And I started getting that claustrophobic feeling, and my husband is standing WAY in my space bubble the whole time. This meant that while I'm trying to read labels and find things, I have a baby smacking me in the face and pulling my hair and him breathing down my neck nagging me to just grab corn tortillas. I'm trying to make sure there isn't any sugar in them - and he wants to go.

I just wanted to SCREAM! We go order dinner because I am now starving and everywhere I look there is junk food, it seems. So we go get the next meal, even though I haven't even gotten to finish my salad yet [I turned what was left from lunch into a salad]. We bring it home and the baby goes to bed. Now I am just frazzled and while I was ok with the little things going wrong, when I take a sip of my supposedly light lemonade and it is regular I about broke down and cried.

I tried to stay calm, so I put down the lemonade and went in and got a diet Lipton green tea. I would drink that instead. Problem solved. So I made my salad while my husband put the baby down to sleep and proceeded to mix my lunch remainders in with the dinner. Good - now it is all together and I can work on my food.

I sit down and locate the next phone meeting - it was set to start in 6 minutes. Perfect. I am listening to an amazing speaker and loving my meeting. And then I start getting booted from the call. Of course, being already in crazy mode, I start to take this personally. I was booted around nine times before I finally got in and was able to stay in. I don't know what was wrong? I was on mute, so it wasn't like I was doing anything special. I mute the line on their side AND I mute my side as well just to be safe! So now my great meeting is now ruined for me because I am feeling like I was getting picked on. Oh, and I was terrified that the leader was my boss because he sounded just like him and had the same name. Thankfully it wasn't him, but I spent a good chunk of that meeting not sure if I should slink out and wait for the next phone session.

 

I was sad that my meeting didn't lift me up like usual. So I picked up the phone and made my outreach calls. All answering machines. I even called a few people from my We Care Phone List - same thing. I gave up on the calls and told myself that I was being irrational, and that I was responsible for my mood. I should be proud of myself for following my instructions and staying on plan. But I wasn't.

 

I realize I was being vile to my husband and snapping at him at the grocery store. So I apologize. The baby wakes up from his evening nap and we get bundled up to walk him around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights while he drinks a bottle. My husband starts complaining about how this one thing hurts - and I get so annoyed because he whines and complains about aches and pains all the time. If he has the sniffles it is like the world has come to an end and he tells me "I feel sick" in misery every ten minutes. Except that I've listened to these whines and complaints for two years every single day.

So I am biting my cheek to keep my mouth shut. I have tried to get him into the doctor, but he just says "oh, this doctor at a walk in place didn't help me when I told him I hurt my shoulder" so he won't go see a doctor who specializes in the types of injuries he has. Meanwhile the fact that I have torn cartilage in both my knees, arthritis in my hands and feet, two blown discs in my back, and adhesions in my abdomen that all cause me pain on a daily basis rises up to the front of my thoughts. And you know what I don't do? Complain to him about them. He knows I have these problems but he'll forget unless they're really bad - why? Because I keep it to myself. And it isn't a martyrdom issue. I simply don't see the point in harping on it when there's nothing to be done about it.

 

So I get home with knees that feel like there's broken glass inside of them, my abdomen feeling like someone is repeatedly stabbing me, and listening to him whine about an ache in his shoulder. The baby has had the bottle and the dogs are now pleased that they've had their walk. The baby goes up to bed and we proceed to watch television.

I make my evening oatmeal and it isn't the kind of oats I like. I tried this rolled oats thing that doesn't really gel together into oatmeal. It's more like having Smacks cereal without the sugar/flavor. In water. And then my husband makes himself a few slices of sourdough toast. And when I give it a longing look he then takes a big bite and goes "mmmm it's delicious" - and proceeds to tell me it is revenge for me being snippy in the grocery store. I was within a millimeter of punching him in the face. And when he sees I am genuinely upset, he says "I was just teasing you, what's wrong?" Like he even needs to ask.

And then, he proceeds to talk through the whole TV show. He knows that is like nails on chalk board for me. Most nights I pause and stare at him, so he eventually gets the point and stops. But tonight I was just not able to be calm about it. I knew if I paused I would yell at him, and I didn't want to yell at him.  So I sit and I stew.  I drank water because I wanted to eat that sourdough bread so desperately.  So of course I had to pee constantly.

 

Then we are going to get ready for bed and he starts up one of our repeating fights.  The problem is that he is epileptic and can't remember a lot of what happened while I was pregnant.  So he starts going off on how the baby made him sick.  And I remind him that his insistence on not taking his medicine - against his doctor's instructions - is why he got so sick.  And he argued with me that the doctor didn't go against it.  And I just stared at him like he'd gone mad. 

 

Then he got angry at me because I didn't agree with him.  I am actually able to give him written proof of the doctor's instructions, but he is getting mad at me because I won't tell him what he wants to hear.  But I am not going to let him say that our child is the reason he is so sick when he did it to himself!  Because I know him.  If he gets it into his mind that he is sick because of the baby I'm going to hear nonstop about how my having the baby ruined his life.  I was just floored.  But I stopped myself and didn't scream.  I didn't yell.  I just agreed to not have the conversation since he was getting angry.

 

And he wanted to get a hug and kiss goodnight before I went downstairs to do my Big Book report to my sponsor.  I gave him a stiff hug and kiss and went downstairs feeling livid.  Because today I do not have my cool.  And even now I know it's nearly three in the morning, my baby is going to wake me up in two hours, and I'm too angry to sleep.

 

But on the positive side - I'm feeling my feelings, and I stayed on program.  I attended my meeting.  I made my outreach calls.  And when I finish this journal post, I'm going to write to my sponsor and summarize my five pages.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Inertia And Burst

The past few days I had been feeling a lot of inertia, with today being my random burst of energy and purpose.  That seems to be my pattern of late.  I spend my days in this bone-deep and crippling sensation that I am moving through water.  Even the simplest task seems astronomically daunting.  Driving to pick up my abstinent meal seems to be a nightmare.  Before starting with this abstinence there were days I simply wouldn't eat until my husband got home from work because I simply couldn't get up the energy to order pizza. 

I cared for my son, but I prayed and prayed for him to nap, and keep napping.  I called my mother to try and visit her so she could chase him and play with him between nap times. 

Today I got a lot of work done and got my Christmas cards out, which is wonderful.  But now I don't want to go to bed because I am dreading tomorrow and the return of the weight.  On those dragging days I feel like I weigh a few thousand pounds.  And I feel beyond old - I feel ancient. 

I'm going to go catch some sleep - after all the baby will wake up long before I'm ready - but I wanted to at least write a little bit.

Resentment

I attended a phone meeting today* that was discussing resentment.  There is a quote that I love that I heard in one of my face to face meetings:  "resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

I really resent my in-laws.  I am able to get along with most people and look away when people wrong me, but I can't stand these people.  I was fine with them until I had my son, and now I hate that I need to share him with these people.  Part of it is that they were raised [and raised their son] in a way that is very different from how I want to raise my child. 

My mother-in-law is a passive aggressive nightmare who second guesses everything I say.  She has given my lactose-intolerant child ice cream and told me that the doctors can't tell if a child has a problem with milk at this age.  Well, I was the one dealing with the rashes and the diaper-consequences of that little gift.  She will wake the baby and/or opt not to put the baby down at nap time if it suits her mood.  She will opt not to feed the baby because it's a hassle.  She will decide she doesn't want to change his diaper and instead of telling us he made a mess, will simply hold a stinky baby so she doesn't have to stop playing with him - and then leaves us to deal with the attendant diaper rash.  And if I try to tell her that the baby is sleeping, she rolls her eyes at me.  It is like dealing with a 13 year old child, not a grown woman.  And while she is snippy and nasty to me, she behaves like a saint to my husband, so he doesn't understand why I get upset with her.

My father-in-law likes to harass me on a daily basis to tell me how my husband and I should live our lives.  He wants my husband to quit his job [he is the primary income since I work part time to take care of the baby] and fiddle around with an unpaying, no benefits, lab project he has thought up - which experts in the field have already said will not work.  But my father-in-law won't let it go.  He believes this idea will make us rich. . . but my husband doesn't want to quit his job to prove to his father that this idea is a dead end [like the people he's approached have already told him].  And he calls me to tell me how to run my business.  And how to manage my life.  I don't like being told what to do, and all my polite attempts to tell him to mind his own business [and my less than polite attempts] have met a wall.  I have had my husband approach him to no avail.  My father-in-law believes he knows best, and says he is just "offering advice".  I have taken the tactic of refusing to answer his phone calls, instead calling my husband at work and instructing him to call his father back to find out what he wants.  Once more, he is much worse about this when he has me alone than when he is around my husband.

And they always tell us they want to help - but are angry if we don't give them a week of notice.  Unfortunately, we don't usually know we're going to need help until the day of - and a day or two in advance if we're lucky.  But when they want to see their grandchild, they call the day of and are put out and angry when we can't oblige them.  Then, when we try to call and schedule visits with my son, they have odd excuses.  Like - we can't come see the baby on Sunday because we are painting the hall on that day.  They have no deadline on painting the hall - they can do it before or after a visit - but they decide that they have something to do so my son takes second fiddle.  But when we have something to do, how dare we deny them access to their grandchild.  It just is a lack of courtesy that drives me crazy. 

I tell my husband that no matter how much I love him - and I do - his parents would have been a deal breaker had I gotten to know them better before the wedding. 

But it isn't just when they are actively doing something wrong that I feel this outrage.  I can't let it go.  It just gnaws at me and gnaws at me all day.  I hate that I'm trapped with these people and I find myself saying that they will die one of these days.  I look forward to the day when they die and stop plaguing me.  The rational part of my mind says I need to learn to cope with them because they are part of my life, but I just don't know how.  I plead with my husband not to die, because I don't know how I would maintain a relationship between my son and his grandparents if I didn't have my husband there to prod me into seeing them.  I want my son to have the best in life, and taking away two of his grandparents is not in that plan.

So tonight I'm going to stop praying for them to go away and start praying for God to relieve me of my resentment of my in-laws.  Someone mentioned in the call that anger is the luxury of the normal man - something the addict cannot afford.  I can't afford to keep harboring this anger at my in-laws.  I need to let it go.  So if anyone is reading this, any prayers you might want to offer up on my behalf that I let go of the resentment would be appreciated!

*For those who don't know, you can find phone and online meetings at The OA Website - these are a lifesaver since I can't always get out of the house to an in person meeting.

I Just Couldn't Do It

On Thursday I leave for my cruise with my husband.  I am going to be starting a new abstinence program when I get back, and as part of that abstinence program I am going to have a new OA birthday.  So essentially I am going to be starting over again.

Which is wonderful, because it is a fresh start.  But it also is awful because I worked hard these past months staying abstinent.  After a discussion with my husband I decided to say "screw it" and just eat that french fry.  Except I couldn't do it.  I thought about trying to drink soda, but I couldn't do that either. 

The thought of how painful the withdrawal from those items was stopped me.  No amount of enjoyment is going to be worth adding that pain onto the pain I'm going to be feeling when wheat and sugar is taken out of my diet. 

Previously I thought it was the chip that kept me honest.  For years I used to lie to myself and say I ate healthy.  I took great care of myself.  I exercised all the time and almost never ate junk food.  Any time I ate junk food or didn't go to the gym, I told myself it was an aberration.  That wasn't the normal - it was just that one day.

The thing about abstinence is that "just that one day" means you are now in the zero to twenty-nine days abstinent category.  Whenever I really wanted to break abstinence, I thought about that and stopped - because it  meant starting over again.  It meant that all my prior hard work and good behavior meant nothing.

But even though I'm starting over, I still couldn't do it.  Because even though my life is a mess and what I'm doing now isn't working - it's still better than what my life was before.  I just couldn't do it.

Happy Thursday

It seemed appropriate that I would start this blog on Thanksgiving - the holiday of the glutton.  I heard a great thing in my regular Overeaters Anonymous meeting this last week:  "Here at OA we have a name for Thanksgiving.  It's called Thursday."  And really that struck a chord with me.  We always hear that others only have power over us if we give them that power, but the same thing is true of days as well. 

The 4th Thursday in November.  December 25th.  January 1st.  February 14th.  March 17th.  July 4th. These are all just calendar days.  If you hadn't been told otherwise, you never would have known there was anything special about any of these given days.  But magically being near the "holidays" leaves people feeling lonely or depressed.  And for compulsive overeaters that fourth Thursday of November is a daunting day of food and temptation.  Why? Because we've made it that way.

This is my first abstinent Thanksgiving.  My abstinence right now is simple: no soda, no coffee, no beer, no hard liquor, no french fries, no doughnuts.  These are all things I just can't handle with any semblance of sanity.  The biggest part of my abstinence is the non-food portion: no vomiting, no eating until you feel sick.  Stopping when I was full was difficult this year, but I ate each of the foods I love in moderation - avoiding the pitfalls of soda and alcohol - and I felt good about my day.

My first sponsor told me to pick items that "set me off" rather than try to do a highly restrictive abstinence from day one.  She felt that starting off with a tough abstinence was a quick trip to failure.  That had been her experience and so that was how we worked the program together.  My sponsor was wonderful and I'm sad that when I decided to take a break from OA during my pregnancy that we lost touch.  I miss her.

But I will be starting a very strict abstinence with a new sponsor in the coming weeks.  Next Thursday my husband and I are finally taking the honeymoon that we postponed last year.  My new sponsor agreed to start being my sponsor when I get back from that honeymoon (seeing as how week two is a bit early to be battling to stay abstinent on a cruise ship when I'm still learning the rules of the program!) 

But there were a number of things that greatly bothered me about agreeing to do this abstinence program.  First was the impact this would have upon my husband and son.  In the beginning the meals are very uniform from day to day, and I have concerns about how this logistically will work with them.  But second, and sadly most importantly, I worried about those "special days".  How could I give up my birthday cake? Or Christmas dinner?  Most of the rest of the holidays I could live without - but no birthday cake was really something I was stuck on.

My husband told me to order a birthday cake for myself before the abstinence started.  We are writing all the numbers between 30 and 90 on that cake, and it will be my birthday cake until I am 90.  Because March 23rd is just a calendar date.  Sure I was born on a March 23rd, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be anything other than another day on the calendar.

With a little luck and a lot of leaning on others, I think I can do this.