I was preoccupied with a fear of being fat at a very early age. I remember being 7 years old and thinking I was too fat. In 5th and 6th grade I was trying to eat less than what I truly wanted. Looking back, I realize I didn’t feel in control of my eating, and I was in fact eating more than what was healthy for my body. By age 13 I was 160 lbs.
By age 15 I had lost a good portion of my weight though major control, and was able to maintain a thin body throughout my teenage years, but along with that was constant obsession. Each morning I’d wake up thinking about what I ate the day before. My first thought as my eyes opened was the anxious question, “Would this be a day I’d feel thinner or fatter?”
My teenage years were about control, obsession, and unhealthy choices that were a result of low self-esteem, and resulted in feeling worse and worse about myself. By my early 20’s I was 227 lbs and felt lost, full of self-hate and hopeless about my life. I’d watch my siblings and wonder why I wasn’t like them, not smart enough, good enough, people don’t like me, what’s wrong with me.
In my attempts to find a solution I attended an outpatient psychiatric program addressing binge eating disorders. I remember at that time feeling like I didn’t want to lose weight. I’d given up hope that there was any solution to my weight problem. I just wanted to learn to accept myself the way I was, so I could stop fighting. I thought that would lead to contentment. I also tried Tai Chi, and self-help books like “Fat is a Feminist Issue,” “Breaking Free From Compulsive Overeating,” and “Daddy Hunger.” I desperately sought a cause for my eating and misery in an attempt to find an answer. I spent hours journaling and analyzing what my parents did wrong to make me this way.
After getting married and still feeling miserable, I tried a psychiatrist and psychologist. I was diagnosed with chronic anxiety and depression, and was put on medication. I felt a bit of hope, but I still was binge eating. I eventually became afraid to drive over bridges and even walk around the neighborhood because of fear of dogs. Looking back I realize I was searching for an outside solution to an inside problem.
By the time I was 33, I had been divorced after only a year and a half of marriage and my relationships with my family continued to suffer as I isolated myself, perceiving I was seen as “less than” in their eyes.
It was also at this age that I, thankfully, found FA. I saw others who seemed to accomplish a way of life where they weren’t fighting the food, or themselves. They were thin and content. They talked about how their relationships were constantly improving and their life was progressing in positive ways. I was given a food plan that immediately arrested my problem and the support to follow through with sticking to it. With my addiction arrested, I became able to focus on my way of thinking. I heard others share about how their thinking and reactions to life were their problems, more than the circumstances of their life.
I completely identified when I heard sharing about an uncontrollable craving that gets triggered with the first bite. In FA I learn how to practice staying away from that first bite one day at a time. I learned, and continue to learn, what it means to have an alcoholic mind. It is my reactions and thinking that needs to change, not the circumstances in my life. I learn how to practice having a grateful heart and a relationship with a higher power that works to bring me closer to people during life’s struggles rather than isolate and eat. I am able to live with gratitude and contentment and neutrality around food.
My disease of addiction completely isolated me. My lack of confidence, fear of what others thought of me, and feeling too fat to look good, caused me to avoid social situations. So I truly perceive it a miracle when I can attend dinner parties or other events with friends who are passing drinks and appetizers, and I find time flying by as I’m enjoying the conversation while simply sipping water without feeling isolated or deprived.
I continue to grow in ways I truly believe I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for this program, and my grateful heart and love for this fellowship continues to grow too.