Then…

When I was a kid growing up in my food addiction, summertime meant a lot of unstructured time to do whatever I wanted. I would always take at least one trip a day to the corner store to get my food goods (mainly sugar and flour). I rode my bike a lot in those days, took many ballet classes, and swam. I burned a lot of the calories I was eating and didn’t think much about the effects that food was having on me. I was a chunky kid, but I was still having fun with friends.

As I got a little older, I was less active, and my eating became more ferocious. I went to summer ballet camps, but every time I had a break from a dance class, I would go home and eat bowls of sugar and flour in front of the TV. When I got a stress fracture, which was most likely due to my poor nutrition, I quit dancing. Then before my senior year of high school, I spent many days driving to the 7-Eleven to get the largest sugary drink I could find. I was heavy with fear, doubt, and insecurity, and I became hopeless.

I really tried to be social, but by this time, the food had me. I spent all day not eating in front of people at school, and then would go home and let myself go. This meant diving into the sugar and flour. I stopped counting calories and fat grams and completely got lost in a mire of bingeing. I got to my top weight of 155 and became bulimic again. I had casually done it sporadically in prior years, but now the eating and throwing up had become more determined and violent in my attempt to be able to fit into my prom dress.

I remember a time when my boyfriend had become the King of Hearts for the Valentines Dance. I got to wear a crown too. I was on the heavier side for the picture. Even though I got to be in the spotlight and be alongside a great guy that night, I felt fat, ugly, undeserving, and afraid to be in my own skin. I don’t even remember the night’s events, other than the binge I had when I got home, after I had controlled the amount of junk food I ate at the late-night restaurant party with my so-called friends. My only devoted friendship that night, and many other nights, was food.

I got home from the dance and sadly took out a plastic bag of leftover food my dad had brought from an all-you-can-eat seafood event. The acidity of the food I ate, plus the enormous quantity I ingested, left me reeling in agony. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that the following day I would be going to San Francisco for a photo shoot, where they would be taking headshots. The next morning, I woke up bloated, puffy, and obsessed. I couldn’t think about anything but the food. But what did I do before we left? I ate several bowls of more flour and sugar.

The following months before summer were a blur of starvation diets in an attempt to get down to a weight that was acceptable for prom. The great boyfriend had left. He couldn’t stand the explosive nature and unpredictability that my being a food addict in disease brought. My friends, who were there during high school and the summer before college didn’t last. I had no tools to maintain the friends I had and I used most of them for the food they could offer and/or the events around food that we attended together.

And now…

The summers since I have come into FA are so different. I’ve stopped thinking in March about how to lose the weight for when the summer festivities would unfold. I give my weight to my sponsor once a week. I don’t stay up late and overload my weekend with several different places to be. I am content staying home and making sure my groceries are bought and my floors are mopped. I am thankful, by the grace of God and FA, to have a job where I get to have about two months of a summer vacation. I am in complete awe that my first thought of having this vacation doesn’t involve television, eating, and getting a guy. My first thoughts today are about how I can grow in my recovery. What can I do to be more honest? How can I be a better friend? (I have true friends today, thank you, God.) What can I do to be more tolerant of my family? How can I be a better roommate?

Through the guidance of my sponsor and fellows, I have learned what responsibility is and was recently able to move farther away from my parents, financially and physically. Thank God for FA. When I practice gratitude for my precious abstinence, I live in a summertime paradise every day.