I remember being pretty young the first time I got caught sneaking food. IT was a can of frosting and my mom had found it under my bed. She asked me why I had taken it and I remember saying I didn’t know. It was the truth. It was always small things that I took; pieces of cheese, crackers, things that, had I just asked, I’m sure my mom would have just gave. But there was a compulsion and need to eat these in secret and at the very young age of six, I developed an eating disorder that would span over fifteen years.
I’m not sure what triggered me to become a compulsive eater, it could have been just one thing, or it could have been a multitude of things. I think my emotional eating came from my grandma. At her house cookies soothed everything from skinned up knees to fights with friends. Then there was the move to Idaho when I was five. I lost all my friends and was separated from the familiarity and comfort of my grandparents. Then came my twin brothers and with my parents busy with two newborns and a two year old toddler, I was relegated to playing alone in my room most days.
Then Elizabeth moved next door. She was three years older, and desperate for a friend, I hung out and followed her everywhere. At six, I wasn’t really aware of the birds and the bees or the evil that some people harbor within. I trusted Elizabeth and her big kid games, yet there was always some part of me that knew they were not right. Shame, though at six I didn’t recognize it as that, took over and it’s around the point that I became friends with Elizabeth, that the weight began packing on. I never told anyone what happened, not until many years later, but I sometimes wonder if anyone suspected. Looking back at photos I can see the change but I’m not sure if it was visible to anyone else.
We moved again when I hit the third grade. By this time, my weight had packed on for my age plus add being nearly a foot taller than everyone else in my class and you had the perfect recipe for bullying. It’s amazing how cruel kids can be, for over three years I underwent a daily hell not just from classmates, but from P.E. teachers who constantly ostracized me in front of the entire class. The only comfort I found was my quiet room and the little treats I had hidden away for myself that for just a few brief moments made me feel good.
So I’m sure you’re wondering about my dad and his role in all this, and it’s possible that his probably scarred me the most. My parents had been separated since before I was born. As many kids in my situation know, these separations aren’t always pretty and that was the case for my parents. Growing up was like being in a caustic game of tug of war and at the center of the ropes was a fragile child. The favorite topic to argue about was my weight. My dad said my mom didn’t care what I ate and in the meantime, weekends at dad’s consisted of microwavable items or fast food. One of the qualities I love about my dad is that he’s a hard worker, but if you asked me what quality I hated about my dad, it would be that he’s a hard worker. Most visitations were spent at job sights being bored and depressed, so I ate to fill the void. This in turn caused my dad to constantly be on me for portions and my weight. At 8 years old I developed the belief that my dad did not love me because I was fat.
Weight, in the eyes of someone with an eating disorder, is a giant beast that must be slayed. It is the arch nemesis whose sidekick is food itself. Starting in sixth grade, weight became the focus of my existence. I hated P.E. with a vehement passion. Not for the activity, I loved getting the chance to play games and be active, but for the inspection that went on with my peers. So one day in sixth grade gym class, we had to be weighed. It felt as if all eyes were on me. I stepped on the scale and as the number appeared, I cried. I was 11 years old, five feet, eleven inches tall and I weighed two hundred pounds. I was embarrassed. The other kids were all in the low hundreds and here I was, at least seventy pounds heavier than them. I cried so much that my mom came to pick me up from school. I cried most of the day and begged a greater power to turn me into a normal kid; apparently God was not taking requests that day.
By the end of sixth grade, I was so miserable from the bullying that my mom let me transfer to my friend’s private Christian school. The thing about bullies is that they’re all over, including private Christian schools. Not only did they take the form of students, but they also include arrogant, self-righteous meatheads who love to make examples of the fat kids in their gym classes. This was also the year I came out to my parents about being sexually abused. This resulted in the start of a very unproductive relationship with a therapist who looked just like my grandmother on my dad’s side.
I went back to public school in eighth grade. Though at this point, my size worked to my advantage. If someone said something cold, I never heard it. That was the advantage of being over six feet and thicker, I could kick their ass. Eighth grade and early high school is kind of a blur. Between counseling and school, I was kept busy. I had always felt that since my parents couldn’t love my size, I would impress them and make them notice me for my grades. By this time, my dad and I had a falling out and other than child support we didn’t speak. My mom, trying to help my stepdad support our large family, was busy with a job and young kids. Add the typical teenage hormones and my search for acceptance and love lead me to the opposite sex. At this time I was still in counseling but it was more like an hour long weekly summary about the boys I liked than an actual counseling session. I got on a diet program to lose weight (so guys would like me) and as the pounds dropped, the boys noticed.
The problem, which I never realized until recently, was that while I had lost weight and seemed to have my eating under control (I would still have secret binges and sneak food when no one was watching), I had transferred my comfort and need for love that I had sought from food, to the love and wholeness I thought I could obtain from having a boyfriend. Teenage boys, however, are fickle. And while I found plenty of guys who liked me and thought I was the perfect girl because we had so much in common, I was still six feet two inches and heavy. Instead of girlfriend, I was relegated to best friend or worse, friends with benefits status.
I was a serial dater and looked all over for some kind of love and acceptance. In the meantime, at home, my mom and I fought over slipping grades and bad attitudes. Then, right before my senior year, I met Greg. He was the kindest person I had ever met. Not only did we have a connection, but he told me everything I had always wanted to hear: that I was beautiful, that I was loved, that I was perfect just the way I am. Unfortunately Greg and I had met online and he lived two thousand miles away in Michigan. I didn’t care, someone finally loved me and when my eighteenth birthday passed, I moved to be with him.
I wish I could say that this is where my story ended with a happy ending but eating disorders don’t care if you’re in love or not. While I loved Greg, being away from home, away from family and friends and in a state i wasn’t familiar with, without a car, during the middle of winter was a recipe for disaster. I was bored, homesick and depressed. I had love, so the only other thing I knew to turn to was food. By the time I had moved back to Idaho just five months after I had left it, I had gained all the weight back that I had lost in high school.
For the next five years I would spiral out of control with my weight. Long working hours and stress were excuses to binge on fast food and unhealthy items. Embarrassed by my size, I secluded myself from all my friends and spent most of my time at home in front of the TV with some kind of food item. By the time my wedding happened in the summer of 2008, I was wearing a size twenty six (though honestly, probably a size twenty eight would have fit better) and I weighed three hundred and eighty pounds. After the wedding, my shame and depression went into full drive. I hated going out in public due to comments about my size and every step onto the scale made me cry for hours. I wanted it to stop, but I didn’t know how. Finally Greg and I began dieting and I got a gym membership. I got hooked on water aerobics classes and was going to the gym five days a week. I was losing weight and feeling good.
Then money got tight and we moved in with my grandparents. My grandpa, who is in exercise aficionado, began pestering me about working out. Every day I was asked if I was going to the gym and what was once something I looked forward to became a chore due to pressure. With the pressure of living with family came the added strain on our marriage. Greg and I were fighting and distant. We spent all our time in our room to avoid dealing with family drama. I sunk deeper and deeper into depression. Nine months into living with my grandparents, there was a huge fight in the early spring of 2010 and my weight was brought into it. My granddad’s exact words were “you just sit there on your asses eating and eating and you keep getting bigger and bigger until one day you’re going to explode”.
I was hysterical and on suicide watch between my husband and my mom. That same day we packed our things and moved in with friends. For months I was in a perpetual depression, crying on my husband’s shoulder about my weight, my family, and about the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness I dealt with daily. Greg did his best to comfort me while at the same time protecting me from myself by hiding pill bottles. Then came the day I confronted my mom about the way my family treated me; the remarks at family functions that left me secretly crying in the restroom or in the car on the way home. I was angry that they hadn’t helped me, that I was never good enough for them and worse, that they hadn’t seen the signs that something was wrong when I was little. I was angry that they had let this happen to me. My mom said she was sorry but that she had had her hands full with the boys and work and had done the best she could. Then she told me that I had to take responsibility for myself, that my weight was just as much my fault. I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to admit it. The conversation ended with a hug but I think the closeness my mom and I had developed over the years had partially ended that day.
It was around a month later that I had my major breakthrough. I knew there was something wrong with me. I didn’t eat normally. I overate and thought about food 24/7 and felt I had no control over myself. I ate in my room because I didn’t want people to see me eat. I hated restaurants with their small booths and staring eyes. I snuck food whenever I could. I was completely powerless to food and it had taken over my life. One day I decided to go online and it was there I stumbled upon Overeaters Anonymous. I cried reading stories I related to all too well. There were people who described exactly what I was going through and then gave hope that there was a way out. Delving deeper, I finally found a name to the demon that had been plaguing me for most of my life; Compulsive Overeating Disorder. I had grown up learning about anorexia and bulimia. I had even strongly thought about trying both to lose weight at multiple points in my life; but never had I heard of the other eating disorder.
For years I had been treating the symptoms but never the cause of my weight problem. Finally having a name and an origin to my struggles with food was freeing. For the first time I felt like I had the answers I was so desperately seeking. It would be several months before I would be brave enough to face my demon head on and that point came out of the blue in the middle of the night. Mid October and my weight the month before had been clocked at four hundred and twenty pounds. That’s right, 420. I was on the phone with Greg and we were discussing my weight, my frustrations with not being able to get pregnant (a byproduct of the weight) , my frustration with clothes, and how eating out all the time was literally making me sick, when suddenly he got angry and said he was sick of it. He explained he was tired of us both being overweight, of eating unhealthy and of excuses. That night we resolved to take our lives back from food. I remember going to the kitchen. Grabbing all the unhealthy junk food that had invaded our lives and throwing it down the garbage disposal. For the first time in my life, I felt freedom from my addiction.
It’s been nearly three months since that night and I am happy to say that I have been in recovery from my addiction. I am teaching myself that food is to supplement my life and not to control it. Greg and I both follow a healthy eating plan and avoid the trappings of junk food and fast food. We took the time to educate ourselves about calorie content and are now aware of everything we choose to consume. And most importantly, like any addiction, I’ve learned to recognize binge triggers and have made plans to help me avoid them.
Treating this has allowed me to discover myself again. Every day is another layer peeled back to reveal the person I had hidden under the physical and emotional weight of my addiction. I am, however, by no means cured; every day I face temptation in some form or another. I know that this is something I will have to struggle with my entire life but with hope and determination I plan to succeed. My life is my own again and now that I have tasted freedom, I will never let it go.
I know that these writings will probably never reach a mass audience, but if only one person reads these and finds some kind of comfort or answers in my words, then I will be content.
