I get so angry at myself for putting myself here, it’s as though I’m trapped in this thinning mask.
Journal Entry
December 9th 1992
Oh to live a normal life, perhaps for me it is too demanding a request to wish for. Bottom line I probably don’t deserve it. Often I seriously wish I was dead. I so often feel more like a nuisance more than anything else. When I feel like this I usually just shut things off, it’s easier to be numb than to be alert.
Look at the people in Somalia, who get nothing, the sick thing is I like the way they look, plus it stresses the fact to me that I could easily be thinner than I am. I feel so intensely ugly and repulsive.
Words that describe me: don’t fit, ugly and fat, greedy, hurting, worthless, lonely, gross, disgusting, confused, sad, screwed up, numb, nervous and young.
January 12, 2002
Today I sit with over 20 years worth of journal entries that have particular significance, ones that I feel may be of help to others and serve as the foundation of this book. Most of the entries are along the same vein as the ones you have already read. Do I continue with journal entries? I will be honest that I really am not sure where to start. My road to the rainbow has not been as easy as 1+1=2.
Today I reviewed some photographs with my parents, and I could tell how painful it was for all of us to look back on them. It also made me realize yet again the importance of my recovery not only to me but to my family. My life is back, and so is theirs. Even 5 years ago my time with them on vacation would have been dictated by a weigh scale. Today the vacation is filled with wonderful conversation, much laughter, much health and the end result of never having enough hours in the day to do all that needs to be done.
How did I get to this place of health?
Let me tell you first where I have been.
INTRODUCTION IN REVIEW
As I reviewed my words in the introduction I am aware of its simplicity and have been asked why I did not expand on the disease or painful journal entries? A very simple response: a sufferer knows all too well the pain and need not be reminded.
I also have a personal view that sharing too many details on the disease can actually have damaging effects to the reader. Rather than help, it can actually encourage the disease by providing details of how you continued your behaviour. Sufferers will do anything to hold on to the disease, and at all times, on the hunt for any new trick that could possibly improve the end result.
How can that be?
An eating disorder sufferer’s mind is much different than that of a non-sufferer. A non-sufferer may believe that to read the behaviour in detail would be a deterrent to starting the behaviour. Ironically for the sufferer, it enhances it. I know how the mind of an eating disorder sufferer works, thus details are left to a minimum. This book is about recovery from the disease, not the disease itself.
CHAPTER ONE The Pain, The Past
Often people ask, “What made you get or have an eating disorder?” Each person has a different story as to how their eating disorder developed or progressed, which I believe adds to the difficulty in helping those suffering from the disease. For some it is peer pressure or media influence or athletics, but for others it can be a way of coping with abuse: physical, sexual or emotional. Also, divorce or death of a parent, or the breakdown of a relationship can be the catalyst; the list is long. But for sure, an eating disorder stems from something deeper than weight and food. The preoccupation with weight and food are a symptom of other issues.
My first issue was abuse.
I remember being a happy although sensitive kid. My life changed when I was 10 and babysat for a neighbour. I remember feeling very uncomfortable around the father and that he used to touch me in places where I had never been touched before. His words and messages were damaging to me. They killed my self esteem when I was too young to know better. During flashbacks in adulthood, I remembered being told by this neighbour that I was fat and ugly and that anyone of any worth would have nothing to do with me. He became mad at me if I ate anything at their house. I recall him putting my head in the toilet making me be sick to get rid of it. It was a horrible and painful memory to relive but the memories have shed light on my thoughts and subsequent behaviour as I was growing up.
The abuse happened in an era when such things were not discussed, and as a result I kept the abuse a secret until I was 21 years old. Time has allowed me to deal with this issue, but in reality it served as the onset of my eating disorder. The abuse changed how I felt about myself and influenced future relationships for years. The abuse became the root; it grabbed hold. The thoughts and feelings that had developed during the abuse continued to be reinforced.
During the time of my abuse I was a “chubby” child, as I recall being called. I used food as a comfort and used it to cover over my pain. From this time until the end of high school I used food as a way to numb the pain. Other pressures were evident: peer pressure, comments and jokes from boys. In grade 5, I was chased down the street after school by a couple of the popular boys at school who called me Bessie the Cow. I was devastated. I remember thinking maybe my abuser was right. These boys were reinforcing the thoughts that had already been firmly placed in my mind.
Preoccupation with food and weight at this time was also emerging within my family. My dad had been told by his doctor to lose weight and he heeded his advice immediately, seeming to live off half a grapefruit and chilled consommé.
There is such irony about weight. It is not healthy to weigh too much, but it is equally as life threatening to weigh too little. Unfortunately Dad’s eating behaviour and the knowledge he was gaining about food, weight, cholesterol, etc., became information that was shared with us as well, in excess. Dad will be the first to acknowledge hounding us on our eating habits. As a family, we have been able to discuss this influence and how important a support system is, not only in recovery, but its influence in how you perceive yourself.
“A parent’s or caretaker’s view of him/herself, and views towards food, exercise and body image can have a huge impact on a child.”
Messages of losing weight were also reinforced by the diet books and quick fix diets plastered on magazine covers picked up by Mom at the local grocery store. My mother was not alone in these purchases. Most of my friends' mothers had the same magazines on their coffee tables. Also, as early as elementary school the “girls” envied the stars and the shapes they portrayed on the pages of magazines and on television screens.
Within our family, weight issues were a concern of more than one relative. I remember going to my grandmother’s and diet pills were everywhere. My aunts talked about the battle of the bulge. It was pervasive.
It certainly was not my parent’s intent to encourage an eating disorder. In my father’s case he was following doctor’s orders and in my mother’s case, influenced by media messages and her own personal environment. As my dad always said, “You don’t go to school to be a parent,” and parents certainly have not been well informed on eating disorders. The shame of it is that often parents have to learn about eating disorders long after symptoms are recognized, instead of having the information as a proactive device earlier on.
The truth is that we are bombarded with messages about food and weight. We are obsessed with cooking shows and recipes, but at the same time encouraged to limit intake and join one weight program after the other...mixed messages? I certainly think so. You can watch a program with celebrity chefs like Wolfgang Puck creating a cheese dish and the commercial following the program is a Weight Watchers promotional ad.
And so a trend developed. Through therapy, journaling