I've been sharing other people's thoughts, not my own. Granted, their thoughts mirror mine in many ways, but truthfully, I've been avoiding my own thoughts, just as I avoid so many things.
I have little glimpses into just how much I've practiced avoidance. Those glimpses come in little bursts here and there, as I'm drifting off to sleep, or during a middle of the night bathroom run. I try to hold onto them, to dive in deeper, but they seem to disappear before I can fully grasp them.
What I am seeing, though, is that I've been so busy beating myself up for my eating habits (good for a day, a month, a year plus and then, just like that, eating junk) that I haven't really been able to focus on why I might do what I do.
I like to think that I'm different. I've read all about the people, especially women, who eat after abuse, specifically sexual abuse, in an attempt to shield themselves from further harm.
That wasn't me. Nope. Sure, I was sexually abused, and yes, I went from being what people described as attractive (one more thing that I was unable to see because I was too busy being a perfectionist and picking apart each perceived flaw) to overweight to obese. But really, the two weren't related.
I also gained after losses - my daughter, my marriage, my mother, my beloved pets, my relationship with my best friend - but I'm sure that was coincidental. I've been much too busy over the past 30 years to really deal with any of those losses, but I'm sure that my abuse of food isn't connected.
I noticed something interesting yesterday. Some cables were damaged and I learned that I would be without internet and phone for a while, possibly for quite a while. I'm notorious for losing my cell phone, and when I finally located it, it was dead. The search for the charger ensued next. It's no secret that I don't love cell phones, but knowing that mine was useless at a time when I had no internet or land line service, left me feeling agitated. And guess what? The second that agitation hit, I wanted to eat something. Crunchy.
So I guess it's not just life's major hits that leave me wanting to eat.
I took it a step further. After all, I couldn't go online, so I might as well do a little bit of thinking!
Was I agitated because I couldn't make the phone call I needed to make? (You know, the one that's been on my To Do list for three days?) Or, was I feeling unsettled because I've actually replaced my eating distraction with computer distraction?
I'd guess the latter...
So, we have the big stuff, the little stuff, and the habitual eating. Playing a board game? Time for a snack! Checking Facebook? Maybe I'll fix a little plate of something...
In addition, there's another emotional factor, one that I've lived with for too many years. It has some deep roots, but here's what I know. I have such black and white thinking, and it's so easy for me to label food as being good or bad. I know how I desire to eat, which good foods I want to eat. However, since I'm not living in a bubble, I'm surrounded by bad food. I can go months or years being okay with that: the bad food is theirs and I don't touch it; the good food is mine and they have no desire to touch it! But, once I take that first bite, this absurd food frenzy goes on in my head. (Am I really admitting this?)
It goes something like this: Say there's a loaf of bread, a box of cookies, and some leftover Chinese food in the house. They're all bad foods. In my head, when I'm into the bad foods, I'm always looking for a way to stop, but I know that I can't stop while the bad food is still in the house. So, I have to get rid of it, either by eating it or by throwing it away, swearing it off forever. (And then wanting to dive into the trash and get it when I'm craving it three hours later!) I'll get rid of it one way or another, but then Nick will bring something else home because he's forgotten to read my mind and know that I don't want to eat crap anymore!
I do this dance with my unknowing partner (who loves to eat but who doesn't have the food issues that I do, and never knows when to believe me when I tell him to buy something bad or not to buy something bad!). It goes on and on until I'm so sick and fed up that I, once again, start eating the way I want to eat.
At that point, I can be good (i.e. eating good food) for a day, maybe two. Then, I can either become overwhelmed by stress - and the stress is real - or cravings, or both, and give in. Or, I'll continue for months and months, reminding myself how good I feel while eating well and how desperate and hopeless I feel when I'm in the food and how it impossible it seems to make my way back once I've taken that first bite.
This is the lunacy that I live with, and I'm floored at how much time and energy I've wasted on it over the years.
I figure I have a few choices. I can go live in one of those tiny houses in the woods somewhere, alone, and not have to worry about other people bringing food into my surroundings.
I can stay where I am and force my family to eat the way I eat. Yeah, right. I would love to see them eat mostly whole foods, though, at least in our home.
Or, I can somehow come to grips with my distorted attitudes about food.
I'm certain that my third option is essential; I just have to figure out exactly how to go about it. My goal is to be able to say this:
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"Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen. Repent just means to change direction — and NOT to be said by someone who is waggling their forefinger at you. Repentance is a blessing. Pick a new direction, one you wouldn’t mind ending up at, and aim for that."
- Anne Lamott
From
Anne Lamott's Facebook page:
"This is the Anne Patricia Lamott Anti-Diet that I posted at this
time last year. This year, I post it with an added urgency, as the new
Viking Diet is upon us, the latest and hottest It diet, and since you
may feel vulnerable and somewhat battered after the last few
days/weeks/years of festive family get-togethers, or estrangement, you
will be susceptible to its promises. And yes, young Canute, if you are
enjoying the noble Viking lifestyle, raiding your neighbor's grain
stores and salted venison lockers, this may in fact be the perfect new
diet for you. Are you giddy with relief that Whole Foods carries so many
foraged vegetables, and moose meat? Then step right up. Help bail out
the ever-struggling diet industry, while you're at it. But otherwise?
We need to talk.
I know you are planning to start a diet next Thursday, January 1st, I
used to start diets, too. I hated to mention this to my then-therapist.
She would say cheerfully, "Oh, that's great, honey. How much weight are
you hoping to gain?"
I got rid of her sorry ass. No one talks to ME that way.
Well, okay, maybe it was ten years later, after she had helped lead me
back home, to myself, to radical self-care, to friendship with my own
heart, to a jungly glade that had always existed deep inside me, to
mostly healthy eating, but that I'd avoided all those years by
achieving, dieting, binging, people-pleasing, multi-talking, and so on
Now when I decide to go on a diet, I say it to myself: "Great, honey. How much weight are you hoping to gain?"
I was able to successfully put on weight during my last book tour by
eating room service meals in a gobbly trance in 13 different cities. So
that was exhilarating, as I may have mentioned several hundred times
that I have had the tiniest, tiniest struggle with food and body image
for the last--well, life time. Hardly worth mentioning.
And then,
after book tour, I accidentally forgot to starve myself in December, or
to go back to the gym, which I've been meaning to do since I had a
child, 24 years ago.
So I am at least five pounds up--but
thankfully, I do not currently have a scale, because as I've said
before, getting on a scale is like asking Dick Cheney to give you a
sense of your own self-worth every morning.
I can still get my
jeans on, for one reason: I wear forgiving pants. The world is too hard
as it is, without letting your pants have an opinion on how you are
doing. I struggle with enough esteem issues without letting my jeans get
in on the act, volunteering random thoughts about my butt.
By
the same token, it feels great to be healthy. Some of you need to be
under a doctor's care. None of you need to join Jenny Craig. It won't
work. You will lose tons of weight quickly, and gain it all back, plus
five. Some of you need to get outside and walk for half an hour a day. I
do love walking, so that is not a problem for me, but I have a serious
sickness with sugar: if I start eating it, I can't stop. I don't have an
off switch, any more than I do with alcohol. Given a choice, I will eat
candy corn and Raisinets until the cows come home--and then those cows
will be tense, and bitter, because I will have gotten lipstick on the
straps of their feed bags.
But you crave what you eat, so if I go
for 3 or 4 days with no sugar, the craving is gone. That is not
dieting. If you are allergic to peanuts, don't eat peanuts.
So please join me in not starting a diet January 1st.
It's really okay, though, to have (or pray for) an awakening around
your body. It's okay to stop hitting the snooze button, and to pay
attention to what makes you feel great about yourself, one meal at a
time. Horribly, it's yet another inside job. If you are not okay with
yourself at 185, you will not be okay at 150, or even 135. The
self-respect and peace of mind you long for is not out there. It's
within. I hate that. I resent that more than I can say. But it's true.
Maybe some of us can try to eat a bit less, and walk a bit more, and
make sure to wear pants that do not hurt our thighs or our feelings.
Drinking more water is the solution to all problems.
I'll leave
you with this: I've helped some of the sturdier women at my church get
healthy, by suggesting they prepare each meal as if they had asked our
beloved pastor to lunch or dinner. They wouldn't say, "Here
Pastor--let's eat standing up in the kitchen. This tube of barbecue
Pringles is all for you. i have my own" And then stand there gobbling
from their own tubular container. No, they'd get out pretty dishes, and
arrange wonderful foods on the plates, and set one plate before Veronica
at the table, a plate filled with love, pride and connection. That's
what we have longed for, our whole lives, and get to create, now, or
on the 1st. Wow! And God bless you all real good, as my pastor always
says."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm back from my getaway with my Nick. Even after preparing a menu, taking
all of my food, arranging for a fridge and microwave, I bought
into the lie that I could take just one bite because I was on a
mini-vacation.
I'm not surprised at where that one bite has
taken me.
I didn't write yesterday because I didn't want to
be held accountable; I wanted just one more day with the food. I
didn't want to write today because I wanted just one more day with
the food!
In spite of not wanting to write, I'm forcing myself. My breakfast wasn't on plan, so I told myself that I've already blown it so I might as
well just wait and start tomorrow.
Another lie.
If I don't
start now, I never will. The older I get, the harder I fall and the harder it is to
pull myself back up. I don't want to keep living this way.
The time is now.
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