Chapter 1 exercises

"Anatomy of a Food Addiction" by Anne Katherine, MA

"Assignment 1.1, Self-Acceptance, p. 13

(1)List the ways you have abused yourself, physically with extreme weight control measures, and emotionally with negative self-messages, because of your problem with food."

My abridged response:

Bulimia—starving, bingeing, purging, laxative and diuretic abuse
Putting myself down, making myself the butt of a joke before anyone else can
Refusal to try to look good--what’s the point?
Feeling like I have to outdress everyone or be overdressed to make up for my weight (mostly at work or social events)
Self-induced isolation almost to the point of agoraphobia at times
Refusal to exercise or try certain things because I fear I will be ridiculed
Told myself/felt like I was/am: ugly, fat, worthless, damaged goods, ruined, poisonous, monstrous, don’t deserve to live, smelly, disgusting, repulsive, weak, awkward, clumsy, untouchable, undesirable, unfeminine, dirty, a bad person
(A friend told me once she thought I had body dysmorphic disorder because my inner default setting always goes straight to “ugly” during any time of vulnerability, particularly when I am ill and/or down.)

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"Assignment 1.4, The Truth About Consequences p. 20

(I'm paraphrasing) List "incentives" used by others or yourself to get you to lose weight.

My abridged response:

(Note: my God, they are such bullshit!)

(a) Acceptance from boys/men: “I would go out with you/you could get any guy you wanted if you lost weight”, I heard from about the age of 12 until about age 25. Which is not only untrue, but wrong on about 5,036 levels.

(b) Acceptance and love from my family of origin, who made it clear I was never good enough because of my weight. (After a lot of distance from them and a considerable amount of therapy, I figured out *nothing* would have ever garnered their approval, which was ultimately a relief.)

(c) In my own mind, on some level, I have felt I could never be fully happy or successful without losing weight. There may be some truth to this when it comes to a career, as I know there are jobs I have not been hired for as a result of my looks. (Now that I’m older and wiser, I think: would I really want that kind of job anyway? And I'm 40, so my age is now going to be a factor as well.)

(d) Doctors would get off my back. The stories I can tell about things doctors have said to me would curl anyone’s hair.

Did any of these "incentives" work? NO!
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The group facilitator posed a couple of questions for us to journal on and consider for further discussion. These are my abridged responses:

How much of your self-worth depends on the outward appearance of your body?

I think when I was younger and still struggling actively with bulimia that this was much worse for me than it is now. Ageism is certainly alive and well in our culture, but getting older takes a lot of the pressure off, too. I didn’t expect to look like society’s ideal of a gorgeous 19-year-old at 39, but at 19, I felt extremely less than because I didn't come anywhere near meeting those ideals—-I think on some level, in my warped mind, I thought that because I was young, I was also supposed to be beautiful (by society’s standards). I knew from a very young age that I was never going to be able to trade on my looks anyway, so I spent more energy on my brain and my personality--a better investment, IMHO--but in an ideal world, girls and women would be able to enjoy all aspects of their being.

The older I get, the less I care about how I look on the outside. Some of that has to do with acceptance by my spouse, and some self-acceptance comes with age and (I hope) wisdom. I have never liked my body, but I learned to grudgingly accept it and at least not continue to punish it for its many perceived failures, because I am grateful that I have mobility, sight, vision, etc. I also became much more concerned with health than appearance as I got older because I had several very immediate health problems that were much more of a concern. They have rendered any worries about my appearance extremely trivial!

I was alone by choice for four years between my divorce and remarriage and during that time hit my heaviest weight, which was 296 pounds. I did binge occasionally during that time period, but also swam laps regularly and used a treadmill at home. I was well aware that my weight made me less “valuable” in the dating market. When I chose to dip my foot in again, my approach was to look online very selectively and just lay it all out on the table--so that if a prospective mate had an issue, I wouldn't waste my time or energy. My husband now is the only man that was worth the trouble, and I am happy to say he is a fantastic individual and we celebrate our second anniversary tomorrow. :)

I like myself better as a human being than I ever have in my life. I still (grudgingly) accept my body, but feel very uncomfortable physically. I do think I would feel better about myself if I was thinner, simply because I would feel better in my body.

In what ways have you or others treated you as an object, rather than the deep and complex being that you are?

I don’t remember not feeling like an object. I was always aware that I did not measure up to who my mother had been in any way, shape, or form, and I felt that I was a pale facsimile of her. My father was not consistently involved in my life, but was enough of a presence that I knew I was legally his property until I was 18 years old; he was obsessed with how I looked. He was also abusive and inappropriate. I was a high academic achiever and an all-around good person, but I felt that “thin and pretty” was always the carrot being dangled and the ultimate condition of the family's extremely conditional love, particularly his.

I have had men and boys treat me like an object (as most women do) my entire life. Getting older, again, this is less of an issue, but the world is not nice to fat people of any age, and I think that has been well-documented by myself and many others. People have yelled at me out of cars, mooed, looked pointedly in my grocery cart, and made rude comments. Even children have felt this was acceptable to do at times. People have made rude comments toward my husband. I have had a really hard time with medical professionals because they look at the number on the scale--or the body shape—and just stop listening. I once had a doctor castigate me about my weight when I was seeing him for a broken ankle that had not even been set yet. I have had doctors bitch at me about my weight when I was in for strep throat.

The ways I have treated myself as an object were included in the first exercise...

Worry and surrender

I've always worried a lot. I think I've gotten better on this score, and it's something I actively work on. I don't think that worry consumes my life, but I know it is something I fall into far too easily, sort of a default setting from hell. I try to be logical and reason with it. "Will worrying about this change anything? Is anyone going to die? Then relax." Sometimes, this actually works. A friend of mine calls it "perseverating", which sounds like the right word for what it feels like: onomatopoeic, even.

I wonder sometimes if other people are more worried about me having this surgery than I am. They ask me things like, am I scared? And what about this horror story I heard? Do I realize what my loose skin is going to look like after I lose the weight? And what if I have complications? What if I'm sick for the rest of my life? And then, there's the mother of all elephants in the room: what if I die?

I've read about my options. A lot. I've listened to actual people who have been through bariaric surgeries of all types talk about it. A lot. I am a well-informed individual who loves research, is endlessly curious about life in general, and reads just about everything I can get my hands on, because I am interested in just about everything around me. (Except NASCAR.)

I was dead-set against this surgery for myself for so many years. There are a lot of facets to not only that feeling, but the reason that it has changed.

I compare it to the way I used to feel about antidepressant medication. I used to be dead-set against antidepressants for myself, too, but now I have come to realize that they ultimately get me out of bed in the morning. This is my reality; it is a reality that surprises many people who know me quite well. I truly believe antidepressants are a tool to help to correct the medical issue of depression, a medical issue I did not ask for but that I nonetheless have. So be it. (Ultimately, I didn't want to admit I had it; who does? I am grateful for today's increased awareness and decreased stigma regarding mental illness, a great contrast to the cultural climate regarding that issue when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, but we as a society still have a long way to go.) Antidepressants do not solve the problem of depression completely for me or for anyone else I know that takes them--but they can, ideally, make depression manageable, and do for many if not most. Despite the fact that I respect myself less for needing antidepressants (aside to self: sounds like that damn shame again, must obliterate at some point sooner rather than later), I have chosen to view antidepressants as a tool that have improved my quality of life; to continue to work at full acceptance of this; and to move on as best I can.

The way I have come to feel about bariatric surgery parallels the way I feel about antidepressants. I have tried every possible method to lose weight, save many of the flavor-of-the-month diet drugs that have come and gone over the years because I could not afford them (and considering what happened with all of them in retrospect, I'm extremely thankful for that!). Surgery on its own does not solve the problem of obesity; it is a tool that accompanies drastic positive lifestyle changes. It is not 100% effective for 100% of people, and it may not be for me. But the chance that it will affect positive change in my life is enough to convince me that it is a good option--for ME. I don't pretend to know--or want--the responsibility of knowing what is right for other people.

I am already physically sick or impaired on any number of levels and I am certainly tired, bordering on bone-weary. Yes, I am aware that my decision to pursue bariatric surgery as an option is a form of surrender. I am surrendering my own biases, perfectionism, self-loathing, and yes, no small amount of my shame to the chance that the tool of bariatric surgery may serve to help me to feel as though eating well and exercising is pointless because I am still, after all, the f-word. There are already health-related complications in my daily life that even people who have known me for 20 years or more have no idea about.

Am I scared? Certainly. I'm breathing, aren't I? But to my mind, the notion of bariatric surgery is nothing compared to the cancer scare I went through almost ten years ago now, nothing compared to the fact that I had to have a full hysterectomy at age 32 that permanently removed any ability I may have had to ever have children, which has been more profound a loss for me than anything else could be beyond my own death. And seriously? Let's face it, if I die, it's over for me and becomes the problem of the loved ones I would leave behind. I don't fear death, but I don't want to die, either. If deciding to undergo bariatric surgery, subsisting on little bites of rabbit food for the rest of my life and working out (ugh) regularly doesn't prove that I am choosing life, than what in the name of all that is holy would?

I think the worry of other people that care about me is that they know (a) how extremely stubborn I am, (b) how I have continued to fight every aspect of these issues, and (c) how very much I enjoy evil yet delicious food, drink, dessert, etc. They also must know that (d) if I have chosen to do this, I must feel as though there is no other choice. Let the record show: I believe there is no other choice. For ME.

Let's accept this and move on.

Honesty

I think I was optimistic about how quickly Ambien leaves the system. While I am getting more sleep and largely good sleep, I am also more tired. I have also had a couple of stretches of being up for two days and then wanting to crash for extended periods of time. When I am up, at least for the first day, I feel good, have more energy, am more productive. By the end of day 2 I'm completely exhausted and overwhelmed by everything. My husband is the most laid-back, accepting person--he made me laugh at my own ridiculousness yesterday. I'd been awake for 48 hours, it was late Sunday morning, and I knew I needed to just go to bed and pass out. I was at the point where my brain was not working, I ran into a wall because I was so tired, and I had less-than-zero patience with anything (and I'm not an incredibly patient person to begin with). I went to the bedroom, switched on the TV to set a recording for a show, and there was some ad with Marie Osmond talking about weight loss. I have nothing against Marie Osmond at all (except for her dolls, but I hate all dolls equally, not just hers), but I just said, "I hate everyone!" and turned off the TV abruptly.

My husband laughed and said, "I love you, sweetie."

I looked at him, asking, "God, WHY? I'm a mess."

He smiled and said, "You're just so honest. I love that about you." He has told me that before, saying things like "I never have to wonder what you're thinking" and "I always know where you stand". It's a good thing he feels this way. It won't be changing anytime soon.

I am a big believer in honesty. Get it out there, talk about it, don't let it fester. Honesty can be construed as a weapon and a defense mechanism, but I think the functions of honesty are mostly positive ones. I can only speak from my own experience, but I know I have been the sickest when I didn't talk about things or refused to feel them; I went through a huge chunk of my life like that, and it almost killed me. They say in twelve-step groups (which are not anything I'm into, but they work wonders for some folks, so I'm glad they exist), "We are only as sick as our secrets", and I tend to agree. Secrets are usually connected to shame and ultimately self-loathing. For me, honesty is something that makes me feel better and figuratively, if not literally, lighter. Honesty for me is refusing to allow my voice to be silenced. You can love me, hate me, think I'm full of crap, but at least if I say my piece, I cannot be called a victim without any agency.