Even Through Tragedy

No Matter What

I had been in FA for about seven weeks when I found out that my 25-year-old daughter had been in a fatal car accident. This was the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me. Thank goodness I was in FA, because I had to stay strong for my other daughter.

Throughout this extremely difficult time, I did not have a break. I knew if I did, I might never come back to FA. I felt it was necessary to stay abstinent rather than take a chance.

I make a lot of FA calls, and a few weeks after my daughter was killed, I was talking to a fellow who lives nearby and told her the horrible news. She told me she was a grief counselor and she had blocked out her plans for the following Saturday because she had a feeling something was going to come up for her that day. She told me she would come to my house (free of charge) on Saturday and help me with my grieving process. She got to my house at 10 a.m. and left at 2 p.m. It was a very sad and difficult day, but I was in disbelief that someone would do that for me, and I was so thankful. When she left, she thanked me! I was very grateful for her service and was beginning to see how FA worked. It was amazing.

I don’t remember much of my childhood. My mom moved my older brother and me 13 times by the time I was 12 years old. I have some residual memories, mostly bad. My mom is bipolar with a narcissistic personality disorder. She did the best she could, but her best was nowhere near what I needed as a child. I took on adult responsibilities at age 12, loaning my mom money (babysitting money), getting myself to school, cleaning the house, and taking care of her.

I never had a weight problem until I was 15. I gained weight the summer after my freshman year of high school. Looking back at pictures, I see I was not fat. How sad, though, to have my low self-esteem and low self-confidence start 44 years of yo-yo dieting.

I weighed 147 pounds when I became pregnant with my twin daughters in 1989. I got up to 221 pounds and gave birth to two big, beautiful babies. Over the next few years, I got down to my pre-pregnancy weight and then found out that my husband was a pathological liar. We stayed together for two years but ended up getting divorced.

I didn’t stay at my pre-pregnant weight for long. I started, once again, going up and down for the next 25 years. I engaged in negative self-talk, food deprivation, constant dieting, overeating, and binge behavior.

If I wasn’t in this great program, I would not have been able to be there for my other daughter. I lost my daughter, but she lost her twin sister. I would probably be curled up in a ball on my bed, eating to the point of oblivion to try to block out the awful despair, grief, and sadness. Since I’ve never dealt with my feelings, because I ate to stuff them down for 44 years, it’s been difficult to feel them now. I know I can, because I’m in FA. The support, love, compassion, and hope I have gotten from my fellows is overwhelming. I don’t know what I would have done without FA.