Rewiring My Brain

I have no idea when my food addiction began. As I look back, I can see that I had abnormal thoughts and behaviors around food throughout my life, but I did not recognize these as unusual until I was in my early 20s. I vividly remember, during a commercial break from a TV show, standing in front of a jar of candy trying to figure out how I could take six pieces but make it look like I took only two. I remember thinking to myself that a “normal” person would just grab the six they wanted and not care what others thought, but I cared a lot about whether others were judging my eating habits, mainly because I was always judging other people. I thought that maybe a normal person would take the acceptable two and be content, but I knew that two were not going to satisfy me and that I would be constantly thinking about the four I had left behind. I thought that maybe a normal person would walk away empty handed and return to their show, but I remained in the kitchen, paralyzed by what I came to understand was my disease of food addiction.

At 12 years old, I weighed 125 pounds and was probably around 5-feet, 3-inches tall. At school, our physical education teacher pinched the back of our arms with some device and marked a number in a box. In the locker room, we all compared scores. I was elated to realize I had scored the highest, XL, assuming high scores meant the best. I had no idea that the number at the top of the page meant obese. I remember proudly handing the paper to my mom after school and feeling disbelief and shock when her comment was, “Oh my G-d. You are fat.”

The humiliation of having shared my score with everybody, the realization that I really didn’t look like the pretty girls at school, in magazines, and in movies, hit me like a ton of bricks. My mom took me to a doctor, who was furious at the school’s inadequate method of determining body size. He convinced her I was still growing and said not to worry about it. Although that worked for my mom, the damage was done for me. That score immediately damaged my spirit and broke my ability to see what I really looked like.

When my son started kindergarten, the children with special needs were not segregated out of the general classroom. The teacher explained that brains were a bunch of wires—reds connecting to reds, greens to greens, etc. For some people, she said, the wires did not connect and it might seem like these children get special attention or favoritism, but really it was the teacher trying to help connect the wires. As my son gleefully drew a picture of his version of the brain, I stared at the scribbled mess of crayons and realized this was true for me, too. Things don’t always match-up. Although I am very smart, left to my own devices, my brain becomes completely unharnessed.

As my disease of food addiction progressed, I found myself eating foods at shocking speed and in great quantities. I ate in hiding, refused to share the “good stuff” with my children, I stopped cooking, and abused drive-thrus. I stopped trying to make excuses for the excessive amounts of binge foods I was buying, and ate quantities that literally made me sick. Eventually, food became the reason to get out of bed in the morning. With the increase of food came the increase of weight.

With the increase of weight came more negative, unharnessed, and crazy thinking. I was too emotionally and physically exhausted for basic grooming and house cleaning. Food stains covered my clothes and I took down most of my mirrors. I had to order clothes online as stores did not carry my size.

The humiliating experiences of being 300 pounds are endless. My medical insurance company contacted me to tell me I qualified for gastric bypass surgery. My life insurance company refused to increase my coverage, and my doctor threatened high blood pressure medication, warning that diabetes was inevitable if I continued my path. Therapists prescribed “happy pills” and nutritionists drafted out food plans, but I remained undisciplined, unmotivated, miserable, and hopeless. I had long ago stopped trying diets because I knew nothing worked for me.

Then I came into FA to prove that this, too, would not work for me. I did, however, have enough clarity to realize that I had sabotaged every past attempt to lose weight. I am thankful for my gift of desperation, defeat, and determination to try to prove that this Program, even if I followed it, would not work either.

When my sponsor made suggestions that seemed in no way diet related, such as reading the literature, making calls, and doing quiet time, I followed them. I didn’t do it perfectly, happily, or without judgment, eye rolling, or grumbling, but I did do it. Within the first few weeks, the food fog lifted enough for me to see the relief of waiting until my next meal versus beating myself up for breaking, yet again, the diet plan-of-the-day. I felt lighter in my step just knowing I was following through on a plan. I got relief from realizing I was not the only miswired person out there, and saw a spark of hope that maybe this program could reassemble my mind, eliminate the fat, and—dare I hope—bring me out of my misery.

I came into FA in June 2010 at 5-feet, 4-inches tall and 340 pounds, and now I weigh 127 pounds.

As I progressed through recovery, sanity, and a normal body, I came to understand that life still had its ups and downs. There was no happy pink cloud that I could ride on forever. FA did not lead me into a heavenly euphoria where everything is perfect, but it led me out of my own hell. For that, I am eternally grateful.