For as long as I can remember, I have always had a problem with compulsive food behaviors. Often overeating to the point of getting sick, vomiting, etc. I just never felt full. Most of my father’s side of the family was heavy and some on my mother’s side. I knew many people that were overweight, so it was normal in my mind for everybody to be big. I even had a close relative going in and out of nursing homes because of her compulsive eating illness. She would weigh as much as 900lbs, be admitted to nursing homes for care. So, I resigned myself to being big from the time I was quite young. And the obsession with my body and appearance started that young too.

I spent my teens and 20s with fad diets. Managing my weight, how I looked. But food was my real obsession. Because it always made me feel better. There was a lot that I went through as a kid that had me reaching for food to feel better. At a young age I had some significant traumas that has me reaching for anything to feel better. Due to developmental trauma, I saw a gazillion therapists. And each one blamed my binge eating disorder on trauma. I was given lots of diagnoses…PTSD, depression, anxiety, dissociative disorder, etc. And the treatments that came with them. So, “I had to eat to feel good” but had to manage it so I could stay at “a good weight”, which changed constantly. And while I spent much of my 20s and 30’s and 40’s blaming my weight on lots of external experiences, it turned out that my compulsive eating didn’t have a whole lot to do with that. Compulsive eating was just a symptom of a bigger problem that I wasn’t aware of until I came to program. I mean, in middle and high school, I would compulsively eat little pieces of paper torn from the corners of my notebooks if I didn’t have food available. I was the real deal compulsive eater.

I spent my teens through my 40s being ruled by resentment, fear, anger. And persistent suicidal ideation. And reclusive behaviors. I was told over and over the things that happened to me were tragic. And people put up with my bad behaviors that resulted from all that anger and fear for as long as they could. But I lost my jobs, friends, and intimate relationships. Looking back now I know that it was because I was impossible to get along with but at the time I was SURE I was a victim of everyone. My selfish friends, demanding boss, unreasonable boyfriends, EVERYONE. Looking back at that, with clearer vision, I see it was untreated compulsive eating.

By my late 40s, I was in bad shape. I had spent my years getting more depressed, heavier, more isolated, uncomfortable, and miserable. And I was riding this not-so-merry-go-round that I couldn’t get off. Feel miserable, then eat to feel better, then feel worse, then diet, feel better for a time, then something will set me to feeling miserable again, so I would eat to feel better…for decades…trying everything I knew to combat my weight problem but nothing stuck. Every diet my doctor put me on, just about every pay and weigh program from the 1980s to today, more diet buddies than I could count. Pills, books, hypnosis, EFT, nothing worked.

I started reading about overeating, attended meetings online and listened to phone meetings. They talked about the twelve steps and living with a higher power. I remember thinking that God couldn’t help my eating because He hadn’t helped before. I already had this close relationship with my God via my religion and I wasn’t sure how much more I could learn. BUT I knew that I needed to keep searching. Because physically and mentally I was dying. I was going to kill myself with food. I was completely desperate and willing to do anything that would help me.

I found a sponsor on one of the meetings I attended and worked on the steps with her. She was as compulsive as I was. I wasn’t alone! But when she shared her story, she didn’t suffer with it anymore like I did. She had relief from her compulsive eating illness and I NEEDED that! At her instruction, I worked the steps quickly because of what is outlined in the Big Book of AA. Because I have an illness that tells me that I DON’T have an illness, I need to get relief fast and thoroughly. After only 2 weeks of working with her I started to get relief from my illness symptoms.

My overwhelming debilitating sadness, anxiety, anger, fear, that I had since I was a little girl, mostly stays away, but life isn’t perfect. And when life gets crazy, I don’t have to be crazy because I know I am not perfect. I don’t rush to the food because I have a new solution to my old problem. I reach out to my sponsor, ask God to remove the problems in me that might be causing internal issues, and find someone to help so I can stay well. Now I have close, loving relationships with family, friends and life, which I couldn’t do before.

Feel free to send a private message if I can be of any support. Keep showing up. The miracle you might be missing is likely in the work that you may be avoiding.