Body Language

I read a good book while I was on vacation. It's called Holy Hunger: A Woman's Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment by Margaret Bullit-Jonas.

I opened the book the morning of my last day on the ship and finished it that afternoon. I expected to read more about how "spiritual fulfillment" resulted from her “journey from food addiction.” But for me, the book didn’t quite show that.

What I did get out of the book was an understanding of how similar I am in my food addiction to her. Some phrases were like reading about my own life, my own reactions, my own emotions.

I totally got how she used food to pacify, squelch, enhance, exaggerate her emotions. I caught myself often marking passages that rang true in my own life.

She talked about hitting the bottom, seeing her own food addiction against her father’s alcohol addiction, being paralyzed by fear to move forward.

Like her, I recognize that I am out of control with food. Even though I’ve had this fantastic surgery with awesome results, I am still tormented by what goes into my mouth, still compulsive in my thoughts.

I see that I use food to stuff down my emotions. And I want to stop, but I feel ill equipped to deal with those emotions. They could knock me on my ass. They could kill me.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen myself obsess about food and abuse food in order to avoid feelings and spare myself the pain of dealing with those emotions. I have actually, on two occasions, allowed myself to vocalize those emotions, acknowledge and accept what they were. It didn’t kill me. I felt better afterwards. But still, the thought of doing it again is terrifying. I’d rather dump on carbs than deal with my emotions.

I’ve thought about going the OA route. But the whole 12-step thing doesn’t appeal to me. Therapy will help, I know. I’m working on that. But there are times when I do think having someone to help me walk through each crisis at the point when the fire’s the hottest would definitely be of use to me. Although, that would mean I’d have to admit that I’m not perfect.

Yesterday day my therapist commented that right now, for me, it’s all about my body. Losing weight, doing new things with this new body…and allowing myself and learning how to connect my body with my emotions without the physicality of eating. I think she’s right. It’s just so damn scary.