My whole life I have been overweight. I eat for comfort. Food is my addiction - specifically carbs. I eat for comfort, and then I hate myself for it and eat some more. Once a friend announce at the school lunch table - 'You have a really small nose for a fat person'
I am 5'10" and I weigh about 222 pounds - not a candidate for gastric bypass but Vickys' Secret is lost on me - let me tell you. When I was thin I had to get a D cup in that place just to get it to fit around me - it was crazy.
These are my demons - chocolate and ice cream and cake and cookies - and they are my friends too. It’s all in my head – the fear of being seen in public as fat but yet that fear doesn’t make me exercise – it makes me eat and hide. I don’t hide as much as I used to but I hide. I won’t do aerobics – I am terrified – I can’t do the steps – I have two left feet and I literally have cried in the privacy of my own home when I couldn’t follow the video – I was ALONE – who the hell could see me ? But the pain and embarrassment of being unable to follow the video like ‘normal’ people was unbearable and I cried. I tried yoga – because I thought it was slow – wrong –I got in the move fast type of class – cried there too – but a friend witnessed it. Thank God she got pregnant and had no energy to go back to c lass – I didn’t have to worry about her trying to encourage me to put myself into that position again of being absolutely terrified because EVERYONE can see how awful and unworthy I am.
Because I am fat and I am uncoordinated and therefore worthless. In order to not be seen as worthless I must hide from activities that expose me. No exercise – someone might see me mess up. No buffets – someone will see me eat more than any human being should. And for public view – I must dress myself as well as I can afford to – which lead to a rather large addiction to shoes – you really have to be BIG to not fit into the current shoe trend – so my shoes could always be cutting edge and therefore I could hide the fact that I was fat with my awesome shoe collection.
And this is the psycho-drama of the fat chick. This is the story of the outcast who never fit in. This is how it is supposed to happen all is right with the world.
And then a few weeks ago I learned that my niece is not eating and purging when she does eat. She is physically beautiful by all accounts including the media standards - tall, long dark hair, perky boobies, clear skin, well defined cheekbones and jaw line. She wears the 'IT' clothes. Has the right phone, the Uggs, the forbidden thong undies. She is a track star and a straight ‘A’ student.
She has it all.
And her body is her enemy and food is its ally in the fight against her.
She thinks she is fat and ugly and vomits at the thought of putting food into her stomach. She had to turn away while I put butter on my popcorn at the movies last week
Except for Swedish Fish - she can hold those down for a couple hours - but she will have a panic attack trying to do it. She did at the movies - she later purged at home.
Flash back to Thanksgiving last year - and her mother is harassing her to eat but she says she doesn't feel well. Her mother claims loudly to the family that she is anorexic and isn't eating and being stupid. I figured my sister-in-law was over-reacting - which is a common theme in the family. So I cornered niece and said - so what is the scoop - you not eating? Are you puking your food up or are you really not feeling well?
The answer - I am really not feeling well. So I pushed - Then why does your Mom think you have anorexia? She then told me she was having issues but that she was over it.
OK - I took her shopping the next week and she ate and did not purge - had a friend with me who always needed to use the ladies room at the same time niece did just in case. A spy - I am not proud - but I was concerned.
Get to this year and its back with a vengeance - kid lost 17 pounds in a month. She is a size small to begin with.
She told me she was OK for awhile after last Thanksgiving and then over the summer she just spiraled into the purging
School got involved somehow, she hasn't told me what happened to get them involved. There was an incident where her other aunt was watching her for a week while her parents were away on vacation - this aunt is a functioning alcoholic. While I am sure her parents needed a break - I am not sure about the wisdom behind leaving a child with a psychological disorder alone with an alcoholic. Discussions about this may have increased the schools involvment.
At one point my niece passed out coming down the stairs in her house and the knot on her head caused the school to send a social worker to her home to confirm that abuse was not an issue.
I digress
My niece is at an in patient treatment program but I am worried -
My sister in law seems to see this as a magic bullet - four weeks and all is fixed - nice neat package. That is not how this works - it can be a lifelong thing -dealing with your demons.
Apparently my niece asked her father to bring some of her friends up to visit her - he said yes out of fear of causing a 'setback' or something. But my sister in law feels that this is not good - that the place is a hospital and not a 'fun' place. She says that the treatment should not be 'fun' - that her daughter needs to get back to 'real' life and deal. She said that my niece is happy because no one is yelling at her at the center. I know that my in-laws method of dealing with anything is to yell until the offender submits. The amateur psychologist in me wonders if this is part of the problem with the girl. Remember the scene at Thanksgiving I mentioned
above? The group meeting didn't go over with my sister in law - she felt it was just all the families 'complaining' about what is happening to them and she doesn't want to do that. She and her husband discussed and said that if these weekly meetings are mandatory - they will go every other week. Oh, OK - glad to see you have a grasp on the meaning of the word 'mandatory'.
She has said that they will not visit her every day - because they want her to be unhappy about being alone and away from her things. They won’t bring her many of her things from home in an effort to reinforce that she is not to ‘enjoy’ the stay at ‘rehab’. Is it really rehab? I am not sure I like this label either.
I feel like they are trying to punish the girl with this line of thinking.
I will try to be there for my sister in law as I know she doesn't have anyone else to talk to - she doesn't want her friends to know and she is keeping this all from her mother. But I can see already that I am going to disagree with her thought process - See what I am saying here is that I see a whole 'Snap out of it' mentality and I know that people don't just snap out of mental illness - which by and large is what I believe is behind anorexia no matter how you slice it. And I know that many experts agree with me.
I will be visiting my niece probably next Saturday (The family group is for immediate family only). My personal opinion is that she needed a week away from the family drama with the exception of what the doctors wanted the family brought in on to get acclimated to treatment.
I think I should encourage my niece to journal her feelings and talk about them with her doctors or me or her friends or family - that is what I did when I was in treatment for depression and GAD. I gave her a journal to do that - I hope she took it with her to the hospital - but I don't know.
I also bought her a copy of Operation Beautiful - it seems to be a very positive message so I think it wouldn't be counter productive for her. But I think I should check that out with a doctor.
She is so beautiful, physically and otherwise - I just can't believe this is happening to her -my heart breaks for her.
I guess the people we think who have it all are really just as frightened as the rest of us - maybe more because maybe they know we think they have it all and the pressure is too much to bear.....
