How Did I Get Here?

I've struggled with eating since I was 9 years old.  That was the first time I consciously opened the refrigerator door with the sole intent of finding something inside that could ease my pain.  Ahhhh . . . Aunt Jemima straight out of the bottle.  Maraschino cherries . . . that'll do the trick. How do I know I was 9?  Because that's the same year my life became a living hell that lasted until I was 27 years old. 

My father had a major illness during this time, which included frequent hospitalizations over the course of a year and a half.  Since he was the sole breadwinner, it meant my mother had to go to work.  Since I was the oldest of three girls, I was expected to take over the "mom" responsibilities, including the cooking.  Nine year olds do not inherently know how to cook. Or do laundry.  Or do the dishes.  They can learn, but without training it's trial and error.  But these were my responsibilities now, and being a first-born child I was eager to please. 






Now might be a good time to mention that my mother has NPD.  (Narcissistic Personality Disorder)  Narcissistic mothers do not teach their daughters how to do things, they criticize, demean and instill fear. Regardless of what my father's true condition was, he was on the brink of death according to my mother.  And because of this we were going to end up starving and begging for food.  And we would be living on the streets.  Or going on Food Stamps (which we did for a time.)  And no one understood how hard this was for her.  With great melodrama she would relate our situation to anyone and everyone, claiming that she was willing do without in order to feed and care for her children it's just that she thought her adult life would be different since this was just like when she was a kid and they were so poor that they ate beans all the time because they didn't have money for meat and on, and on. . .  Take a moment to check out the link above and you'll get the picture. Sufficient to say, this was the beginning of my nightmare. Or maybe it's when I first realized I was living in the nightmare.  Either way, it's when I started feeling the nightmare. OK, so now I'm doing the cooking, but I have no idea how to cook. Hey, I'm nine.  Hamburger Helper had instructions on the box, so that's where I started. MMmmmmm Hamburger Helper, that warm, greasy, starchy, creamy combo of comfort food goodness.  Of course, I tasted as I went.  And tasted, and tasted.  It eased the anxiety I felt about our unstable situation and made me forget all the chaos that was my life for a short while.  Narcissistic Mother (heretofore known as NM) planned the menus so Hamburger Helper was eventually upgraded to "real" meals, such as cube steak with green beans and corn.  At nine, the concept of timing the cooking so that everything is ready at the same time is an impossibility.  So I would cook the meat first, then add the sides one at a time.  Everything was done, but by then the meat was cold.  Or I'd left it sitting in the grease, not knowing to remove it to a separate plate.  

This was met with criticism, ridicule, feigned disgust, complaints, and shaming.  At the dinner table we were picked at for making noises when we chewed or drank, not sitting up straight, holding our fork wrong, taking too large a serving, asking for a second helping, using fingers to put something on the fork because you aren't supposed to stab your food, ad nauseum.  Which increased the anxiety, which increased the "tasting" and the Aunt Jemima swills, which reinforced the new relationship with food as my best friend, my go to source for comfort.  

So by the time I was ten, I was chubby, not to mention I was the tallest girl in my 4th grade class.  Enter teasing, name-calling and pre-pubescent awkwardness mixed with increased hostility from NM. The cure??  You guessed it - eating.  School lunches were my new best friend and I always cleaned my own tray and anything anyone else didn't want too. School lunches were then, and are to this day comprised of food in name only. In reality they were cafeteria tray divisions of warm starch, sugar, and fat served by kind ladies with big bosoms and hair nets who reminded me of my grandmother.  (Grandma once remarked to me that I was just like her - I liked to eat when I got nervous.) 

By junior high I was looking for a way out that didn't involve eating since I now realized that fat girls didn't get attention from b-o-y-s.  I switched off my food addiction for a couple years while I developed a new one - you get the picture.  By my sophomore year I had reaped enough negative consequences from my "new" addiction that I returned to food for a time. By the summer before my junior year I switched back yet again, this time much wiser having learned the value of "the double life". It was in that summer of 1979 that I initiated my impressive repertoire of dieting experiences.  I think I went off the deep end a bit.  I can remember eating 6 frozen peas one day (for the whole day) and thinking "what if I gain weight?!"  I was 5'9" and weighed 135 lbs by the end of the summer. The benefits of showing up skinny on the first day of my junior year of high school lasted until I was 27 (ok I thought they were benefits at the time.) How did I keep it off that long?  Switching addictions, of course. Oh, and the laxatives.  Let's not forget the laxatives.  Because I never completely broke up with my food addiction - turned to it when the others were flagging for whatever reason - I had binge episodes that I knew would cause weight gain. Aaaaand we can't have that, now can we?  So what's the easy way out?   

This pattern lasted until I entered my first rehab at age 25, at which time I switched from substance abuse to my first love, eating.  I reasoned that taking laxatives was an addict behavior, but eating (binges) . . . not so much. 

I entered rehab at 154 lbs and by the time I left 28 days later I weighed 170.  By the time I entered my second rehab to deal with my sexual abuse issues (more about Dad later) I was around 180 lbs. Within 6 months of completing that treatment, I knew I needed to get away from my toxic family once and for all, so I moved 200 miles away.  I knew no one, and no one knew me.  Seemed like a nice way to start over, and turned out it was. The transplant took, and I met a wonderful man whom I married and built a life with.  The day we were married I weighed 195 lbs.  That was in 1993. Eighteen years later, I weighed 270-something lbs. Did I mention he's a saint and he loves me unconditionally?? I've tried Nutri-System, Atkins, Fen-Phen, the Cabbage Soup Diet, and The Zone to name a few.  All with excellent but temporary results with a re-gain plus each time.  But when the real issue is that food is used for comfort, or stuffing emotions, or for curing boredom, or for entertainment, no diet in the world will work.  Not for long anyway.  About 5 years ago, I swore I would never go on another diet again and I quit weighing.  When I quit smoking in November of last year, I ballooned to 311 lbs.  I knew I needed to seek help when I had difficulty doing things that most humans take for granted, such as rolling over in bed, tying my shoes, crossing my legs and . . . well . . . shall we say . . . accessing important locations while in the shower and restroom. 

*ahem* 

So I signed up for surgery to have the Allergan Lap-Band AP 14cc gastric band installed. My surgery was May 4, 2011. As of the date of this post I weigh 273 lbs - back to pre-quitting-smoking weight.  So now you know how I got fat. At least the short version of it.  Stick around and watch me shrink (physically) while I grow (emotionally).