Written Text Qualifications

I'm [Anonymous], I'm a compulsive overeater.  I weigh and measure three meals a day from the Grey Sheet, and I've been given the grace to have done that without exception since May 9, 2001, thank G-d.

I was a relatively normal eater, albeit with a storied appetite - my Uncle used to say I was a bottomless pit.  However, there were huge differences between my childhood behaviors with food and my eventual active-addict ones:  back then, if I didn't like something that had sugar in it, I didn't eat it; I could eat "a couple" x's and stop, etc.  I had a life between my meals and occasional snacks.  Food didn't run the show.  If I didn't like something, I didn't eat it and then I didn't calculate till Kingdom come how I was owed something from the day before.  Of course, all of that changed once I became a full-blown addict.

I know that there are those who believe themselves born addicts.  When I think of the intensity of my feelings in childhood, my isolation, my emotional pain, it's certainly possible to diagnose myself an alcoholic way back then, an alcoholic/addict waiting for a substance.  I suppose my substance in childhood was memories - sad photos and music.  I'd sit alone for hours, listening to the violin concerti my Dad was playing on the "hi-fi" (yes, I'm old!!!  :-)  -- birth year:  1954 - though on Grey Sheet no one looks her age!! :-) ).  I was isolated at school, one of three girls in a small private school class, and the other two excluded me.  At first, I was friends with the only other girl in class.  She was fat and not particularly swift at her studies.  Then, in second or third grade, a third girl joined our class - she was fat and real swift - a "city slicker" -- and either by her design or just "because," she and the other girl were soon a pair and I was alone.  This newcomer also stole my idea for a project and lied to the teacher about it.  I got no justice about that, although I did tell someone (can't remember who).  I think there was more cruelty from this girl too.  My Mom never forgot.  I think I blocked a lot of it.

Unfortunately, home was also filled with screaming and name-calling.  My Mom was overwhelmed; so was Dad.  A psychic once said my mother had a homicidal relationship to me.  She was jealous of the attention I got (which she heaped on me too) as a somewhat gifted "star" show-child, a little doll to be displayed.  "See how pretty she is?  How smart?"  Unfortunately, when I used my brain to disagree with her or point out some lie she was telling (probably in public, too), I was "big mouth" or "di moyl," which means "an animal's trap or snout" in Yiddish.  She was also jealous of my father's love for me, and would literally say to him, "It's her or me."

As I say, I was lonely.  I didn't have a friend till sixth grade, when my Mom had (wisely, I think) wrenched me from the private school.  I didn't want to leave because it was a bi-cultural school, where we learned in English and Hebrew - I loved my Hebrew studies.  However, even though the verbal and emotional abuse at home was part of the problem, I was also miserable socially at school.  So, when I went into public school in sixth grade, I met my first real friend.  She and I were neck-and-neck as class "brains" and did everything together.  We did music, theater and excelled in our studies.  Together, we were going to go to Radcliffe.

Right.  After two years of friendship with this first friend, she went on with her life, to be a political activist, a socially skilled middle-schooler and high schooler.  I, on the other hand, died.  She ended up going to Yale and Harvard Law, and I couldn't get into my state university - by then, I was face down in the food.

I realized afterward that a huge part of the loss was that her mother loved me, or, at least, treated me with love.  At her house, we did art projects.  At my house, my sister had told her friends not to talk to me (they told me this years later), and I was "big mouth."

Then, my brother, nine years my junior, got to kindergarten, where the fact that he was basically raising himself, except for beatings from my parents when he didn't magically master good behavior, got him labeled "learning disabled" and "troubled" and who knows what else.  The beatings probably got worse when our house was exposed as housing a "problem kid."

It was killing me.  I tried to stop it and couldn't.  They told me if I protested, they'd beat him worse.

So, right around eighth grade, my friend was leaving as my friend, my brother was being beaten, and my other reliable drug (aside from that friendship) - excelling in school - was removed.  I was in classes with other bright children, now, and I had no study skills, so I started going invisible and disintegrating, in a way.  Nothing held any interest for me.

Obviously, I was doing everything alone, with no guidance.  There were no adults I consulted about my decisions, and now I had no friends either.

That's when I began eating lots of fruit after dinner, while reading the comics.  I'd fructose my way into a stupor.  Started porking out a little; had about 20 extra pounds.  I tried a couple of diets for a couple of days each.  Hated having extra weight.  Had been slim before that.  However, I found that I couldn't abstain from the frozen carbo they sold outside our summer play rehearsals.  I was still very alone and something else really painful happened with that play - excruciatingly painful (so as not to make this the endless qualification, I'll say, "Details on request.").  Just had gobs of isolating experiences, where I was discounted and misunderstood and punished.  I was an outsider and didn't know how not to be or what I'd done wrong.  Some people were nice to me, but they had their own families, husbands, boyfriends, etc.  I had no intimate relationships.

Then, I went to Israel in the summer before junior year (high school), lost fifteen pounds and was slim again for 5 minutes.  I returned to the same hell and had also had my first big sugar binges over there, eating my roommate's x's and then finishing the box, replacing it and eating it down to where it had been, to try to hide my crime.

If you just rewind and play this, you have the next fifteen-or-so years of my life.

Once I went into the sugar and flour, etc., there was no turning back.  Now, I was fat.  "Big mouth" became "fatso."  My mother told me my protests against my brother's abuse were worthless because the word of a fat girl was worthless.  On my return from Israel, that Fall, junior year, I gained 30 lbs. in two months, stopped doing my schoolwork and got demoted from the gifted classes.  (There - that helped me do my homework, didn't it?).  There was a theme of my just being invisible and never getting help.  It's really hard to imagine what G-d was thinking or doing while this happened.

Now, what fuels my belief in G-d, is that when I act as though I have a loving G-d, my day goes better.  I also easily see evidence (that I want to see as such) of a loving G-d in my life - fabulous coincidences, "incidental" meetings with helpful people and people I can help, etc.

Back to the tale - I can see this is really turning into a long yarn.  This reminds me of my earlier qualifications; by the end of 45 minutes, I'd be in high school.  Anyway, I became a puker, possibly that year of the weight gain (junior year in high school); don't remember.  I puked so I could have more room in my stomach to eat.  Also, the quantities I ate put a lot of pressure on my stomach; I wanted to relieve that pain, but then always filled right up.

In short order, I went to a dull women's college I didn't even want to apply to (got rejected from every school I was interested in; didn't bother applying to many, either -- high board scores and failing grades in non-academic classes don't get a body far), worked as a secretary for decades, did have a national concert career while working as a secretary, just died.  Just died. Had occasional friends who left at the first misunderstanding, no healthy friendships.

Wanted to be an opera singer and/or musical theater performer, but my voice was often damaged from puking.  Also, I was fat.  Heard more than once, "You're a good dancer, but you've got to lose the weight!"  Yeah.  Like that was possible.  Joined Weight Watchers a couple times, read Geneen Roth's book on just eating what you truly want and getting thin, G-d bless her.  That does work, I'm sure, for different varieties of eater than I am, the hopeless kind.  My top weight was around 180, puking.  I finally gave up, consigned myself to being a fat performer and allowed myself to move to New York.

Six months later, when I was a little short of age 31, after 17 years of violent eating, I got 12-stepped into OA, all over the place, in New York City.  It was January, 1985.  I took to it like a duck to water.  I went to daily OA meetings, AA, Al Anon and ACOA.  I read every ACOA book I could find.

I had a new life.  I found kind friends.  I learned that self-hatred was a learned behavior, and that I hadn't earned the role of discard.  I experienced eating a meal with an appetite, having not snacked or binged or grazed since the previous meal.  Three meals a day -- it was a miracle.

However, I was still chubby, hovering around 150.  My "moderate" meals, eaten in restaurants, kept me there.  I kept no food in the house.  I understood that I couldn't.

At Year Five of OA, I got a big, professional, full-time job, my first, and transferred to South Jersey.  There, I discovered an OA community where many had gone to a Florida rehab, Glenbeigh of Tampa.  When the job and I went sour (bad doings with a colleague who was troubled and sexually inappropriate), I had a big binge and got accepted to the rehab.  Five months of halfway house followed.  In Tampa, I began weighing and measuring without exception, no sugar or flour, from a different food plan.  I achieved goal weight for the first time in my adult life!! It was a thrill to look young, finally, at age 37!!  I began dating; I entered teenage-hood.

After rehab and halfway house, I'd followed a voice teacher back to Boston.  I had a series of traumatically painful relationships with "boys" (still waiting for an invitation to prom) and, platonically, girls.  I struggled with jobs.  I had a binge and got scared enough to go into a "strong," but actually abusive, "90-day" OA cult.  After 14 months of that (they don't use spices - were you aware that food - and everything else - was supposed to be neutral?), I had a 14-month relapse, gained all my weight back, and lost everything.

That's what preceded and enabled my entrance into Grey Sheet, the last place I planned on going.  I was fine with my food plan - that is, when I wasn't having 14-month-long binges.  The thing was, I needed a healthy community to help contain my addiction.  Little did I realize - I believe this now - that G-d got me to Boston so I could find the Grey Sheet community.  I came in at Year Eleven of OA.  Here, I've found more enjoyment of food than ever and a network of healthier people.  In Grey Sheet, I'm meeting people who are truly working on themselves.  It's a different world.  I've been in the community since Fall of 1995.

I believe that a huge part of the emotional health I find here and the courage folks have to face their fears and recover (FEAR - Face Everything And Recover), is that the food is down.  The food is removed as a decoy to distract from the real darkness I'd been fleeing.  I have support in and out of Program to face the darkness and discover that, actually, some really beautiful flowers have been growing down there.  I'm one of them, so my sponsors and friends are trying to teach me.

What helps me stay abstinent:  making phone calls at the first sign of a strong feeling, getting to many meetings (including AA, for reinforcement), and using this fabulous Grey Net to get and give support, day or night.  (I was afraid to put it in that order - "get and give" - you know, the dreaded "selfish" accusation!  However, I have to preserve my abstinence first to be able to help anyone else.  It's the eating life that imprisons me in self.)

Please don't eat no matter what and I won't either.  Together we can do what we could never do alone.

With love in recovery,
[Anonymous], of Swampscott, MA

On May 9, 2006, [Anonymous] celebrated five years of back-to-back GreySheet abstinence!