Written Text Qualifications

My earliest recollection of food is that, even as a small child, I always wanted the biggest piece, no matter what it was that was being sliced or cut or served.  There were often times when I would get that piece, but I wasn't able to finish it.  Little did I know, in later life, I would finish that piece plus more & more.  I think that's when my mother first began to use the expression, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!"  That phrase has echoed in my head for all these years.

I distinctly remember one such instance when I was about 7 or 8 years old.  My mother and I were walking down the street in a neighborhood shopping area (no strip malls back then) and we passed by a particular restaurant that specialized in SUPER SIZED frozen dessert treats.  I begged and pleaded with her to take me in and buy me one.  Apparently, I whined enough that she finally gave in and I, in turn, was determined to finish the whole thing.  The more I stuffed into my 'little girl' mouth, the fuller my stomach became until I had finished the entire thing.  I sat back with what was probably a look of satisfaction and said, "See.  I told you I could do it!"  So, my mother paid for the treat and we walked out the door.  No sooner did I step outside the door of the place and the entire thing came racing back up and landed on the tiled entranceway of the restaurant.  I remember the only thing that I was upset about was that I couldn't keep it down.  I wanted to "hold onto" that dessert so badly to prove something to my mother...although I'm not quite sure what that might have been.

Never again do I remember purging after a binge.  For me, it was the importance of keeping that feeling of satisfaction at "finishing the whole thing" that stayed with me for the rest of my life.  The one thing that could assure me of earning my mother's love was to eat everything she made.  She, in turn, equated the act of giving me food with showing me how much she loved me.  There were never really any words of encouragement when I would show her a good grade on a test or an essay that I had written.  There was never any mother / daughter times when she would share her sewing secrets or her baking prowess with me.  She never did impart any of that wisdom for which I desperately yearned.  But, she did tell me when I looked fat or did a lousy job with washing the dishes or didn't get my bed made just right (or at all for that matter).  Eventually, she made sure that she didn't give me much credit for being able to do anything right.  I recall one evening when I had done the dishes and was very proud of myself.  Within 10 minutes my mother was back in the kitchen doing them over again, apparently I didn't do them good enough for her.  After that, the only thing I could think of to "win" her approval was to ask for something to eat, even though we had just finished a big dinner.  I remember her saying something like, "Oh, so you liked my cooking?"  That was the key for me.  I could please her by eating everything in the house.  This was pretty much the prescription for my lifelong eating disorder.

As I grew into my teens and young adult years, I struggled mightily with food, my substance of choice.  It became my haven when I couldn't find satisfaction anywhere else in my life.  By the time I graduated elementary school I was wearing a size 16 dress and feeling pretty much on the outside of everything.  I had built a shield of fat around myself that protected me from the mean things that kids can say to one another.  I can dredge up a memory from when I was selling Girl Scout treats and won an award for having sold the most boxes in my troop.  I heard some of the girls in my troop whispering behind me, "I'll bet she ate them all."  Too bad that all the hours of going door to door, dragging cases of these things and really doing a great job of selling them was completely negated by that overheard remark.  I had a hard time making myself want to be a Girl Scout after that.

By the time I turned 15 years old, my mother, also, a CO, had joined TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) and she was very successful at losing a large amount of weight.  She got some information about a Teen TOPS group and I decided to give it a try.  This would be my first attempt at weight loss.  At 5'5" and 180'ish pounds, I was sure that I needed to lose some weight.  Sure enough, I was so successful that I was crowned the Princess of the state of Illinois that year at the state TOPS convention.  Of course it didn't take too long for all of that weight plus more to make its way back onto my body.  Within the next few years I would hear myself use that "I'm big boned" excuse many, many times.  Until, by the time I was 17 or 18 and ready to graduate high school, I had gained much more than what I had originally lost and was moving up toward the 200-pound mark.

I decided to seek out TOPS again, as that was the only remedy I knew about, and was again temporarily successful.  For about three years I was able to keep off 80+ pounds, but, alas, it came piling back on me with a vengeance.  My disease was taking charge of my eating like it was angry at me for ever trying to betray it.  When I graduated with my Bachelor's degree and began teaching, I was well over 200 pounds and I knew that I needed to try something to take off the weight.  I couldn't keep up with the students I was teaching and I knew this would be a big impediment to being successful in the classroom.

This time I began a cycle of Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, TOPS (again) Nutri-system, etc.  I had some mild successes at some of these and it was during one of those periods that I would meet the man who was to be my husband.  I had never had a lot of dates, probably because of my lack of self-esteem and the shield of fat that I had built around myself.  So, when this man actually pursued me and kept calling and coming over, I was pretty much blinded by what I thought was his love for me.  As it turned out, he was (and still is) a totally dysfunctional alcoholic who really wanted someone to give him a safe place for him to do his drinking.  The longer we were together, the worse his drinking became and the more I ate to replace the affection that he never could show me.

By the time we were together for 14-15 years I had ballooned up to over 250 pounds and was feeling very desperate about my life and myself.  I sought out a therapist who saved my life by helping me understand that I could care for myself even if my husband didn't really care at all.  I began to do a medically monitored liquid protein fast and, within 9 months, lost over 100 pounds.  I had developed a regular exercise routine and, even after going back to REAL food, I was able to maintain that loss for 8 years.  Of course, during that time I divorced my husband and began my life from scratch.  Thinking that I now had "the cure" for my eating disorder, slowly but surely I allowed the weight to creep back on to what I now understood was my very "small boned" frame.

It was at this time that I got my first introduction to OA and OA / HOW.  I found an OA / HOW group near my home, got a sponsor and was successful in losing the 40 pounds I had regained.  I was lucky enough to have a HOW sponsor who had been in Cambridge Grey Sheet while in school in Boston and, for lack of any others doing Grey Sheet in Chicago, had turned to OA / HOW to maintain her weight loss.  I was still doing some form of exercise and feeling good enough about myself that I was back in graduate school.  I got my certification as an educational administrator and decided to make a try at a doctorate.

Long days and nights between full-time teaching and 3 to 4 nights a week in class took its toll on my exercise program.  As I let that slip into oblivion I began to take liberties with my food once again.  I was, once more, almost 200 pounds and wondering what I had to do to get out of the spiral of compulsive eating.  It was then that I remembered my HOW sponsor and decided to give her a call.  She is the person who suggested I subscribe to the GreyNet, which I did immediately.  I sat back and watched the shares as they rolled by me on a regular basis.  After about 2 weeks of realizing that this was the solution to my life- long problem with food, I decided to "take the plunge" and posted a message asking if there were any GreySheet groups in the Chicago area.  It didn't take long for an answer to come back to me and I called this person that day.  She, of course, told me all about the GreySheet and then asked, "So, do you want to make your food commitment now?"

That was 801 days ago and I haven't allowed myself to look back.  Thanks to the small but extremely strong GreySheet community in Chicago and to my sponsor, who I call long distance daily, I have lost 45 pounds and am back to some semblance of order in my life.  There is much, much more for me to work on, but I know that I am just a "baby" in this program.  My 2 years and 3 months of abstinence is but a small ripple when I hear about others in our community who are 7, 8, 9, 10 and even 25 years abstinent.  I have tried to immerse myself in GreySheet philosophy and do as much service as possible for our community.  Yes, I would like to lose that last 15 pounds and yes, I would like to get back to a regular program of exercise.  But, I'm happy with who I am and know that if I continue to weigh and measure three meals a day from the GreySheet, write them down, commit them to my sponsor and make abstinence the number one priority in my life, the rest will follow, eventually.  GreySheet is the solution that I have sought for so many years.