My Story With Food Part One

My intention for this blog is to be honest, sometimes brutally honest. I intend by writing down my story to release all of my old programs and thought processes about food, and who I believed myself to be. I intend to claim vibrant health through a plant based diet, and by intention of spirit. You are welcome to come along for this journey however this is a journey of my own healing.

So the next obvious question would be who am I, and how did I get to where I am today?

 I was blessed with two parents Fay and Bob who loved me.

I had my sister Christine who was my heart and teacher.

I was surrounded by two sets of grandparents who loved and doted on me.

I had a bushels of cousins on both sides of my family who I saw often.

I have been enormously blessed by family and friends in my life. Love has always been a part of my life.  So what happened? What started my disfunction with food? In truth food and my weight became my comfort, solace, and protection. 

When I was 16, I was betrayed by a close friend that lead to me being raped by several boys. I never told anyone until a few years ago. I told myself it never happened. I refused to acknowledge my pain and betrayal. I decided that if anything had happened it had been my fault. I decided I was evil, broken, and wrong. This began the stuffing of my feelings, anxiety, and pain with food. Food became my coping mechanism.

Around that time my sister started to have seizures. She had been diagnosed as developmentally disabled early on and eventually with Rett Syndrome. Her body began to change and she often would fall, stop breathing, or just break a bone.

I was with Christine alone in the afternoons and learned how to "save her" by keeping her breathing, keeping her from hurting herself while seizing, and calling 911.  My family and I learned crisis care quickly. Because of the seizures Christine would often just drop, going from conscious to unconscious in one second. This lead to many injuries and often required pulling her out of pools and lakes, patching up head wounds, and always being over vigilant. I became a expert of disassociation so I could do what needed to be done. After every episode like this food was what comforted me.

As my sisters illness progressed our whole family struggled to keep up with the changes, what was required of us to help her have the best life possible. There was no clear diagnosis. Doctors wavered between child abuse and that my sister was "making it up." We tried to pretend that all was normal. 

In truth my family was devastated and the more we tried to pretend that the world hadn't changed the worse it became. My parents divorced in 1987.

Christine's illness continued to progress and she was hospitalized for several months. No one expected her to live. We took shifts at oak lawn hospital for nearly two months. We wanted to make sure that when Christine died one of us was with her. Food was my constant comfort. I would often eat to oblivion and literally pass out. 

I had been working in retail since I was 18. I was fairly successful moving rapidly from a sales person to assistant store manager quickly. However I got fired from my job during this time. To share my lack of perspective, for years I felt being fired showed as monumental failure on my part. It never occurred to me the reason I was fired because I was exhausted from spending 8-10 hours at the hospital every day waiting for my sister to die.  To be honest I am not even sure I told people at my work that my sister was ill. I lived in a fog of detachment. I never allowed myself to think. Not about the rape, not about my family falling apart, not about my sister dieing. Food got me through. 

All these years food was such a large part of my secret life. The one I lied about, hid, and desperately wanted to change. In my lifetime I have spent more time thinking, feeling, and obsessing about food and my weight then any other thing in my life. It never once occurred to me that food would be my savior, lead to my healing.