Leaving an Eating Disorder

My best friend on the faculty of the school where I taught was soon going on a trip to Bermuda. She and her husband were excitedly planning and bikinis were on her mind. Bikinis are wonderful when you look fantastic. They are a troublesome thought if you are not in the shape you want to be. Because we were still on the earlier side of our twenties, my friend and I had pretty good bodies, but a few extra pounds had taken up residence on both of us. This was a problem when going to Bermuda and needing to look good in a bikini. My friend decided to go on a diet, and I willingly took on the part of diet buddy. We planned to diet until we had each lost about ten pounds.

The diet rage of the moment was Atkins. We decided upon a modified version that allowed some veggies and fruit. Linda got all the information on what we could eat, and she and I began to bring our lunches from home. First we ate reasonably, but soon we were in a race to see who could lose the ten pounds the quickest. This was not really a discussed race, and we were super friendly, but there was this goal out there, and we were both determined to reach it by the time Linda had to leave for her vacation. First we cut out bread. Then we were eating salads and an egg, plus a fruit at lunch. I remember when Linda cut down to only an egg and an apple. Then I cut out the egg. One of the male teachers who sat at our lunch table commented one day, ”You girls better start eating something more because I am getting tired of you devouring my lunch every day with your eyes.” We all had a good laugh, but I was suddenly conscious of the fact that I was looking at his sandwiches and his potato chips or cupcakes with deep longing! However, happiness reigned only a few days later when both Linda and I had lost those stubborn ten pounds. 

That weekend we headed to the mall to try on bikinis. Linda had a better budget than I did and a trip to prepare for, so she bought four bikinis, some shorts, and great looking blouses and a pair of sandals that were to die for. I bought one bikini, and felt sad to spend as much as I did, but I figured all that dieting had earned a certain reward. Besides, the bikini would be enjoyed by my husband as well as by me. After we were finished shopping, Linda looked at me and grinned. “There is a super bakery in this mall,” she stated. I was so hungry that I could have died right there just thinking about a bakery. We smiled at each other and headed right for temptation. And BOY, was there temptation!! We each bought a chocolate éclair and Linda got two iced cinnamon rolls, while I bought two donuts. Laughing and giggling our way to her car only took a few minutes, and once there, we ripped open our bags of sweet treats and devoured all of them right there. It was our first binge.

The sugar high lasted long enough for both of us to get home. The eating disorder that followed lasted almost two years for me and to hospitalization and psychiatric counseling for Linda. We cycled back and forth after that between dieting and binging. We both became obsessed with food. I can remember realizing how sad it was that I thought all the time about the next food that I could eat or my self-condemnation for the last food that I had eaten.  I no longer lived life free from FOOD. I couldn’t really get away from those thoughts of the last meal that I had not been able to eat or the idea of the food that I wanted to eat. Food became a series of “goods” like salads and diet drinks and “bads” like ice cream and bread. I couldn’t control my thoughts or my binging and then the need to eat almost nothing. It became almost unbearable. As a teacher, I could keep my thoughts on my teaching while in my classes, but as soon as I had any time to myself, the food problem came rushing back. Could I eat? What could I eat? Was my weight up or down? Was I able to get past the fast food place on the way home? Could I have one dish of ice cream without then eating the whole box? It was all so ridiculous and so terribly tiring and so upsetting to a person who had never before cared much one way or the other about my next meal or my weight. And I knew that I was not being as good a wife to my husband or as good a friend or as good a daughter or as good a person as I could be because so much of my attention was focused on food. 

This, along with several other things in my life, led me to the spiritual crisis that I have discussed in a series of posts titled “The Biggest Question of All.” After that, my eating became a matter of prayer. I needed help, and so did Linda. For two or three months I just struggled as I had been, thinking of food and trying to get a grip. But I kept praying to the God that I now knew existed. I figured that somehow He Must have an answer to problems like this.

After several weeks, Robert and I were at the church I had started attending while trying to find out if God existed. The minister was talking from the pulpit, and I was just sitting listening when I heard a voice that seemed to come out of the arched ceiling above me say very clearly, “Give me your snacks, and I will control your weight.” Along with that voice came a sense of peace and strength. But I looked around at Robert and everyone around me, and no one seemed interested in anything except the minister. How weird!! This voice was as plain as day to me, yet no one else acted like they had heard it at all!

“Robert, did you hear a voice coming out of the ceiling? You know, while the minister was preaching?” I asked as soon as we were out of the sanctuary. 

“No. Why?” Robert was looking at me with curious expectation. He had come to understand that my newfound faith was changing some things about his wife, but I had the impression that he found it all a tad amusing and was waiting for this fad to dissipate.

By now I was pretty sure that I was the only person who had heard the voice, and yet the words were still bright in my heart…”Give me your snacks, and I will control your weight.” The peace and the strength were still there, too. I felt sure that I was to eat three meals a day and nothing in between. That would be hugely different from the way I had been eating, where I would often skip meals and then indulge in snacks that became binges. But I had such a sense that God had spoken to me! I couldn’t explain it, and I could hardly believe it, but somewhere deep inside me I knew it! I had heard God speak. And I had such a sense that I could do this, that I could eat three meals a day and leave my weight and food in the hands of God. It didn’t seem possible to think that this could work, when Linda and I had tried so many times since the Bermuda trip to lose the pounds that we had both put on since the “Diet”, but at the same time, if the God of the universe had said he would be in control, I was in for that ride!

I started immediately after church. I ate happily at lunch with Robert, and then didn’t eat another thing until supper. At supper I again ate happily what we had prepared, and then had nothing until the next morning. I had skipped breakfast for years, but the next morning I ate breakfast. Then I had lunch, and then I had dinner. This went on for a few days, and I was sooo happy. Food was beginning to dim in my mind. I didn’t have to worry about what to eat or when to eat anymore. I didn’t have to try to cut calories or stay away from any specific thing. I just couldn’t eat between meals. And slowly, my weight began to drop a pound here and another pound somewhat later, but that didn’t matter as much any more. The freedom that came with not having to worry about eating was so sweet, that I could do nothing but praise the Lord. I knew he had healed my mind! 

I had shared my changed outlook upon faith and God with Linda after that happened, and she seemed happy for me but didn’t pursue faith for herself. We had remained good friends, though, and so I told her how God had spoken to me about giving him my snacks. But Linda didn’t have the same feeling of peace and strength that I had immediately felt, and eventually she ended up as an anorexic. This was early in the days of knowing about eating disorders, so the whole thing was little understood. She ended up being hospitalized so that she could gain some weight. I was sad that she was so unhappy, but I couldn’t help her.

All of this happened to me fifty years ago, and to this day, eating and food have never again taken over my mind and life. I know what it is to be healed of something that one has no power to control, something that has taken control of one’s mind and actions. This gives me such empathy for addicts of any kind. And I am always totally aware of the gift that God gave me by answering my prayers. I was and am FREE!