Thoughts from therapy last night - anyone else dealing with this?

[pizzicato66 1]

Since I decided I had some stuff to work through as I lose this year, I've gone back to therapy and went back to the woman I worked with during my divorce in the 90's. My GOD, she's a brilliant woman!

While we were talking last night, we got into my relationship with my sister and how it feels like a competition a lot of the time, and how I was having trouble being around my sister these days, especially since surgery (my sister is nearly disabled by her weight now but isn't considering surgery or other programs as far as I know).

My therapist made this amazing insight. "Ask your sister why it is that you both are so HUNGRY all the time." Not just about food, but about money, posessions, attention, etc.

Wow. Definitely has me thinking! What happened as we were kids to make us feel like we wouldn't get enough if we didn't fight for it and take all we can right away? Not that we don't share or help each other out - we definitely do, and we're VERY close. But maybe our compulsion to eat, shop etc. are our attempts to fill something that's missing emotionally.

Anyway, I'm curious - are any others out here working on stuff that deep right now? What have you figured out?

[NanaRenan 0]

I'll go there.

My weight GAIN was mostly physiological -- four pregnancies in 8.5 years and eating completely wrong for someone predisposed to diabetes explains that, but there are some psychological components.

Primarily, it boils down to one thing -- caring for a family of six on one income, luxuries were few and far between. food -- usually simple but delicious -- was a reward I didn't guilty letting myself have. I justified it that I was keeping it from going to waste. And subconsciously pleasing my mom, by living up to her expectations of a clean plate!!

STAYING fat was a different story. I know that at least SOME of the reason I got so comfortable in the fat world was that it insulated me from unwanted attention.

Last time I had a school girl figure, I was, well.................a school girl!! And I was one of those girls that developed early and looked 18 when I was 12. I got a lot of attention from that -- mostly negative, as you can imagine. I had to fight very hard and stand very firm to not live up to the reputation that I inadvertantly got from that. (Evidently, if you're cute and boys like you, well, you're a 'slut' whether you do anything or not!) Looking back on some of the situations I ignorantly got myself into, it's frankly amazing that I was never a victim of date rape!! But somehow I managed to stay a virgin until I married -- LOL -- not that I'd win any endurance records for that .....

I married 12 days before I turned 17 and got pregnant 9 months later. The 21.5 inch waist was gone forever and with it went the unwanted looks and flirtations of other men, so I actually LIKED that. See, my husband lived 500 miles away and was unaware of those rumors. I guess -- in my immaturity -- I tho't if he saw me dealing with glances and passes from guys, he would think I was causing it somehow and it would cause problems.

LOL It seems silly to say that, after 28.5 years of marriage, there's probably not a less jealous man on the planet!!! But in my mind it was a huge deal back then.

In 1988 I dieted down to a size 10 after several years of being an 18/20. It absolutely freaked me out the first time someone whistled at me.....I looked around to see who they were flirting with!! But I didn't have to worry about it long, because within a few months I was pregnant again and once again 'safely' invisible.

[bandster_1007 1]

i know that you posted this in the august post, and i am an october. i also know that i recently had my surgery, only a month ago.

psychology was my major in college, although i have gone into another field. i would venture to say that everyone one of us has to deal with something on the level which you speak of. eating has become a protection and a comfort for most of us for some reason or another. unfortunately, the surgery does not fix that.

i tell people honestly that this is the hardest thing that i have ever done. and i just got restriction yesterday. it was so hard emotionally, and you have to do a lot of soul searching to find the root of the problem. it is my philosophy that a big majority of our "problems" emotionally stem from childhood factors. many people would argue that.

[salsa1877 10]

I absolutely agree that most of the reason that I got where I am today is because of my childhood. Obviously I have made very bad choices along the way, but my mother was not a stable woman. She actually spent time in a psychiatric ward. My weight problems started when I was 7 which was consequently the same time that my mom handed me my 6month old brother and stated that she didn't want him and that I was going to raise him. She would still fix me dinners and do my laundry but would do nothing from him. As a result I became a 7 year old mother and feared that someday she would stop wanting to be my mom too. As a result I would start hording food in my room. I would sneak food out of the kitchen just before it was bed time so that I could gorge myself with it. I figured that way if she did decide to stop feeding me, I could wait a few days. We were also VERY poor and she made that quite clear. Daily she would tell us how much money she was spending on food just to keep us alive. Didn't help that she had a 3 pack a day cigarette habit! It just continued like that.

She also used food as a reward and punishment. I remember when i was in middle school and got a C- on a progress report and I was not allowed to eat anything except Water and 2 slices of bread for 7 days. I day for each letter grade (+ and - included) that the grade wasn't an A. Since then I have had a love hate relationship with food. Up until this last summer if I didn't have enough food in my cupboards to last at least a month, I would panic. I always felt that I was going to run out and starve to death. My BF is a psychology major and has really helped me with a lot of the issues that have surrounded my childhood. My mom died 2 years ago and that has really helped me in starting to change some of my behaviors and attitudes. I don't panic about food any more, but I am still working on the money issues. I never feel like I have enough no matter how much is in the bank. Right now things are hectic because of paying 17000 for the surgery, but even so I shouldn't be staying up half the night worried about it.

Now I have continued to make bad food choices since I have moved out of my house, but I think it is because that is the only way that I learned to deal with my issues. I am so thankful to have this place to come now, because I can get out my frustrations, comments and people to talk to who understand the problems that I am having. I don't think that i would have been as successful if I hadn't had this place.

[bandster_1007 1]

salsa1877, i have to ask...how is your relationship now with your brother?

[pizzicato66 1]

Wow - thank you everyone for opening up. It's amazing how much emotion can be tied to food, isn't it?

As they say, your childhood happened, but you have the control now and can decide where things go from this point on out. That's a nice thing to think about!

[tifferoni326 0]

My weight started in kindergarden, when I was molested...food was a comfort, since I couldnt tell my parents about it

My mother also has an eating problem. She came from a poor family of 11, so there was never enough food to go around, so when she had kids and a job, food was a reward, which is where I picked that up from.

My sister and I have a love/hate relationship..WE got along great until after my surgery..see Im supposed to be the fat one in the family. Now, if I call her up to say how I bought a new pair of jeans or lost 5 lbs..its like Im insulting her..and shes not obese..shes a 16/18..she cant stand the fact that I am thinner...Well normally being the middle child, I would try to appease her and sabatoge my loss..ive done this before, not intentionally, but looking back on it I did..Nope. I have figured that my sister has her own personal demons and that it is easier on her to take them out on me. I am not gonna let it bother me anymore.

Plus I think Americans, and Im sure other countries as well, tend to reward themselves with food..as a kid go to mcdonalds and you want that toy..gotta get the food and eat it all..O you made an A tommy, lets go buy you some icecream...

[Liz1531 3]

Right before surgery I started counseling for the first time in my life. It's been so helpful. Things I have never really thought about are suddenly coming clear to me. I was most concerned about continuing to binge and that's why I went into counseling. We've really talked about everything but eating and amazingly I haven't had any urges to binge so far. Congrats on the eye opening!

[salsa1877 10]

salsa1877, i have to ask...how is your relationship now with your brother?

My brother and I are incredibly close. In fact, I still act like his parent (Sometimes he likes it, other times he doesn't) I am his only living family member. His dad died when he was 10 months old, so I am all he has left. He has been very supportive of my choice to have the surgery done. He was a little nervous because I was going in to have surgery, but is convinced that by me losing weight he will have me around for longer. He needs it to. He bought a house 2 years ago and got into that sub prime market with the HUGE adjustable rate mortgages and now can't afford it. So here I come to the rescue and am buying his house from him so that he can keep. I know what a nice (and probably stupid) sister I am.

This thread has been very helpful. It was sad but good to see that I wasn't the only one that was carrying 100 pounds of baggage from my childhood!

[bandster_1007 1]

salsa, i only asked because some children fold with that kind of pressure and begin to resent the sibling that they are forced to take care of. it sounds to me like you were forced to be a very mature 7 year old and handled it well. your brother is probably more greatful to you than you will ever know. i think that is awesome!! i think a lot of things happen for a reason, and becuase of your mother's own issues, you now have an incredible relationship with your sibling, and it is also quite a coincidence that you would be his only family left.

fate has a funny way of showing it's meaning through time.

i didn't put on here my own problem, because it is very multidimensional, i cannot pinpoint any one problem.

1. i hate to cook, my mother was an alcoholic and i had to do the housekeeping and the sibling keeping and i didn't take it too well. i never wanted to learn to cook because i knew that i would have to do it every day. in our house for a period of time, cleaning came before homework. at the same time, i was under tremendous pressure to be perfect by my mother and i developed anorexia. i never finished therapy, but almost died from it. one night my mom force fed me. i do not remember it, but my younger brother does vividly. i apparantly threw up for about 12 hours while my mom force fed me (i had gotten to the point that nothing stayed down). you can imagine my horror when they retold this story to me several years later. all this time i thought i just decided to eat..ha my mother and i are now extremely close. she had made some bad decisions, but was a very strong woman and pulled herself through (abusive relationships, alcohalism, etc.)

2. i never had a trusting relationship with any man. the man that i called dad beat my mom to the point of no recognition on a regular basis (i used to run down the street daily to call the cops, and there was only one cop in town and they never answered the phone, when they did come, they wouldn't do anything). the same person that i called dad held me at gun point one day and said that if he couldn't have my mom, then no one could and he was going to kill us all. then add to that, the absence of my real father, who later i built a very shaky relationship with-still working through that one, to the point that i truly convinced myself he had died. add to that not two, but 3 molestations, and my first sexual experience being a rape by my best friends older brother when i was twelve. the rape's continued for over a year and when my friends found out, they didn't believe me. my dh and i dated at the same time some of the rapes were going on, and i made my dh wait 8 whole months before we had sex (i was proud, it wasn't like i had anything to hold on to), i was 13 at the time, and the guy raped me the same night that i had my first real sexual experience with the man that is now my husband. i cried and begged him to stop doing that to me..and he did. people do not understand why i still went to my friends house, but at that time, she was the only person i had. my "dad" was very verbally abusive, my mom was avoiding her own household by going to a diner every night with friends. my friend's house was just as bad, so we had each other, and we were inseperable.

ok, now, there are SEVERAL other instances that have been added to this, but i started a horrible relationship with food as a means of control. first by deprivation and then it was my enemy. i later found it to be my best friend and confident, and became very comfortable with the shell of fat that i carry which, in my own demented mind, shield me from being a target of rape, or just plain abuse, or just being abused.

i have a problem with men. i like where i work because there is only one man. if i go to the store, i will not go through a line with a man who is checking if i can help it. i do not like for strange me to look at me at all. i live in fear of being broken in on, or a victim of a serial killer stalker...and somehow i think that fat protects me.

so, that is a VERY VERY BRIEF description and only skims the surface.

i think that is why this has been sooooo hard. my fat has deep roots, and although i know i have to get rid of it for my health, i haven't adjusted to well to the emotions that go along with it.

[NanaRenan 0]

my mom handed me my 6month old brother and stated that she didn't want him and that I was going to raise him. She would still fix me dinners and do my laundry but would do nothing from him. As a result I became a 7 year old mother and feared that someday she would stop wanting to be my mom too.

Sweetie, I couldn't stop the tears when I read your post. My oldest daughter is about your age and it scares me to think what our lives might've been if I hadn't had a wonderful husband to help me through the rollercoaster rides of my mental issues and emotional baggage from my own childhood.

But your perseverence confirms what I believe, that adversity builds character. God bless you. I hope your BF and brother treasure you and appreciate you as you deserve!