coming to terms

Why do I not feel like I should belong and OA, AND why I actually do...

I cried during the first OA meeting I went to. The tears were a combination of empathy, sympathy, relief and maybe a tinge of joy. Anyone with heart would have felt empathy for the speaker-a woman my age whose struggle with food was all across the board from bulimic to binger. Anyone who has done any of the myriad of things to lose weight and/or get as much food as they can would have sympathized with her. Relief often comes when you realize that you aren’t the only one doing all those things that pare the world down into 1. Do I look/feel fat, 2. What can I eat?, 3. Was I good/bad yesterday/how can I make up for it today? I wonder, how much of my life has been taking up by those 3 insidious questions.
As I sit in an OA meeting, I see people of ALL sizes. I think that is the most impressive part of OA. We are obese, chubby, voluptuous, skinny, anorexic. We are all expressions of humanity. We all have an addiction to food in some way. Food is part of life, but for us it IS life.
Memory: Sophomore year of college. My roommate would regularly make batches of cookie dough, to just eat the raw dough. I have no idea what her relationship to that dough was, but for me, I could never get enough-when that dough was made, our friendship was no longer at the forefront of the moment. It was no longer about sharing how our day was and laughing and playing together, it was, how much more can I get on my spoon. Later, I was crying. My other roommate said in response to my laments over the binge, “Rachel, it’s just food, it’s not worth crying over.” I thought that was such an interesting thing to point out-because for me it was worth crying over and I already had done that many times. I would bring these particular tears to therapy, I was already going for other reasons. None of the therapists thought that the tears were actually coming from food, they all thought it was for other issues-so it was never brought up that I might have disordered eating.
For the past few OA meetings, I have struggled with believing that in fact I AM an abnormal eater. While I am totally moved and impressed with the level of self-reflection and awareness OA members have-I often find myself really uncomfortable with being in the room. Perhaps it’s like when you are in a dark unfamiliar room and you switch on a flashlight, only to be fearful of what the light might reveal hiding in the corner. I want to embrace the 12 steps and to dive into the depths of years of disordered eating only because I see that other people have found recovery in that. I am not skeptical of the 12 steps but I am fearful that I will not have “what it takes” to get better. I don’t know what life looks like without the spotlight being on food. I don’t know how I might live differently.
I am not obese and I’m not anorexic. My fluctuations in weight have been plus or minus 20 lbs. When sitting next to another woman whose numbers are more in the 100s range, those 20lbs no longer feel valid. But for me they are life or death. They are happiness or depression. Well, I should clarify-that happiness is never really attained in either direction. I am surrounded in life by friends and family that are ceaselessly loving and supportive. I’ve always been told that I’m “beautiful and perfect just the way I am”. Yet, this makes no difference because the pounding thoughts of “Fat Fat Fat” in my head are somehow stronger and bigger than all the external love I could have in the world.
I’ve had skinny friends that also have disordered eating. This is the worst combination as it seems to reinforce my feelings even more....ex: “if she thinks she needs to lose weight, than I really need to lose weight...” And I’ve had fat friends who eat normally and never say a bad word about themselves. In my head, all of the internal judgements I have for myself are projected onto them...ex: “I can’t believe she would eat that, does she know how many calories are in it??!!”
It’s amazing to sit in an OA meeting and notice how many judgements I make on others, and how many judgements I project onto myself that others must be thinking. I’ve found that for as much empathy and lovingkindness I can send out to others, I can send out double/triple the amount of judgement on others and myself. Sometimes, this is when I tell myself I don’t belong in OA. Because if I really had a problem with food, I wouldn’t be able to cross my legs comfortably. But the truth is, that my thoughts and actions are just like that woman who can’t cross her legs, and we are both there and belong. Sometimes when I’ve been on a bingeing or restricting streak, I’ve been overcome with the fear that I’ll get morbidly obese, that there is a really fat person in me just waiting to come out and 30 years from now that’s what I’ll be for sure. I’ll be that woman whose been in OA for 25 years and still can’t change. That, for me is the ultimate sign of hopelessness.
OR, I could look at it like this. Maybe 25 years from now I will still be in OA. I will still have been up and down 20 pounds, but I will still be working daily with the tools of OA, because without them- I really couldn’t cope at all. Maybe OA is my secret to living happily no matter what weight I am. It’s not another “quick-fix” diet that I’ve discovered late at night on the internet after bingeing. Recovery is not about losing the weight, it’s about living and thinking differently. I’ve spent 25 years wired this particular way, and perhaps it will take another 25 years to rewire the system.