The Hard Weigh

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 13, 2012

Given how little we control our own urges, it’s not surprising that we also have trouble controlling our reactions to them, but it is odd how often those reactions are totally wrong. Brains have a pretty good track record with instincts; get thirsty when hot, get sleep when tired, get away when near snakes, etc. When people get urges that are humiliating, however, even when they’re doing a good job of controlling them, they wrongly blame themselves, but when they get controlled by noble urges, even when they’re causing terrible harm, they give themselves a pass. So, however much you love or hate your urges, don’t give yourself a hard time about stigma or anti-stigma. Instead, remember your own moral priorities and ask yourself whether you’re doing the right thing with whatever urges, pretty or ugly, that you got, and to avoid snakes.
–Dr. Lastname

I have yo yo’d with my weight for ever—I was 8 years old when I remember going on my first diet, and I had binged by lunch time. I have seen a psychologist regularly in the past and a psychiatrist more recently, and been diagnosed with a binge eating disorder as well as melancholic depression. I also have a history of being sexually abused when I was a child and required hospitalization once for an attempted suicide (prior to diagnosis) and have been on various anti-depressants. Last year I decided to press charges against my abuser and the investigation is still taking place. This was very big for me as previously I couldn’t speak about or put into words to anybody what had happened to me, but with the professional help over years, could make a police statement. I have managed to get into a healthy weight range many times in the past, but only when on a program like Jenny Craig or weight watchers, and I resent having to do these programs and can’t commit to them after I have done them once, but I can’t seem to stay in this healthy way of life on my own. I am either losing weight or putting weight on– my thought are always around food, what when and where I can eat next. I hide most of my eating from everyone including my husband. I feel like a drug addict and don’t know how to take control of my eating. I do really well in my career and other areas of my life, I just can’t flip this switch that turns me into a zombie when I want to eat. I read everything I can about these disorders, I talk about strategies with my mental health professional, but when the urge to eat takes over I go into a zone that I can’t switch myself out of. How can I stop this pattern?

Having an eating disorder is rough, but it’s even worse if you give yourself a disorder about your disorder, giving yourself a hard time for having a hard time. It’s especially unnecessary given the fact that it’s harder to find someone with complete control over unhealthy food impulses than it is to find a unicorn.

Almost everyone has trouble controlling eating habits, as evidenced, not just by the multi-billion dollar industry devoted to weight management (which, as you’ve discovered, is no silver bullet), but by the fact that very few people get permanent weight control without surgery. In reality, of course, as much as we try to control our weight, more often, it controls us.

It doesn’t mean we’re all weak and hedonistic, or that your disorder isn’t real and difficult; it’s that our eating urges, which have been honed by thousands of years of evolution to help us survive famine, are now over-stimulated with deep fried everything while an obsession with being thin makes us shallower, and our evolution-driven biology has yet to catch up with this new world of excess.

On top of all that, you have to deal with depression, which has its own powerful effect on appetite, weight, and your ability to exercise. It gives you less control, a more negative outlook, and a greater likelihood to hate yourself for your bad eating habits and self-medicate with more food. Even non-binge eaters know that nothing cures misery like anything containing cookie dough.

So stop being mean to yourself about your eating problem and start respecting yourself for what you do with it. Instead of hating your inner food addict/zombie for forcing you into a humiliating, unhealthy lifelong struggle, accept the fact that you share your body with the hungry undead and respect the living woman who’s found time, energy and discipline to be a hard worker, find a good husband, and live a full life. Your life is obviously not easy, but it’s fully of meaning, discipline, and commitment. Given your problems, you should be proud of what you’re doing; everyone struggles with weight, but to struggle with weight, mood, and trauma and walk upright, let alone have a successful career, is amazing.

We’re all hoping for a weight control pill and, someday, it’s bound to arrive. Meanwhile, it’s humbling to be reminded of how little we control the seemingly voluntary muscles of our hands and mouths. It should never be humiliating, however, for someone who has done with her life as much as you have.

You can’t ever stop the eat/don’t eat urges completely, but you’ve stopped them from ruining your life, so start giving yourself credit.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like a food slave, but I’ve worked hard to keep my weight from going off the scale or disabling me, and I’ll never give up. Someday, maybe, I’ll get relief but until then, I’m strong enough to keep this problem managed.”

I don’t know how to help my girlfriend when she starts drinking, which is every night around 9. She’s never dangerous, but she’s always loud and belligerent and she usually insists on waking me up to share her inner feelings, which involve lots of yelling and tears. I know she’d like to stop drinking, but she does nothing about it. I can’t see her getting better and I don’t know what would become of her if I wasn’t taking care of her. I wouldn’t mind ending our relationship if I just knew she’d be OK. My goal is to get her help so that, one way or another, I can move on.

It’s kind and caring for you to try to protect your partner from her self-destructive drinking demons, but not when it’s obvious to everyone that you can’t, and that the effort is eating you up and bringing you down. Love can sometimes get people to do what’s best for someone else and what’s worst for themselves, and that’s what it seems to be doing to you, for someone who just can’t be helped.

The only person who can take care of you is you, so consider it your number one job. If anyone tells you to forget about that job because you’re responsible for the safety and welfare of an alcoholic woman who isn’t into sobriety, they’re A, not familiar with how alcoholism works, and B, messing with you by drawing you away from your own job—the one that’s in your power—to one that interferes with your job and is beyond your power.

Unfortunately, your partner is the only one who can rescue herself and decide to get sober, if and when she finds the strength, and you (and we therapists) can’t do it for her, as much as we’d like to. I’m not telling you to abandon her, just urging you to do your job and not make yourself responsible for her safety when it’s not in your power to make her safe, and attempting to make her safe puts your own safety at risk. Your job description is to find a partner who can help you live, grow, and survive a tough life, and instead you’ve found someone who imposes additional hardship, can’t get better, and can’t give back.

If you can remember your values and think realistically, instead of following your sentiments, tell your girlfriend she’ll have to go. Make it clear how much you’d like her to stay if drinking didn’t control her, and don’t blame her for making a bad choice when she may have none. Then do what you know is right, rather than what love tells you to do.

An inner voice may tell you you’re abandoning her and will bear responsibility for whatever happens next, and to some degree, that’s true; you will bear responsibility for yourself, and leave her to hopefully do the same.

STATEMENT:
“I feel a horrible sense of foreboding and responsibility for what will happen to my girlfriend if I throw her out, given her misery and helplessness when she’s drunk. I know, however, that I’ve done my best to help her and her problem is beyond my power. I won’t make myself responsible for her, but I will help her if I can, if it will do some good, and if I can also direct my own life in a positive direction.