Explorations

I am skipping ahead a few years to today.  Today, I am nearly back to the weight I was prior to my divorce and many habits of gorging myself with junk have surfaced.  After feeling like my world was spinning out of control, I decided it was time to seek help.  Not sure where to turn, I started forming ideas of perhaps an emotional connection to my food habits.  Shortly after begining my process of determining the "WHY" of my behavioral patterns, I got a call from my husband, Eric.  He had just heard a lady on the radio discussing hypnotherapy and how it works with weight loss.  I was preparing to start the HCG diet with my hairdresser and knew that I would need some other help to get to the core of my issues, or, the weight I would lose on HCG would pile back on in short order.  Eric held the key for me, he told me he would pay for therapy sessions if I would just try it.  That was a week ago. I had my first session last week and realized the true power of my mind.  I had learned some things that would help me on this journey to my better health.  I was faced with many temptations and I avoided faltering every time.  My mind was going to work as I could literally "FEEL" my body shed weight.  I lost a whopping 17 pounds with the help of HCG and hypnotherapy in a mere 7 days!!!

Session two of hypnotherapy was today.  I was prepared for it and had done my homework diligently and was excited to explore my inner mind.  Today, I learned how to put myself under and then was guided through some deep therapy to take my mind back to the place I first felt ashamed.  What was it that made me first feel ashamed???  I honestly tried to go back, I went back and back and back, and all I was able to see my grey fog.  My mind put up a wall and it was not about to allow me to go to a place that I am sure has created many years of pain for me.  I know that whatever it was protecting must have been painful because I woke crying and felt emotions near the surface all day.  I will spend the week exloring on my own and hopefully next week, I will make a connection.  This is a connection I am yearning and ready to find, for, I know this connection has something to do with my eating patterns and persistant feelings of low self worth.  I have spent the day playing events over and over in my mind, and my conscious mind cannot pinpoint it.  Perhaps this time next week, I will have some closure and my mind will have started the healing process on whatever it is that has plauged  me for years!  Regardless, I have discovered I am a fan of hypnotherapy and the powerful tool it is proving to be in my journey.  I will be sure to post more as I go on with it and discover what lies beneath!

Changes

Twenty-nine and now a single mother of four very young children was my new life.  I had suffered heart break of the worst kind and EVERYTHING I thought I knew, was now changed.  I had my family, my children and friends to support me and love me, but after many years of merging my identity with my husbands, I was no longer with him.  I had to look at my life and make some hard changes.  I knew I HAD to get fit.  I knew I wanted to get married again, and that would require me to be thin and attractive.  Remember, in my childhood days, I equated fit and thin with likeable???  Well, that stuck with me and all of a sudden, I WANTED to be likeable.  I wanted to find a new husband.  I wanted to stop feeling my pain.  I turned back to something that worked before and that was exercise.  I spent hours and hours exercising and getting fit.  It really wasn't long before the men took notice and it made me even more driven to be thinner.  I stopped eating and dropped over 100 pounds in well under a years time.  I had lots of attention, dates and friends and I was loving life for the first time in years.  My brain never thought I was dealing with thinking errors.  I was never going back and thats what I truly believed!

My Adult Days

Three week after I high school graduation, I became a bride.  I was a mere 17 years old, but I believed I could take on the world and I was not about to allow anyone to tell me anything different.  I moved to Colorado, far from home, and became an Army wife.  Two weeks after moving, I had my first taste of being a military spouse.  My new husband, and only person I knew in my city left for a month.  This was back in the days of no cell phones or internet, and let me tell you; for the first time in many years, I felt truly alone.....Except.....There was one thing I knew and it knew me too.  It was proven to bring me feelings of comfort and love and it never let me down!  Then and there, I became truly addicted to food!  I replaced my relationships when my husband was gone for donuts, cheeseburgers and fries.  I ate oreos by the package, fried chicken by the pound and ice cream by the quarts.  I had no boudries.  No one was around and I could binge every day, all day.  I no longer ran or worked out, and it didn't take long to pack on the pounds.  To be exact, I gained around 70 pounds in about 6 months.  I didn't see this as destructive behavior though.  I had a steady companion that never left me, and I was not about to let it go away.  To make matters worse, my husband loved fast food, junk food and everything that is unhealthy and processed.  Those foods just made my addiction worse and I gorged when I was alone, which was often.  None of my clothes fit, I stopped doing my hair, showering and wearing makeup.  I looked and felt awful and put myself in a tiny cacoon and isolated myself from everything and everyone.  Depression set in and it was easy to blame the weight gain on depression. However; looking back, depression was merely a side effect of my diet and weight gain.  I was no longer myself, had no friends, hobbies or interests.  I did not want to be seen because of my belief that being fat made me unlikeable. I belived having babies would make it all better and so I began my family. The military life got harder and harder and raising 2 kids who were active and close in age would prove to be very stressful.  When they napped or slept at night, I would pull out my special food and gorge....I would eat so much I would be sick, but the food made it all better.  Besides, food was always around, even when my husband wasn't.  There were times I would gain control and lose weight, but I could never truly take hold and make a connection that would be permanant.  My struggle continued through many moves, friends, deployments and more pregnancies that would bring my child count to a total of four.  Then one day, EVERYTHING changed......

Forming Patterns

My entire life I spent obsessing about food.  Most of my life, I have thought endlessly about being thin, fit, attractive; and believing that if I were all those things, people would love me!  I am not really sure why I have this thinking error, I suppose many people have the same thinking patterns.  The older I get, the more I am aware that this belief is more and more common amongst our population, and even more prevelant in our children and youth.  I belive I have had this thinking error as far back into my childhood as I can remember.  My childhood, I was chubby.  Certainly not fat by todays standards, but chubby and soft.  I was awkward and came from a large family with little means to buy fashionable clothing.  I was youngest in my class and had issues of daydreaming and keeping focus in school  Let's cut the the chase.....I was teased, tormented and basically alone for much of my primary school days.  One day in middle school, I realized I had a talent for running.  I could run a long ways and faster than most my age.  I became obsessed with running and all of a sudden, I started to become more attractive, more well-liked and I had friends!  I imagine my thinking error became deeply implanted at that time.  I spent the remaining school years obsessing over my weight, running lots and eating little; except the times I gorged....which I did often, when I was alone and no one was watching.  I gorged til I was so sick I felt like puking.  I felt badly about my gorging, but, I just went out and ran more and starved myself more so I wouldn't gain weight.  Even with all the starving and working out, I was far larger than the other girls in my class.  I was tall and large boned and often times, guys would moo at me and call me fat.  I knew deep down that I wasn't fat....my hell, I could feel my hip bones protruding and my ribs were visible with no clothing on.  I definatly did not meet criteria to be overweight, but the standards of being a tiny size 5 was prevelant and I was lucky at my smallest to be an 10 or maybe an 8.  I definatly had friends and boys liked me...well, the wrong kind of boys liked me most.  The real popular ones went for the tiny short girls that could brandish a bikini and look amazing.  I was merely a friend to most the guys, but I was well like by my peers...the thinner I got, the more liked I was.  I would never go as far as stating that I was  anorexic, however, I had already formed a hot and cold relationship with food, and I continued to become more severe in my obsessions with it. 

The Beginning

A young girl walked down a dead end street to a shortcut that lead to her local grocery store. It was a beautiful, warm spring day outside and she skipped along, feeling so happy and ready to spend the money in her pocket. As she skipped along, she allowed her mind to drift away into daydream land. She dreamed of candy, lots and lots of candy. Boxes and boxes of candy, delivered to her house, just for her. Oh how this little girl loved her sweets! She dreamed of winning a prize of a lifetime supply, enough that she could eat it all day long, every day. It was her dream, her obsession at such a young age. Her thoughts came back to her as she neared the door of the store. She headed right over to the candy isle, looked over the candy, counted her money and picked out several of the .25 cent snickers bars, a pack of sugary, grape bubble gum a bottle of soda pop and a roll of Mentos candy. She paid for her treats, walked home; taking her time and lingering in the neighbors’ field. She did not want to share with her siblings and so she ate every last bite of her snickers bars, eating them fast, so quickly, in fact, that she was unable to taste the sweet deliciousness of the bars. She just had to get the food in and feed her hunger and drive for the sugar. She washed down the snickers bars with her soda, threw away the signs of her purchase in the outside trash container and walked inside. She put her other candy and gum in her pocket for later and offered a piece to her little sister. The rest, she would hoard and consume on her own that afternoon. Not a trace would remain through the night to be enjoyed the next day. She felt sick to her stomach, but still feeling emptiness inside, she proceeded to eat dinner plus seconds, a couple cups of milk and dessert. Her stomach was angry at her, but still, she ignored her physical signs of over eating. She left the table and went to daydream of a day that she could eat sugar all day, every day without anyone telling her she couldn’t.

This was not a onetime situation. This was me, at about the age of 9 or 10. I had this behavior or similar behaviors all of my childhood, over and over. Every time I got money in my pocket, I would go to the local grocery store or dime store and spend every cent on sugary food. Sometimes I bought salty junkie food like Cheetos, but my allowances were always spent on food of some sort. I don’t recall one instance actually wanting to purchase a toy or book or anything else, nor did I save my money. It was always gone the same day I got it with no trace or proof it had existed, except for the empty wrappers left behind in the trash outside, a tummy ache from overeating and a flabby soft body. I had a serious compulsion to over-eat, even as a young child.

My compulsion to overeat was not restricted to what I bought with my allowance. I remember so vividly walking the 7 blocks home from school and dreaming of the scents that were sure to waft through the front doors as I opened them. My Mother often baked. She baked cookies, muffins, breads and other deliciousness several times a week. If I was really lucky, she would have fresh bread dough, cut in squares, ready for frying into yummy, melt- in- your- mouth scones. My heart would jump for joy on those occasions. I loved to take the scone, hot and fresh from the hot oil and slather it would butter and so much honey that it would run onto my hands when I took a bite. Thinking about it, even now, years later, my mouth waters with the memory of the smell and taste. The memory is vivid in my mind and I am able to recall all the senses I had eating those yummy scones. My Mom would load up plates with yummy hot scones and we would eat them one after another until they were completely gone. We didn’t think about saving any for others that were not home yet. We ate and ate to our hearts content until there was no more to eat. If you were not home, too bad, you didn’t get any. This pattern was the same with cookies, cakes and treats of all kinds. I would eat and eat and gorge myself until there was no more. Treats never lasted more than a day in our house, even when my Mom would freeze the cookies to eat later, I would sneak into them and eat them as I pleased. I always felt a bit guilty, a lot overfull and ashamed of how much I ate. This never stopped my behavior though and it continued throughout my childhood and well into my adulthood.