I have grown tired of being the one in the room that proves the obesity statistics. I am exhausted from worrying and wondering about five million things every day that have everything to do with my weight and nothing to do with my self. I am terrified that I might become someone I don’t recognize.
But as tired and exhausted and terrified as I am, I’m also inexplicably drawn to the self-destructive therapy that food provides. When I’m sad, food picks me up. When I’m happy, food is my celebration. Whether I’m with friends or alone, food makes me feel more connected. Food is my meditation when work is overwhelming. Food is my closest friend when I feel like no one understands me. Food has always been there for me.
The truth is: I love food.
And maybe that is why I find it so hard to understand why food hurts me the way it does. I want to call the world a liar – “Food is not my enemy! Food feeds me! Food fills me! Food gives me something when I feel like nothing!”
And yet food is killing me.
Sometime since our love affair began, food started to abuse me, to hurt me, to look for my weakest, most vulnerable parts and squeeze the life out of me. Maybe it started before I even really knew food. Somehow food found the darkness in me and rooted itself there, waiting for me to mess up, waiting for me to come back, tail between my legs, begging for food’s help again.
Rooted in the dark, food became the seed of fear. And it fed the fear. Fear of losing control, of dependence, of addiction – it grew and flourished until finally fear became reality. I have found myself out of control, dependent and addicted to the lies that food feeds me.
This idea of the darkness is the only way I have found to express myself and my overeating. But don’t get me wrong, I know there is no mysterious force driving to Taco Bell at night and forcing a cheese quesadilla down my throat. Just as I know there is no cloaked villain, forcing cigarettes, alcohol or other drugs down the throats of hundreds of thousands of people fighting those addictions every day.
We make choices, all of us, but the reality is that sometimes we get caught in a cycle of really bad choices and “darkness” is the best way I have of describing something which feels overwhelming and all-encompassing. I am almost thirty years old and am only now discovering how truly out of control that cycle can become.
But all is not lost.
Because over the years of struggling with my weight and eating habits I have managed to learn a few positive lessons as well. For the most part I haven’t had much luck putting these lessons into practice, but over the past six months or so I’ve begun to experience a change. I’ll write in more detail next week, but want to leave you with a hint of that here.
Perhaps the one most consistent part of this struggle is that I have never been alone in it. Don’t get me wrong – addiction tries to isolate the addict. No matter who you are, what the problem is or how innocent the behavior might seem to the outside world, the darkness will tell you that no one understands, that no one can help you or, perhaps worst of all, that no one wants to help you.
These are lies.
People do want to help. In my life, I have found these people to be my family and my friends. And in lovely, surprising ways, to be the people I work with and work for, sometimes even complete strangers. The world, as it turns out, is full of people who want to love me. More importantly, the world is full of people who want to love us all. And these people want to help us succeed.
The other truth I’ve uncovered is that failure, partnered with forgiveness, is in fact the key to success. And believe me that has been a difficult pill to swallow. But forgiving myself for bad choices has been the only way I have been able to find better ones. And forgiving others for their own ways of brokenness is what has bonded me to the support system I have now.
It is possible – even likely – that you are caught up in a dark cycle of your own. And if that is the case, I invite you to tell us about it. If you are tired or exhausted or terrified of being overwhelmed for even one more day, this is my invitation to you to say it out loud. Write it down, lift it up, tell your friends, call your mom or your church or your best friend.
Don’t let the darkness keep you silent.
I welcome your own stories of struggle and triumph. Have you felt isolated or alone in dealing with a particular issue in your life? Have you been able to find your way out of the darkness?
