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Personal Stories - Compulsive OvereatingThe Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders Email Nude Nude

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Below some Compulsive Overeatings have shared their personal stories of what having Compulsive (Over)Eating means to them.

from Maura...

Hi. This is really gut-wrenching for me. I'm at work right now, and surreptitiously typing this, desperately hoping that no one will look over my shoulder.

What is compulsive eating? It is my nemesis. It is my greatest enemy, my greatest fear, the spectre that haunts my life and steals my serenity, that teaches me to hate myself - something I have treated as a "friend" for the last fifteen years without realizing how much I was betraying myself by continuing the "friendship."

I have always had a distorted relationship with food. When I was very young, I remember being very thin and being known in the family as a "picky" eater. I was literally frightened by unknown foods. I felt "safe" with Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, plain pizza, Pepperidge Farm white bread, Charleston Chews, and Bumble Bee tuna. (I think I must be the most brand-loyal person I know! I marketer's dream...) Through the beginnings of recovery, I have kind of figured out that my idea of "safety" in familiar foods has a lot to do with my environment when I was a child. Both of my parents were (are) alcoholics - my mom was a screamer, my dad was passive-aggressive. There was a lot of yelling at dinnertime. I could never predict what my parents would act like, but at least I could predict and rely on the comforting taste of macaroni and cheese casserole. At this time, I didn't overeat, I think; I just had an amazingly limited palette of foods that I would willingly eat. I resisted (just about the only way that I was not the "perfect" daughter) trying new foods vehemently.

As far as I can remember, I began to overeat compulsively in seventh grade. It was a tough time for me (as it is for most girls) - physical development, social isolation, emotional imbalance. At this time, I began to look to my mother for guidance, but she was so wrapped up in her own problems that she had little or nothing to give --- except her example. Aside from being an alcoholic, she was a compulsive overeater herself, retreating into the bedroom after her nightly fights with my father to eat and read romance novels. And eat she did. Two bags of Ruffles Sour Cream and Onion potato chips, 2 liters of Coke, maybe a box of Wheat Thins all in one sitting.

I began to eat for comfort then, and gained weight as I was developing a woman's body. The taunts from my classmates at being slightly chubby led me to eat even more, and grow more and more fat. I think at this time I might have broken the growing dependency, but in eighth grade my self-loathing was increased a thousand-fold when I was sexually abused by my brother. And so the cycle increased - food comforted me.

Around this time, I remember my dad saying something to me about my weight gain. "You don't want to be like your mother, do you?" (with all the disgust he felt for her obvious in his tone). I, too, shared his hatred of her size and moods and eating habits; being compared to her by him only made me feel worse about myself. I fixed that by coating it with ice cream, candy, Yodels, Ring Dings, Cheese Nips....

I'm twenty six now and weigh around 210 (5'7"). Despite some "success" in my life (I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from a private university and have a steady job as a teacher, a wonderful boyfriend, and a few good friends) I really hate myself. I manifest this hatred with my eating - when I'm sad, I eat. When I'm lonely, I eat. When I'm bored, I eat. When I'm feeling bad about myself (most of the time!), I eat.

It's funny. For years, I congratulated myself for "recovering" from my sick childhood. I'm not an alcoholic, I've never done any illegal drugs, I have a great education and a good job and a clean apartment and friends. But this year, I finally sought help for depression. Around January, I was very close to killing myself. I chose not to, (duh!), mostly because the father of one of my students committed suicide last year, and I've witnessed what havoc and torture that has caused her family. I resisted all drug therapy at first - I could talk about that for another 20 paragraphs! - and started "cognitive" therapy. Although I made some progress with cognitive work, I was still bingeing and hating myself and crying often. Finally, after three months, I tried Prozac. It's been a relief from my most acute depressive symptoms, but has not arrested my compulsive eating. My HMO is not agreeing to more one-on-one counseling for now, so I recently started trying 12-step groups. [I had always resisted 12-step programs - my mother is, I'd say, a compulsive AA member...and I never wanted to be like HER!] I went to a couple of ACA (Adult Children Anon.) meetings, a CODA meeting...then finally, TWO DAYS AGO, I walked into an OA meeting.

I feel some hope right now. Weight Watchers didn't work (lost 35, gained 50), "willpower" didn't work, beating myself up over and over again didn't work...I have some hope that OA might work. As a lapsed Catholic and big-time doubter, I don't know how to work in a "Higher Power." But I'm filled with hope. For once, losing weight isn't my first priority. I'm really going to try to love myself, treat myself better. I hope losing weight will be a product of that.

Physical symptoms? Depression. Fatigue. Muscle aches. Asthma. Irritable bowel syndrome (I think that's what it's called.) Back aches. Pain from waist bands that are too tight. Pain from bras that are too tight. Stretch marks.

None of that is as bad as the inner pain, the low self-esteem, the shame, the isolation, the embarrassment. This is what I really want to work on.

Thank you so much for this site, and for all of you who shared your stories with me. God bless you all; I wish you all recovery. Naming this has been important to me. Hearing your words of hope and wisdom has been invaluable.

My name is Maura, and I am a compulsive oveater and an adult child.

from Kelley...

I eat in response to rage and to a sense of having been betrayed. Anything that I connect with betrayal tends to trigger binges. I'm not a drinker and I'm not particularly nuts about sweets. I go nuts on pasta. I notice, though, that lately I have not been as hungry. I think it's because I have finally gotten my mother to support me.

I know that this is absurd and that I am too strong, too smart and too capable of contributing to life. I feel almost as if I have gone on strike and I feel comforted for the first time in my life.

I am now beginning menopause and have moments of weepiness which, for me at least, is a plus. I have never been able to weep before. I internalized shame and hatred but never wept. I used to be shamed for showing emotions. In fact, I was criticized for everything.

from kathleen...

My earliest memories about having an abnormal relationship to food are of friends who kept their Halloween candy longer than two days and being amazed that they didn't eat it as quickly as I did. Mine was usually gone within two days. My older brother had the same relationship to sweets I did, and I thought we were the normal ones.

Once I started to get fat, my mother started to restrict certain foods from us, which set the stage for being obsessed with food, which I quickly became. I remember always looking forward to dessert, after school snacks, whatever. I cannot remember a time in my life where candy or sweets were not a focal point for me whenever they were present. I even remember being ten or so and thinking about how nice it would be to be grown up and have a car so I could drive to the drug store by myself and buy all the candy I wanted. In my early teenage years, I started to notice the ever-growing differences between the other girls my age, who were starting to worry about dieting, hair, etc. and me, who only wanted to know the surest way to sneak more cookies up to my room past my mother.

My relationship with my parents and food got worse. I remember a specific incident when I wanted to eat something sweet and my mother said no. I was upset that she wouldn't let me and she said, "Go ahead and eat it, porker." She said that right in front of a friend of mine, and I was so humiliated I didn't eat for days.

My junior year in high school, I was an exchange student, and found solace for my homesickness in food. Especially in the beginning, I would numb the culture shock by waking up in the middle of the night and eating all kinds of candy, etc. Once, my host sister found the candy wrappers in the trash can in my bedroom and announced her findings to my family. Another humiliation. I didn't really start to get remarkably fat until I started college. Again, I felt alone and uncomfortable: I was at an expensive private school, on scholarship, and felt so different from everyone else that I comforted myself with food. I would sneak down the hallway to the laundry room and get as many candy bars as I could from the vending machine. I would put them in the clothes in my laundry basket so no one would see them. I wish I could go back to those days, and somehow change what I started, because what I started has kept me fat, scared, and angry at myself for the past eight years. I have tried different diets, working out, etc. And I would always lose a little weight, then gain back even more. I finally joined OA two months ago, and am realizing to what extent I am powerless over sweets. My abstinence means no sugar to me, and this makes me sad right now. For as long as I can remember, sugary foods have numbed the rest of life, and now that I know I have to face everything without this crutch, I am scared.

I feel like something has been missing from me, though. I feel that as long as I am fat and bingeing, there is some part of me that is not getting developed, that is not growing up. I am worried that this will define me, and I will spend the rest of my life fighting my weight and not accomplishing whatever it is I was set on this world to do.

As far as physical problems, I have some that are not endangering, but are uncomfortable. My knees and ankles crack when I walk up the stairs, which kind of runs in my family, but it is compounded by my weight. I used to get sick to my stomach a lot, when I was still bingeing, but it has, thank God, been months since I have eaten half a cake all by myself. And that does not count how uncomfortable it is to wear clothes that used to fit.

from Tracey... sPersonal Stories - Compulsive OvereatingThe Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders Email Nude Nude l Email Email Nude Email aPersonal Stories - Compulsive OvereatingThe Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders Email Nude Nude v z Email Email