|
Page 2 of 2
Part 5: Discussion of Mary's Story
Mary found a way to protect herself as best she could from unavoidable and intolerable fear and pain. Her pain comes from more than the physical event.
Emotionally, it is intolerable for Mary to know that her father can and will terrorize her at any time and that her mother will not or cannot protect her. The people she depends on for daily caretaking and protection are dangerous to her. She cannot bear to live with that knowledge and so she finds a way to know as little as possible about her true situation.
If Mary can blot these painful experiences from her awareness she will be able to fearlessly love and trust her father. She can also depend on her mother to care for her, and she can experience herself living in a safe world.
This has more to do with overeating than many people realize. A child has few self-protective resources. If an inescapable, painful, fearsome or humiliating situation exists, creative, strong children can put themselves into a trance. In this way, they can dull the horror of their experience.
Children can divide their minds into pieces so that they are not present as a whole person during extreme torment. Different fragments carry different parts of the experience so the children do not have to know or remember the episodes in their entirety. In this way, they make their experience manageable. Mary saved herself from having to tolerate through knowledge or memory what is intolerable.
Part 5: Mary Grows Up -- Early Stages of Becoming an Overeater
As Mary gets older she may not be able to put herself in a trance as easily as she could as a child. Actual events and emotional memories may approach awareness levels. She may reach for food to help her maintain oblivion. If food works, and it does for many people, she will continue to use eating to help her achieve the trance state she feels is necessary for her survival.
Throughout her life, she may feel body pain and emotional tremors without connecting them to any outside incident. She may sometimes attribute these feelings to physical illness or minor accidents. Gradually she will accept these feelings as "the way she is."
Eventually she may be certain she has these feelings because she is "bad" or "worthless." She may feel "special" in her feelings of terrible faults and therefore feel she deserves special attention in the form of punishment or abandonment.
Mary may feel the physical and emotional feelings she experienced during the abuse she experienced as a child without connecting those feelings to her history. Like many people who overeat or binge, she may not remember sections of her childhood. Her memory blanks may be so thorough, she will not know she does not remember.
Part 5: Mary Grows Up -- Adult Stages of Being an Overeater
Observing the adult Mary who chronically overeats and binges, we notice seemingly inexplicable traits. She has limited and odd childhood memories. She cannot remember the old living room, but she does remember the TV. She doesn't want her children playing with crayons. She continually tries to please her father with gifts and attention. She is angry at her mother most of the time.
She will not have furniture with wooden legs in her home. She refuses to be in a room with any man, including her husband, while he is reading a newspaper. She is afraid to laugh in public. She has many secrets. She may steal little sweets in the grocery store or in social settings when she thinks others are not looking. She will refuse to attend violent movies. Yet she may have sadism/masochism fantasies, perhaps secret, perhaps acted out.
She may blank out at times. On careful observation we might notice that these mental blanks occur when someone around her has body, facial or verbal mannerisms similar to her father.
She has deep bouts of sorrow and loneliness where no one can cheer her up. She feels alone, ugly, bad, scared and is the worst person in the world to herself. She gets angry and sad when people will not change rules or behavior for her. If they do change to accommodate her wishes, she will be briefly grateful but will feel the changes are not enough. She surprises people by not remembering them or their kindness. She doesn't remember needing people.
She overeats regularly. Sometimes she vomits on purpose. When she feels familiar despair she will binge.
Mary is trapped in the overeater's prison. Mary exercises. She reads diet books. She doesn't understand why she can't stop overeating. She believes she overeats and feels bad because she is bad. She is certain that if she stopped overeating her life would be fine, and she would be happy and a good person. She feels humiliated and helpless because she can't stop.
Mary is not curious about her feelings. Her main concern is stopping her feelings, not understanding them. Her lack of curiosity and her insistence on making food her main point of focus are crucial in maintaining her ignorance about herself.
As long as her secrets remain unknown to herself, Mary will continue to feel she is in constant danger. Because she is oblivious to the torture and heartbreak she experienced in her past, she has not learned to recognize and avoid abuse in her present. She may allow abusive people in her life, even invite them, because she doesn't know she has more power than she did as a child. For her, abuse is more than familiar. Abuse feels like home.
Part 5: The Way Out
Someday Mary might become curious about herself. If she does she might begin her triumphant journey.
Triumph actually begins with defeat. Once Mary knows that everything she has tried has failed, she may open herself to something new. This is usually the reason people seek 12-step programs, meditation, support groups, friendly and comforting religious programs and/or professional psychological help.
Their pain, fear and despair is so intense that they are willing to reach out to something unknown and perhaps frightening rather than continue their way of life.
Overeaters also look for help when they feel they have no other choice. Sometimes the overeating itself is no longer effective in blocking their feelings. They feel overwhelmed with anxiety. They are alone with their secret without knowing what it is.
This devastating feeling reduces all choices to one: meet your true self at last. The possibility of freedom lies is changing direction, reaching out to unfamiliar resources, examining your inner life.
What follows is a series of secret discovering questions, preparatory activities and action steps to start you on your triumphant journey. Answer the questions. Begin to discover your secrets. Learn how to build the inner strength and knowledge base that will equip you to discard the overeating way of life.
Bon Voyage!
end of part 5
next: Triumphant Journey Part 6
|
