The dark mornings with a drop in mood due to less light over the cold months coupled by fatigue due to the lingering effects of Covid causes a need for relief. Not alcohol, or drugs, but food, any food, just numb me, love me, bring me relief from the vortex of depression and aloneness.
Mother stuck a spoon in my mouth at age eight after her son savagely attacked me in the night. The memory of that rape still has not surfaced, swimming below like a shark. She did not want me talking about it, so she fed me and kept feeding me for the rest of my time with her. Both her and her father were obese, and I will be again too if this keeps up.
A little skinny kid, I blew up like a balloon in a matter of weeks becoming so sick I threw up in the night.
Once when waking her, moving her shoulder back and forth gently I said, “I’m going to throw-up.”
“What do you want me to do, spit straw?” she mumbled, going back to sleep. Alone then, and that aloneness never left me.
Food contained the trauma, the eating, the weight, and it is turned to now for all sorts of feelings that crave numbing. Yet the scale brings dismay. My weight, the scale, they are symptoms, the root of it comes from the inability to love myself.
Thoughts fall jumbled like dice from a Yahtzee cup. Feelings of self-confidence fall with them as the critic pounded away. The fun of doing Christmas crafts overrode any work on the spiritual emotional self, and it withered as the critic grew louder.
Where or where has the oasis of self-care gone, that place being built as a sanctuary and a soft place to fall? Bad habits of eating feelings into numbness took over making me sick for three days…. yet I kept eating out of a different kind of hunger than physical.
In my weariness and pain, a new day. Back to basics, which calls for constant attention to thoughts that tend to blacken my soul if allowed, when that holy place needs light, love, and acceptance.
And then a friend replies, not one ever known in person, but one you might call a pen pal. Yet when two souls share from the core, do you need to meet?
How are you? She asks via email, as she really cares to know. It’s not the customary social question when you reply by fine though dying inside. So, I tell her.
I say I may be addicted to Xanax, considering how much use it’s been getting lately with sleep issues escalating this past year. Sleep issues began about the time my mother declined before her death, waking in the night eating bread gobbed with butter, never a daytime food choice. Often four or six slices, white soft bread with tons of butter.
Butter? I rarely use the butter dish watching Samuel eat his daily toast slapping on butter, or a blob on his vegetables which I rarely do. And white bread? Never. Samuel requires white, I eat high fiber wheat. My night-time sleep/eating issues began then, about ten years ago.
But this past year the use of nighttime medication has increased to a worrisome amount, each time feeling I failed somehow. That being unable to sleep is my own fault; faulty thinking, not calming myself, somehow, it’s me.
But is it? Couldn’t it have to do with becoming calmer, more peaceful, more connected to my inner core, wiser, and more self-loving? Or self-loving at all, even the tiny tidbits felt for the very first time?
Perhaps it is my doing, but not my fault. Because as my being becomes more whole, less scattered, the part repressed that keeps the memory of Danny’s rape from consciousness might now find a path up. That would make anyone anxious, and since anxiety tends to be my constant companion, anxiety rachets itself up another notch.
Energy comes in small doses, mornings are best. And the energy my body must need to repress such a trauma could be well used for happier endeavors. But that’s up to my internal workings.
I can’t just say, OK memory come up. And who would want to? Weight loss must be connected. Food was used at age 8 right after his coming into my room, and has been used ever since. My body was just as slim as other kids before, then blew up.
When often feeling alone, I am not. While sipping coffee on the screened porch before the sun rises, birds begin their cacophony of wake-up songs, one close by singing loud yet lovely, clear and true.
Wrapping the blanket closer around me, quietly walking towards the screen, there it is atop the shepherd’s hook, one little body singing such a great song!
Finally it’s time to go back inside to open emails, one from the friend I’ve never met. Her response to my lamenting the use of a night-time medication was (as usual) soft and gentle, along with this poem.
So, I am not alone, I have birds, friends… and me.
Feeling bones, my body thinner, scared, a few pounds easily were put back on. Feeling safer, it is easier to control my eating. Becoming smaller comes with threats of success and a great urge to numb out with food.
Of course there is a link, but I haven’t figured it out yet, or all the way through. The urge to eat when not hungry, a typical day for me since age 8, fades when a softer, kinder voice is heard and felt.
Though happening for periods of time creating success with weight loss as a secondary plus, sustaining kind thoughts of myself takes primary focus. That is the goal, food and weight are symptoms of the self-hate developing in childhood falling in-line only when kindness to self steps in.
The voice whispers positive things about myself that are allowed into me. That is challenging to sustain after living most of my life otherwise. Much of that grew as I grew pleasing the origin family, living by implied rules if wanting to remain a part of it… toxic as it was and still is- what’s left of it.
What grew with the ugliness of repeated sexual attacks by supposed loving brothers with nowhere to talk about it, and no one to help or stop it, was a life of unprocessed trauma, chronic, embedded, PTSD, with a critic inside me louder than anything else—a life of punishing myself for having been abused.
Hate myself, blame myself, eat, eat, eat, both to numb out the hate and to comfort myself from the internal nasty word beatings, that voice in my head that came from ‘family’, but became mine. No, it was not spoken aloud, but the messages were imprinted into my soul because no one talked of the tragedies that befell me, nor stopped it. The imposed silence, and the implications of blame I felt entombed me.
A miracle occurs when a more honest view of myself is heard, one that can look at mistakes and flaws kindlier, but much harder, and more importantly, looks at the positive qualities, feels them, believes them, and taking them in as my own.
When that miracle happens, the overpowering urge to eat when not hungry dissipates because my soul is being filled, finally filled.
Right before it was time to sleep a hunger was noticed. Really? You’re going to eat then brush your teeth again? Letting the feelings sit, it felt like real hunger, not the other variety that numbs uncomfortable feelings.
But choosing to eat a couple of peanut butter sandwiches with a full glass of milk. more calories than consumed at any meal in the daytime? What were you thinking, that thought erupting later in the night when my tummy gurgled in complaint making for a restless night and my heart pounding faster and louder in its efforts to digest it?
My mind wanted to whip me senseless, but the new me took hold- no, no beatings. There are parts yet unhealed. The old habit of being apart from my body allowing consumption of such an amount raised its head like Loch Ness and down the food went as if it was OK. It wasn’t.
Rustling up that newly found compassionate voice of reason when the tossing and turning occurred, along with four trips to the bathroom, some soothing occurred, and sleep. Chaos had returned in a moment, and this was brought on by me! Taking in that much food before bed, a big no no due to the the inability to digest food lying down… but… do without a dose of whiplashing added on to the unrest and discomfort.
The beginnings of weight loss didn’t occur until several months of working on a softer tone to self, with another rule, no chastising self when using food. If you eat when not physically hunger the deal is that no self battering gets served with it. THAT took time, but over time came success. Gentleness towards myself has not come easily, but with time and effort. So too does forgiveness.
While meditating tears fell. Then again later while walking, and that’s ok. It is healthy for whatever that might be suppressed to come up. But curiosity into my own feelings craves the answer to why. That takes digging deeper.
So much of my life has been lived all on my own no matter how many people surround me. And by alone, not even with myself. Real wholeness only began in my fifties when my mother died, and the truth erupted out of me chapter by chapter into what became a published book.It was finally possible because she wasn’t there anymore and the deal ‘love for silence’ no longer existed.
Most of the time my being was cast aside by myself because that is what was learned in childhood when my body was ripped by terror and abuse by those loved and trusted. The real horror was after when NO ONE, no one helped the little child who was me.
While walking as a sob erupted the wise voice said, more healing, another layer. What about the child? Pictures on the beach show a skinny blondie kid with a lollipop building sandcastles.
Come little child. Yet? Something’s missing. That little girl wasn’t in need. Her world hadn’t yet been shattered. Daddy had not yet fallen dead on the floor in front of us. His sons were still ruled with a strict, sometimes violent hand. The skinny little girl still trusted and loved, her world was safe. It is the fat little girl all stuffed into herself that is in desperate need of love, comfort, and by god, medical help.
Come. It’s not easy loving a fat child. I’ve hated her all my life.
But come to me now, envisioning my arms open to her, giving the embrace she never received when needing it so much.
I was forced to portray love for the attackers and to protect myself because the lecture from mother outlined that. Instead of the love so desperately needed there was blame in the directive to come tell her if anything happened again. It did.
An eight year old cannot protect herself, nor 9, 10, or 11. So of course the horrors continued.
Little fat girl, come, I love you. All that terror stuffed inside you. Come.
Waking after another rough night up too late, having to take something, my first thought? Why not be grateful? Instead of sitting a good part of the day in grogginess, snapping at Samuel so much he stays far away from me, why not turn it around?
Out walking early helped to metabolize the drug, also adding the benefit of uplift once the happy chemicals kick in. Instead of it being penance for eating off anxiety in the night walking rigidly just to get it done, the walk was paced slowly enough to suck in the heavenly scent of wet earth and decaying leaves.
Round and round noticing the aroma which goes straight to my core, a squirrel surprised jumping to the next tree, the crunch of nuts under my feet. And Samuel? We sat, laughed, and chatted over morning coffee, a miracle, because usually after a bad night which of late is too often, no company is wanted…just leave me alone.
But be grateful, the mantra while walking. Why not? There is an ability to waver one’s attitude to a more upbeat tilt. It includes acceptance that my body will do this no matter how many healthy habits are incorporated into my day.
A life of daily terror to my body because fear was around every corner took its toll. Not fighting it or blaming myself for not controlling it is a start. Gentleness swept in.
While walking on a crisp damp day the thought of rewards for this effort included a lavender Epson salt soak in the tub and a pot of ginger vanilla chamomile tea. The day went much better, from a blob on the couch to living it fully.
Sometimes you have to fall apart to come together. For much of my life it has been the falling apart, but now when peace can be sustained for more than two moments at a time… still, there is a monster on my back.
It is sleeplessness. The why? Round and round laps count up to 20 trying to make up for a night of senseless eating- AGAIN. The only trigger that might be attributed to this inability to sleep after 6 nights of improved sleep probably due to drastically decreasing the pot oil, yet on night 6 lying there 2 ½ hours before giving in to a sleep aid, and an hour in front of the TV at midnight- then FOOD, because food has been used to quell anxiety since the age of 8— the only reason that might make sense was a 3 pound weight loss noted that morning.
That ought to be good, right? Celebrated, congratulated, especially after a summer of being stuck? Yet it triggered anxiety. Unless something on the news or a movie set me off, what else could it be?
Weight loss scaring me. Therapists suggest overweight women who have survived childhood sexual abuse become overweight to feel safe. That is an improvement over many who look at an overweight person and think lazy, glutinous, and disgusting.
The thinner my body becomes, the closer to an unwanted memory. What is remembered is horrific enough, but the one repressed memory must have been really bad. Danny said in his twenties when asked what he did to me, “It’s better you don’t know.”
But I do know a rape occurred, there just is no memory of it except before and after. As the weight comes off there is movement toward what was unconsciously repressed.
Lap after lap, talking to myself… I will not be deterred. I will do this, I will do this, I will. And if the memory comes I will be alright. It already happened. I already lived through it. And there are hospitals to stay in if needed. The self talk doesn’t seem to help alleviate the anxious terror.
So eerily quiet this morning even the birds aren’t talking and a queasy feeling surfs my stomach. Crickets hardly peep, not a sound, barely a movement of leaves at first until a soft breeze moves in. Perhaps the animals instinctively feel what the news last night warned of, the possibility of tornadoes.
At least the day was not faced with dread. The full spectrum lights, a return to a diligent mediation practice, the push off the couch to walk, and a drastic reduction in marijuana oil for sleep issues are all helping.
In order to treat myself with respect, which mean not gagging down feelings with food, my doctors have gotten a mouthful out of me after not speaking a peep for years. My primary responded by finally paying attention to me and my needs.
We discussed my use of pot oil and for the first time heard from her that just a few drops are needed. My dose kept going up and up thinking that helped, but it backfired causing more sleep issues, and an exorbitant increase in anxiety rather than decreasing it.
The cardio Doc has yet to respond to my personal letter to him after his nurse wouldn’t answer a simple medical question because my choice was to cancel an appointment due to the pandemic. ‘You haven’t been here, make an appointment,’ her note coldly read in the on-line chart after my question was posed.
Really? I have to come in and spend 50 bucks to know whether to continue taking a baby aspirin each day? Reports are saying there’s a bleeding risk as we age.
After going there for many years you can’t answer a benign generic question? The only reason for several decades of cardio appointments was not due to need or directed by my primary care doctor. It was out of fear that I’d fall dead just like my father who lay there at my feet at age 8.
Oh, the years of unneeded EKG’s, STRESS TESTS, EHCHO’s and yearly visits out of terror I might succumb to what my father fell victim to. And doctors, even the best ones, will gladly do it to keep their revenue going. This one too because he did say in my father’s case it had more to do with his smoking.
Yet he continued to oblige my need to ease my mind each year. That could be looked at as a positive then, but no longer, the pandemic making me reassess just how many appointments are needed each year. Unless a heart event actually occurs, NOT HIM! To hold back medical advice is cause to go elsewhere if a heart event ever occurs. Unconscionable. I’m sure they have their own spin on it, but so do I.
In me lies the need to finally advocate for my needs though with many stops and pitfalls along the way because my training was to stay disturbingly quiet about my needs. Traumas, too many to count, were forced to stay within me causing my skinny kid frame to burgeon dramatically into an obese one shortly after the first sexual attack by a loved one, also at age 8.
To keep family secrets throughout my life took a LOT of food. I want a healthy life. That means NO MORE SECRETS. That means speaking up for my needs even if different from your expectations or beliefs, and doing so even when terrified of the outcome. Who is this new me? Or maybe it’s discovering the me always there waiting for one special person to be on my side… me.
Patricia J Grace 