Listen to me

Okay, it isn't about food.

It isn't about losing weight.

It isn't about being skinny.

It isn't about any of that.

The truth is that I am really frustrated with the fact that I have physical evidence of how unstable I am. I want to say that I don't understand the person who is eating well-past her satisfaction level and the person who somehow gained thirty pounds in less than two months. But I understand her. I understand this part of myself very well. Even if it frightens me that I am capable of being an emotional and compulsive eater, some of me consists of this.

This isn't a fault or fracture, it is just an evolution of my emotional coping. I will grow away from this. I love learning more about myself and about how to be a happier person and know that soon this will pass. The instances of emotional eating will get farther and farther apart. The time when food holds no power over me, when I am able to directly deal with my emotions, and when I can choose to only eat when I am hungry will get longer and longer; spanning weeks, then months, and then years.

My faith seems to grow incompletely and is easily shaken. A few days of eating only when I am hungry and I am excited. But my mind rolls around to fact that I will be losing weight because I am eating normally. Suddenly my focus is on body image; on being skinny; on losing weight. That is not why I am upset on a daily basis. That is not why I am unbalanced. I lose weight and gain weight from eating less than I burn or eating more than I burn, respectively. My reasons for being sad, angry, or frustrated are much more complex than subtraction or addition.

For instance, today I realized that I might have to compromise my plans with a friend because of some plans that I made about my Uncle John's birthday party. You know what? I was so ready sack the plans that we made in order to make it simpler. I figured that it would be too much. That she wouldn't want to spend time with me if it meant that she would have to make multiple trips or drive extra long or go out of her way in some way or another. But she called me and told me, firmly, that she wants to spend time with me in the morning she wants to spend time with me after my appointment she wants to spend time with me after my Uncle's birthday party and she is willing to drive me to where I need to go in order to spend that time with me. There was no hesitation in her voice about this. In fact, in place of any possible hesitation was strong conviction. Oh, gods, how I need to know this in my core that there are some people who are willing to go out of their way in order to be together with me. I need to understand that a parent unwilling to come pick me up when I am scared at a friend's house,or a father who won't talk to me when I am crying and leaves the room, or a boy who stops calling me, or a friend who gets easily upset with me, or a mother who won't stop saying things that hurt, or a brother who won't support my need to be away from my mother, or a mother who won't understand that I can't live with her-- these things I must know are not because I am worthless or inherently awful or disagreeable. They just are. And they hurt. And it's okay for me to be upset about them. And it's okay for me to cry about them. And it's okay for me to yell, scream, be silent, write, complain, or rejoice over them. It doesn't detract from my worth or the fact that I deserve to be alive and be happy.

I don't actually have to answer to anyone. I don't have to apologize for feeling comfortable. I don't have to tell my mother that I had a good time at my friend's house and I don't have to be nervous about how that will affect her insecurities. I seem to forget now and again that I am no longer living with either of my parents. And I have long since believed that it is a part of my job as a daughter to help my mother feel at ease about her job as a mother. Nothing I did made a difference as she still believed that she needed to defend herself from me and the good times I had with friends. But I still lied to people about how I was happy because I was afraid she would hear that I was honest. I still only told one person during high school that my brother was trying so hard to kill himself, that I was terrified and worried and sick with myself that I couldn't do anything for him. I still kept quiet about the fact that I hated myself bitterly and wanted to die in order to ease the burden I placed on other people around me. I still hesitated to tell my own therapist that my mother threatened to kill herself in order to one-up my complaints about her behavior. I still, even now, find it so very hard to not include my father when I am complaining about my mother because I am afraid that she will find out and tell me in some fashioning together of phrases and words that I have betrayed her, all is lost, and no matter how much I protest, she will ultimately know better what I am thinking and feeling than I do.

And I still believe too deeply for my own good, that I am unworthy of real peace or happiness. I feel as if I am forgetting something; what a piece of shit person I am, how I need to feel how worthless I am, how I will have someone somewhere who will be so disappointed with my happiness and calmness that they will want to kill themselves or never see me again.

I still tell every person that I talk to about my anxiety around my mother that she is a good and kind person. An alarm goes off in my heart that tells me that she will find out, she will know that I have spoken "badly" of her. Even if I only tell the truth, I must defend her or there will be something terrible-- something so catastrophic that I cannot even imagine it-- that will happen. When I defend her, I am saying quietly that I am a good daughter, and that I am loyal, and I do love her. It's like I am collecting witnesses each time I speak about the things my mother said to me and did to me that scarred me and made my hate myself. If I defend her from the truths that I say-- believing as she would that any criticism is an attack if it is made about her-- then I am proving my love to her.

She won't be able to deny how much I love her and she won't be able to tell me to go to my father's and she won't be able to tell me that she wants to kill herself, and she won't be able to leave until three in the morning. She won't be able to do these things because she will know that I love her. But only if I play by the rules and am a good daughter. If I lie at school and hide how desperately sad I am, she will know that I love her. If I am able to lose enough weight and be a pretty person she will know that she has raised me well and she will know that I love her. If I always remember that she is having less of a good time than I am and that I should be ashamed of myself, then she will know that I love her. If I am insecure about my body like she is, she will know that I love her. If I remind myself that my mom doesn't like it when I get help from other people-- my friends, my therapist, my father-- and I put off being with them or eat around them until I am ashamed of myself, then she will know that I love her.

I have been playing by all these rules. But once I slip up, I have ruined everything. My mother doesn't know that I love her anymore. All is lost. When I defend myself and I say that I have a right to be happy, be comforted by who I need to be comforted by, tell the truth about my anger or sadness or joy, be fully happy in the moment; I have ruined everything. I am her enemy and have abused our relationship. I have ruined my mother's happiness. What kind of a person ruins her own mother's happiness? I'm so glad you asked, because I have prepared a list that I have been reminding myself of for over ten years. A person who ruins her mother's happiness is a selfish, self-centered, betraying, lying, vicious, spoiled, heartless, bitch.

My head is spinning. I feel exhausted and I think I really need to go to sleep.

There is a pattern here that I want to get down in pixels before I log off. I notice that when I eat one thing I feel as if I cannot stop. My min reels when I eat anything. I feel as if all is ruined when I take the first bite, even if I am doing so to take care of myself, I have ruined everything. When I finally get to the root of one reason why I am upset about something, I feel as if I have to get it all out at once until I am exhausted. When I did something that my mother got hurt by, it was all over. The same anxiety comes up again and again. I feel like I have lost the ability to use brakes and I didn't even realize that I needed to stop until I realize that I no longer have the ability to do so.

This doesn't have to do with food as much as it has to do with the things that I am still dealing with on a deeper level. Emotional and compulsive eating, though I have trained myself to focus so much on it, is just another manifestation of my learned anxiety. It is much smaller; a manifestation. I just haven't been able to put words on it. Wait, yes I have. I just didn't get support that I wanted when I phrased it more concisely.

When I say "I had another day of overeating", I have more of a response than when I say "I am working through my anger and resentment to the way that mom treated me when I was twelve". I'm not supposed to still be bothered by things that happened eight years ago, so I am not comforted by these things. Rather, I am lectured. "That was really long ago. You need to just let it go." How am I supposed to let things go when I can't even talk about them? I don't need people to tell me to let them go. That is *not* helpful for me. Let's talk about it. Ask me how it felt when she said something. Tell me about a similar situation you once had. Tell me that I must have been upset and that it was justified to be so. Let me tell you without shame the details of her voice as it pitched in a mocking tone as she mimicked the sounds I made when I cried. Listen to me explain to you how I once faked a seizure because I wanted to her care about how sick with desperation I was to have her be happy for my happiness or have her agree to not tell me that I sound like my father or hear her say "I am sorry" when I tell her that she is hurting me with her words. Listen to me. I will listen to you. You have my ears and whole heart when you speak about things that hurt you. Reciprocate this for me. Listen to me. Listen to me with your whole heart, too. Listen to me.

I love you wholly. I don't get irritated easily, please be light-hearted with me. Laugh with me and love things with me. I will tell you that I love you, tell me that you love me. I will hug you, please hug me, too. I love you, please don't doubt this.

I am longing for this reciprocation. I am longing to be able to trust those that I love that they love me, too. I want to be unafraid of telling them that I want to always be near them and that I will adore them no matter what they do. I want to know that there are no boundaries to their liking of me just like my love for them is unshakable. When I am so close to feeling this, I become afraid. I will mess everything up. In one word or one instance I can ruin their love for me and destroy any trust between us.

When I did snowboarding I would get so excited when I started going fast. But, it was scary eventually so I would never ride the whole way down. The faster I went, the less confidence I had in my ability to stop. So I would throw myself down, making myself crash into the snow before I had a chance to find out whether I would be able to make it all the way to the bottom.

The anxiety I have about my emotional and compulsive eating is that it is a reflection of this mentality I have. I know it is abnormal and I am afraid of it. I know that if I am honest about why I am still looking for my childhood, I will reveal some harsh things that my mother said and did to me and I won't defend her. Food won't be able to distract me once I open up these bandages and see that the wounds have continued to become infected. I won't be able to abide by the good daughter rules once I truly realize how they dehumanize and degrade me. I will be susceptible to my anxiety and sadness.

I will also be able to stick up for myself. I will be able to speak honestly about things that bother me without hating myself for not speaking more "nicely" about them. I will be able to be more realistic about what is okay with me and what is not. I will be able to say "thank you" once and not keep thanking a person in order to humble myself in the face of their "gracious kindness" upon such a person as myself.

A person as kind as myself, with as strong a grip as I have on my devotion of love for the whole world, teamed with confidence in herself independent of other's opinions and a focus on being happy, laughing often, and learning from everything-- this is the person who I want to become. And I am doing it, too. I don't need any brakes because I am not out of control and I don't need to stop. I am just who I am and that is just fine.

-キャット子／キャットピン