Hi my name is Jacqui, I am a compulsive overeater here in Australia.
To tell you about myself…
I was raised in a very dysfunctional family. There were significant addiction and severe mental health issues. And, everything was about food. I was given food for every occasion and it was like life revolved around food. When I got to about 10 years old, I was overweight and then my parents started to speak very negatively to me about my size, but they were also giving me excessive amounts of food. I have always suffered with severe anxiety, even as a small child, and food somehow helped me to feel a bit better even though I wasn’t consciously aware of it. Also when I was 10, a boy at school called me a nasty name related to my weight and I immediately took on shame about myself and my body for a very long
time.
When I was in my early 20s, I had 2 young children and was in an abusive relationship. I experienced a lot of trauma in many ways, I didn’t have any support and hardly any contact with my dysfunctional family, and I didn’t have friends. My eating and my weight became totally out of control. 10 years later, I decided to leave that relationship because of the abuse. Things got far worse and I experienced a major psychological breakdown and spent time in a psychiatric hospital as a result of my now ex husband’s constant stalking and verbal abuse. I had tried to take my own life several times and I really needed help.
He ended up taking my daughters to go live with him. It totally crushed my soul. I found that my obsession with food and compulsive eating worsened again to a point where I was desperate to find anything that would stop my incessant hunger (which wasn’t hunger for food at all, as I discovered later). So, it wasn’t hard for me from the environment I grew up in, to turn to drugs and alcohol to try to manage my food obsession, eating and weight, but moreover, all the emotions and trauma I was trying desperately not to feel. So now I had a drug and alcohol dependency as well as a completely out of control food obsession and it only ended up further destroying my life and I ultimately spent several weeks in hospital and then a stay in a residential drug and alcohol rehab. I was using really heavy hard drugs and huge amounts of alcohol. So now that drugs and alcohol were gone, I turned again to food.
I had reached my heaviest weight by this time – which was 344 pounds. My mobility was greatly affected I was unable to care for my basic needs properly (eg washing, dressing, I had severe problems with my feet as a result of my weight and needed a walking frame/rollator to get around) and I had numerous comorbidities (diabetes, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, the list goes on and on). I then met someone who had found recovery from alcoholism through aa and suggested a 12 step program to me. I hadn’t heard of it before but I liked how this person was- I could see the program in him even though I didn’t know what it was at that time. So we ended up in a relationship and now I had a very kind and supportive partner and I felt like my life was improving. I had another child, and I went back to study. I really wanted to be a better person. After a while, I felt like my life had never been so good! I thought it was just this one area of my life that I couldn’t get a handle on – my eating, weight, and food obsession. I tried every diet and food program known to mankind over my lifetime- I tried every weight loss injection and drug. I tried to get bariatric surgery- we drove about 2000 miles to see a bariatric surgeon and I had all my hope on it- I thought this was the thing that was going to “fix me”. but was told I was not eligible. The doctor said I was a lost cause, that I could NEVER lose weight without bariatric surgery and I was NOT eligible for the surgery. He told me to not even bother trying to lose weight because it would never work. I had no hope left. It seemed like the more I tried to control my eating and my weight, the worse it got and I really could not figure out why. Why can’t I just do this ONE thing- control what I eat? I could not make the constant obsessive food thoughts go away, no matter what I did or didn’t do. Trust me when I say, I really tried everything at least a hundred times.
So there I was after all that, feeling absolutely hopeless. I remember my husband all those years ago suggesting OA. While I tried it back then, I just couldn’t grasp it. I thought “what if I give it one more try?” I felt like I had nothing to lose at all, because I was so hopeless and defeated. I thought maybe if I give it my all this time, don’t hold back and try to immerse myself in it, maybe I’ll get this “spiritual awakening” I’ve heard about and maybe it will finally help me. I thought if I could just get someone to take me through the steps, something magic will happen to me and I’ll suddenly solve this one area of my life that I was having problems with. Of course later I realized, my entire life was unmanageable but I didn’t know that then.
I live in a fairly isolated area in Australia. The closest face to face OA meeting is at least 6 hours drive from where I live. I am so grateful for the internet, that allows me to access OA in my circumstances. I knew I needed to find meetings that would suit my circumstances. If there were too many barriers to going, I knew it wouldn’t last. I was determined to start on a good footing. Going to OA online was the best thing I have ever done. I made a deliberate conscious decision to give it my all and to be completely and totally and very uncomfortably honest which I had never been able to do on an ongoing basis. I was always sneaking food and hiding food and justifying what I ate to myself and others.
I found an amazing sponsor from the online meetings I was going to, who took me through the steps, and I tried to the best of my ability to be really thorough. My sponsor helped me find my abstinence from compulsive eating, one day at a time. It took me a while, but I feel like I now have a connection to my higher power that I never thought possible.
I struggled at first with the higher power concept. I tried to create my own higher power. I later realised that I just could not believe in a flimsy God of my imagination. Honestly, I was terrified of what I might discover about myself during the steps and the thought of amends mortified me. To go on this journey I was intending to go on, I needed a very solid and powerful higher power that I could really lean on. I am still developing and deepening a connection to a higher power of my own understanding, and have been on an incredible spiritually-seeking journey. That might be a share for another time.
I have had, and continue to have, a very transformative experience in the OA program. The first time doing the steps was HUGE and intense. There was SO much to unpack and I had more profound self discoveries along the journey than I can count. I was afraid of what I would uncover about myself in step 4, and afraid what another person would think of me during step 5. But the self discovery was amazing- I discovered that I am not an inherently bad person. I’m just an ordinary person- who would have guessed! I thought I would uncover something really really bad. It must be really bad in there if I had to bury stuff so deep, right? But I came to realise that I am equal with everyone else, and don’t need to deny myself happiness, or love, or other good things. I have experienced so many miracles, that continue. One very powerful aspect for me was step 9. It was the step that I wasn’t keen on the most, but I found it really is very freeing and valuable. I realized that for a very long time I had felt so bad about the harm I had caused to others… that I had been relentlessly punishing myself over everything. Through taking responsibility for the harm I’ve caused to others, and trying to right the wrongs, allowed me an inner freedom I had never known possible. It is nothing short of a huge miracle. It also opened a path to healing, and self-acceptance.
OA is teaching me how to live, relying on my higher power, to have a quality of life beyond my wildest dreams, there is so much more I can say about how my life is better now- I have developed a genuine interest in helping others, my mental obsession has gone, I want to grow as a person and be a better person so I can help others. I have gone from a person completely out of control and lost everything, including my mobility and dignity, to now I am studying to be a psychologist, I work in suicide prevention as a crisis counsellor, I do a lot of OA service work, I am a sponsor, and I am growing every day, one day at a time. I have so much gratitude and deep appreciation to OA for introducing me to God and teaching me how to live life rather than merely survive. I feel like I am finally living life and the best part is that
my weight is taking care of itself in the background. I have never been able to lose any significant amount of weight ever before. I still have a way to go before reaching a healthy body weight but my progress is a miracle that could not have happened any other way. Defying the odds of what I had been told, here I am, over 150 pounds less than when I started. I have made astounding progress as a person since I came to OA, but I still have so much room for improvement, and I am looking forward to that one day at a time.
Thank you for letting me share and I am grateful for each and every one of you.
Jacqui B
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