Question 3: (for today) Reread Step 1. Discuss and effect upon the following ideas found in Step 1: a) Critical nature of our disease. b) Progressive nature of our disease. c) The need not to push someone until they are ready.
Critical nature of our disease – this is an odd one because critical can mean critical condition – a state of emergency or very important… I’m gonna go with the emergency vibe….
I see COE (compulsive over eating) as a slow and silent killer. As a culture we don’t like fatness – and we seem to base our dislike on aesthetics. But I wonder sometimes if it’s because that kind of reckless abandon and self destructiveness is actually what makes us more uncomfortable as humans? Not really the aesthetics. And we because we tend to shame the things that make us uncomfortable ‘fat’ people, or at least I did, exist in the margins. COE diminishes us. I personally think we lose our voice and our agency. Our relationships have a huge blind spot in them. I just saw the dr Oz show where these twin sisters weighed 600 lbs each. They didn’t leave the house, and their family just sort of fed them, regardless of how emotionally uncomfortable it would be to be around two people that checked out who can’t fully participate in life. Obviously that’s an extreme. But I related to them and I’m sure their disease started like mine – slowly, then it became a habit, then it was normal and then it made them angry to even think of giving up the precious. I started off thinking I had a healthy appetite. And then I checked out from my body. I only lived from the neck up. I remember being so defensive about my weight. I could not deal with it being brought up. It was so progressive that sometimes it was a secret even to me. I was in denial and so was everyone else. And/or they were afraid of hurting me.
As I know from alcoholism, it does no good to push someone before they’re ready. The denial is too thick. They haven’t hit their bottom and everyone’s bottom is different. Plus if they’re anything like me, and I’ve noticed this in other overeaters, there’s a huge rebellious streak. I feel comfortable painting us with that brush 😉. I wonder sometimes if it’s because we have years of trapped rage and unexpressed emotion. Certainly so for me. So when someone tries to tell me what to do, my first thought is “fuck you” and my second thought is “smile and nod so they’ll go away”. Which is pretty much what I did until I admitted I had a problem and I was powerless over it.
comprehend serenity to know peace 