The Hunger Inside

The Hunger Inside

Many people in my life wouldn't have known that I battled furiously with an eating disorder for a good part of my adult life up until about 14 years ago.

It is often thought that eating disorders start as a way of filling some hole inside—some deep insatiable hunger that is never satisfied. I think for me, growing up as a young Black girl, I was always longing for love, an unspoken love that never seemed to come my way. It probably started much earlier as a way to have a comfortable friend when the world outside of me seemed cold and without acceptance for my growing spirit.

When I was little, there is a family joke about the picture of me dipping my hands into the sugar drawer and happily eating the sweetness off of my hands. As I grew older, I was rarely forbidden anything as far as food went, and I ate a lot of stuff that my friends at school did—sodas, chips, candy, etc. etc. I don't remember ever being what you'd call “small”.

At some point, I was taken to a doctor who prescribed these pills, and for some reason, I remember the name to this day—Tenuate Dospan—which made me less hungry, but really shaky and I had a hard time sleeping. Though I did lose some weight, as they squelched my appetite, I always felt sort of weird, and it sped up my thoughts and I occasionally felt a little crazy. It didn't last long. I've read that they've improved the formula to speak to the shakiness, but it felt really weird, that's all I remember—I think I was 13 at the time.

The hardest part of it all would have been during the Summer months when my grandmother would visit and tell me with that severe, and loveless voice of hers that “you'd be a pretty girl if you weren't so fat”. So after the first time she told me that, and each Summer thereafter, I'd find myself fasting and dieting like crazy a few weeks before she'd come, and no matter how much I may have been able to lose, it wasn't enough for her. Of course, that would only exacerbate the whole thing, and I'd end up stashing food—candy bars and such in the pockets of clothes in the closet, just so I wouldn't feel deprived. She would be trying to make sure I ate less, and of course I felt terribly self conscious eating in front of her, or asking for second helpings, so there I was, in my closet, stuffing down whatever I'd been able to put aside, and hating myself.

In high school, I hid my fat and my pain away by wearing a pair of overalls and baggy shirts most every day, and became a sort of jolly clown. I was well liked, and had a number of friends, but the gaping hole inside grew larger and larger during this time, as I watched all my friends pair off with boys, and go on dates and to proms and dances, while I got to sit at home alone. I threw myself into my school work as a way of dealing with the pain—that and eating—and, grew more and more miserable as time went on. I graduated from high school with a 4.0 average, and a diploma in loneliness. I longed to have a boyfriend, though my friendliness gained me a number of really nice male friends who, in looking back, probably befriended me because I was safe—not dating material or attractive enough to be—and that I was a good one to tell ones problems to, and I was also smart. The hole inside me grew larger and larger. I also suspect that the seeds of my desire to become a therapist were planted here, because I was easy to talk to, and I enjoyed listening.

The Summer before I went away to college, I started a serious diet, with the desire to become svelte for the college days ahead. I ate pretty well—lots of salads, meat, and cut out the sweets and white foods, something I found out later was the way one was able to lose weight. This dieting stint saw me lose a great deal of weight before going off to college, and life changed for me thereafter. As is often the case, I wasn't prepared for the new level of attention I started receiving upon my arrival at Western State. I began to get a lot of attention from men, and was excited, yet at the same time unaware that I was beginning to have a new addiction—sex. Now that I had lost weight, and had to walk up and down the campus, I managed to keep it off pretty well. Yet, the more I lost, the more attention I got, and it became fun to have dates, and to go out partying and to begin to feel what the other girls felt in high school. My first year, I was pretty sedate because we lived in the dorms, and things were still pretty strict back then, curfews and such. The second year, however, I moved to the on campus dorms with a friend I'd met in choir class the year before. I also, early into the second year, began to date one man I'd met, pretty seriously. He took me places, we went dancing, to dinner, etc. and spent a number of nights curled up on my single bed. Gregory would come to be my first true love, even though we parted near the end of the year. I don't think I ever quite understood why we sort of drifted apart, though looking back with my now wise vision, I suspect it was because we had begun to get a little too serious, and he needed to back off. I remember being pretty torn up about this, as I'd become pretty hooked on him. He was tall and dark haired, dark eyed, and to this day, I've not met a man to match him in my mind. We actually stayed in touch for years afterward, and he came to visit me when I'd moved back to Colorado Springs after college. He even at one point begged me to come be with him, but unfortunately, I chose to stay with the abusive man I was with at the time, and I've often wondered about the road not taken. I recall that during this relationship, my eating disorder had abated, and I was pretty happy most of the time, though I could put away some food, I was young and walked most everywhere, so it didn't stay on.

My years with Keith in Denver were, from the beginning, a living hell, though I didn't know it or understand it until years later. He had been abused as a child, so was controlling, and occasionally physically abusive. My eating disorder went into full bloom with him, I began to be bulimic, I'd eat large amounts of food, then go throw them up. I'd also starve myself on occasion, as he took on the personality of my grandmother—shaming me about my size and making me feel that he'd not love me if I was fat. So, he, who'd been a track star in high school, put me on a running regimen, which I completely hated. I also, probably due to the stress of this relationship, developed colon problems, on top of the bulimia.

I finally got away from him after 6 years, and again, my eating disorder began to settle down, and though I was still somewhat bulimic, I began to eat a little healthier. The bulimia, actually continued until after I was married, and was pregnant with my twins. I, oddly , had morning/all day sickness, and ended up being sick most all the time, all the way throughout my pregnancy. I think actually, it was this having to throw up that began to cure me of my bulimia, it just wasn't too much fun to HAVE to throw up, than doing it by choice. A few years later, my ex-husband and I, after a few rocky times decided to split up, and I noticed that my bulimia had begun to back off. Though I had also taken up smoking, another part of my unhappiness in my marriage, and adjunct to my bulimia. It occurs to me that part of what eating disorders do is this feeling inside that one could get rid of the hole that is gaping inside of oneself, when in reality, the person has to learn to love and be kind to themselves first.

My program at Naropa is what began to speak to the hunger inside. We had to learn meditation as part of our studies, and I began to have to literally sit with all of my sadness, unhappiness, and pain. I also came to understand where the hunger had come from. It actually started when I was abandoned as a baby, and that hunger for my mother who'd left me, was never met—though I have always felt that my dear aunties did the very best they could. This lack of my mother, also coupled with, and fueled my sense that I was unloved and unwanted, and I had learned to hate myself. Luckily, the program at Naropa also came with a need to have therapy, and I was lucky enough to have a couple of different therapists who helped me to work through my self-hatred.

At this time in my life, after years of not loving myself, I can honestly say that I love myself and I love my body. I no longer wish to do damage to it, as I had in the past. Over the last 10-12 years, I've come to actually pay attention to my body and what it wants and needs. I noticed that I have lactose intolerance, as many African American older adults to, so I limit my milk products and carry little pills to help digest the dairy should I come across it. I've also come to notice that I don't seem to react well to wheat products, so I've also started limiting my exposure to wheat and also gluten. I quit drinking sodas years ago, and cut out most fried foods, though I still love fried chicken sometimes, and just to treat myself, I'll occasionally have some french fries from Wendy's, though not very often—I love them too much!

I'm also aware that as my body is aging, I have arthritis, so have to do some form of exercise—I enjoy walking, and try to do that at least 30 minutes a day at a brisk pace. I no longer say that I am on a diet, but that I am eating in a manner that is healthy for my body. In fact, I don't think I'll ever use the word diet again to describe the way I feel I need to eat to keep healthy and strong.

The main and interesting thing that has happened for me has been that I now have a good relationship with food. For years, I used to ruminate about food endlessly. I 'm pretty sure that it was my time at Naropa, where we learned to watch our minds that I began to get a handle on the thought process I had around food. I used to spend time before meals, thinking about what I could eat, what I would eat, how much, when, how I'd cook it, etc. etc.. Then, after the meal, I'd end up worrying about what I at, if I ate too much, then, when in the midst of my eating disorder, I'd end up calculating the perfect time to head to the bathroom to throw up.

While on the cushion at Naropa, I became familiar with my mind around all of this, and while it was painful to face, it was the teaching that told us to have deep compassion with ourselves that saved me. I came to look deeper into the thought patterns. I came to understand and have compassion for the lonely child who'd been called names, and who learned to find comfort in food, even though it was always fleeting at best. As a lonely teen, food was my friend, the one I could come to who'd never turn me down, never turn me away, I could eat endlessly. Then, in the midst of the hideously abusive relationship I found myself in, food became my solace, my safe place from the abuse, my comforter. As and older adult, I also used food to stave off the sadness of distance from my bio family who never quite understood that part of the reason for my absence in their lives was my abject poverty—i didn't want them to know that I was a welfare mother, on foodstamps, a failure in our family...

I will admit that I do still allow myself one last comfort food—one that I fall back on when I feel distressed or sad.--potatoes. The difference is that I know this, and am conscious in my choice when I want to indulge myself. It also helps me that I can recognize when I feel distressed, and that a “comfort food” is not a bad thing. I'm also much more conscious because of my eating choices that if I choose to indulge in certain foods, I know I will pay some price. My arthritis seems to be exacerbated by white flour products and wheat, so I try to cut those out completely. I also notice that if I drink lots of water and green tea, I seem to flush out in a healthy way. I do all of this now out of a love for myself, a love of taking care of my aging self, and a desire to remain as healthy as I can, for as long as I can into my elder years.

The most important thing, I think, is that I now have a great sense of self-love. When I look at myself in the mirror, I love the face I see, I love my eyes, I love my body, and I can see my beauty. Learning to watch my mind , via meditation was a great boon to my being. It so helped me to learn to just be with who I am, to find a peacefulness within myself, instead of the great hunger that plagued me for so many years. Of course, there are things I still want—I want to be settled someday again after my journey, and I still wish/hope to find a partner who will love me for all that I am. Yet, I feel content, I do not feel the sense of wanting to eat to fill up the empty spaces, the empty spaces are now filled with love. This love is what fuels my work as a therapist, as an activist, as a mother, priestess, lover and friend. It is a wellspring now, rather than a gaping dark hole of pain. I have also been able to pay more attention to all the other areas in my life where I was mindlessly consuming

I feel so blessed to have learned to understand all the stories I've told myself over the years, all of the stories about who I am not, and why I should stuff myself to the gills with bad food. The stories about why I don't deserve to be loved, the stories about why I'm not attractive or why I should hurt myself rather than love the precious creature that I am. We all have stories, yet, they aren't always good for us to share. I hope that this story has been helpful to someone out there who is or has struggled with an eating disorder. I know that I have gotten stronger every day that I have been able to stop the endless grasping for food, the getting involved or staying in relationships that aren't good for me. But mostly, I have been able to stop the bad stories, and can now substitute them with words of strength, love and deep caring for all that I am, and to move away from anything and anyone that doesn't truly fill me with feelings of goodness and love.