"You are only as sick as your secrets" - Rick Warren
I've heard this said more times than I can count both in my childhood and my young adult life. It didn't seem to hold much value to me in the past but lately I have been doing a great deal of introspection and I think its time to come "out" about how I "ended up" at 235 pounds in 2014.
My story is not something I share often or widely, and I honestly have the chills just typing it now. I'm going to share what I never say and what I have not shared, about my relationship with food. It seems to me a strange thing to even think a relationship with food has its tale, but for me it does. For those of you who do not know me well, I grew up in crippling rural poverty in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. My parents were both hard working blue collar workers, often taking on multiple jobs to support their family of 6. I was/am the oldest of the 4 kids and not only heard our financial struggles, but felt them too.
Rural poverty, is an entirely different beast than urban poverty, in my experience. There are no resources to be had. No one wants to admit that they need help and even working two full time jobs each, there were times that my family still qualified for state aid - because we were still below the poverty line. What does that mean? It means that my working class parents busted their asses to raise 4 kids and most of our lives that joint income stayed under $30,000. It is not an uncommon scenario, however, in rural areas, no one talks about it. That fact that no one talked about it was something that set me on a path to disaster.
I knew that no one would call my parents and tell them, so I stopped eating school lunch. The years that we qualified for free lunch, I would privately renew my lunch card with the lunch ladies to avoid looks from the other students. In middle school and high school, we had made our way up to paying full price for lunch (which we still could not afford) - and at that point, I did not have the heart to ask my parents for the money. They were usually so sleep deprived and rushed for time, that conversation never happened. We didn't talk about it. So, I stopped eating lunch. I started at that point, testing my limits of how long I could go without eating - not because I had no access to food, but because I didn't want to be a burden. I stopped eating breakfast too. I knew my Dad would look for the dishes in the sink, so I started crushing up a piece or two of cereal in the bowl and dropping a dot of milk in a clean dish before putting it in the sink in the morning before school. No one noticed; we didn't talk about it. Then, it really started getting crazy.
When I was 15, my grandmother passed away. I felt like all of the control I had over my life was taken away. I wanted to push the world away from me. I wanted peace in my mind. It was at that time, that I started binge eating and purging. I would wait all day to eat, and then before my siblings came home from school, I knew I had a few minutes alone. During that time, I would eat anything I could to feel full. I remember my mom yelling at all of us one day - she had purchased 5 pounds of bananas just the day before and they were gone already. I didn't have the heart to say it was me, not because I was harming myself, but because I was harming my family. As my guilt increased, the binge sessions decreased and I would have periods of very controlled eating. When I was in control, I was proud of myself - but it was almost as though a tidal wave was building inside me, until the wave crashed and I went through the cycle again.
I will not say that I am cured, because those demons are still in my head, telling me to eat my feelings. They come out on cheat days - and I am sure that my loved ones see it too and worry. Sometimes it scares me and sometimes I screw up, but I have learned to share my struggles instead of burying them, so that I can be held accountable and do better. It has not been easy. Sometimes, it's a struggle to just be normal, but the secret is out and you are only as sick as your secrets.
These days, I run for "Feeding America" at least once a week on Charity Miles. I am passionate about childhood nutrition and self care. I'm getting better every day and this journey has been an amazing teacher and gift. Having been through all of this, what is my advice? Share your truth. Lift someone else up. Speak your burdens and secrets and release them.
I have not purged in 2 years. Two years free from that secret. This is me, today. Strong, proud, scarred, beautiful, vulnerable, honest, present, loved, and free.
