Reason 123, The Day After

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

It's just like the movie, what am I to do immediately after the wake of the disaster I caused. Where do I begin to heal the harm I caused others, myself?

In so many ways I can now understand the isolation of a compulsive eater wanting to be left alone, yet wanting to be a part of life and of society, wanting to be loved and unable to love. I desperately wanted to, but couldn't.

I used to sit in the back of the meeting room, people would tap me on the shoulder telling me it was good to see me there. In so many ways, I was better left alone because the disease of compulsive eating would only take its toll on me and not anyone else. I was killing and hurting only myself.

I may have stopped using alcohol over twenty five years ago, but I acquired a new substance, a new method of destroying and hurting myself and others. The start of the new addiction, the compulsion of my character defects parlayed over to my new found substance – food. Nineteen years the path of destruction took casualties, the penalty for self-will run riot and self-centeredness.

Reason 124, A Compulsive Eater's Baggage Of Regrets

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

As an alcoholic I used to carry a suitcase of things I had done that caused me to drink. I speak only for myself, I did a Fourth Step inventory in which, when completed, will mean that I have admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being, the exact nature of my defects.

Many years ago, I had taken inventory all right, but I hung on to some of the worst items in stock. I might have put the plug in the jug in regards to alcohol, but I switched addictions – to food. I continued on destroying myself slowly, but surely, never letting up on the self-hatred, fear, ego and dishonesty. I continued lying to others and more importantly to myself.

Again years later, after giving away my life story yesterday, it was somewhat a relief to relieve myself of the baggage I carried around all these years. But then, I started hating myself. I hated myself even more because of all the harm I had done to others and to myself because of my compulsive eating. The thought of killing myself entered my mind, then the thought crossed my mind of taking a drink, but it was not necessary. It was not necessary because when I did my AA inventory I was told I never had to take a drink again in regards to the harm I had done because of alcohol. I cleaned up that portion of my life and the obsession to drink alcohol was lifted.

I quickly realized this is part of the journey, that once I complete the rest of the Steps, it will not be necessary to compulsively eat again.

Reason 125, God – Is This All You Got?

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

Yesterday, I got rejected. And I can accept the rejection for what it is, which is tremendous growth and a very different attitude for me. In the past, I used to say I thrived on rejection, which is a big lie. I lie to myself believing I was invincible to hurt and pain, that rejections bounced off me like I was Superman. Unconsciously, I lived in denial hating myself even more with each rejection.

At other times, when I felt I was not in control of my life, rejections would send me in a spiral of depression, self-hatred and resentment almost killing me. I hated the person who rejected me, the world and mostly I hated myself even more. I wanted to destroy her for not wanting me, not wanting to love me, for not validating me and mostly by not accepting the love I had to offer.

Right now, I feel okay. It is like a fresh wound – you see the cut, you acknowledge that there should be pain, but there isn't (denial), blood slowly begins to seep out slowly. You think to yourself that you should take care of it, but decide that you are courageous enough to let it heal itself. You move on with life.

Reason 126, Threesome with Jose Cuervo & Sara Lee

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

In choosing my addictions, like the partners I selected to love mirrored those of my parents. I searched for feelings, the escape, the image of love, security, and comfort that I did not know. I did not know love or what it looked like. I knew hate, ridicule and pain. I unconsciously wanted to become whole and heal my wounds of my childhood. I searched for the embodiment to fulfill my need.

My marriage and the relationships changed because I changed, food and alcohol were the catalyst I needed to destroy myself. Even in sobriety and abstinence I desire to destroy what is good in my life. Relationships that can be beneficial in my growth I almost destroyed. I realized I could do something. I decided to do nothing, to sit still and let things be.

When I ingest the substances I'm addicted to, a chemical reaction occurs, becoming an allergy. My compulsion – the lie I tell myself is thinking that I need and want the obsession. Everything else in life becomes oblivion, ideas about what I want are off. I no longer feel alive and now only wish death to knock on my door.

Reason 127, Fantasies About Love

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

To arrive at the heart of the matter why I ate compulsively for most of my life is to find one of the links to permanent recovery. There are many variables and factors contributing to my obsession and disease. I believed the lie – my obsession. I wanted to make the lie into a truth which I needed to cover the “shortfall” of my childhood.

What I unconsciously wanted is to get what I didn't get in my childhood from something or someone who were like the people (parents) who didn't give me what I needed in the first place. What I wanted was to love my parents and I wanted to be loved by them.

I made bad choices in my life. I decided not to love my parents who inflicted hell on me. I decided that food was to be my comfort, my friend, my lover – everything my parents were not. That particular emotional need was not fulfilled by food, so I turned to alcohol. What I didn't realized is that I wanted to die. I had nothing, nothing of importance to live for. It was by God's Grace I found Alcoholics Anonymous or I should say it found me.

Reason 128, Ticking Time Bomb

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

Waiting for something to happen, for something to change is like waiting for the microwave to finish cooking. Those last few seconds seem like an eternity, yet there is a sense of despair that something bad or worse is to happen once those few seconds have come and gone. The negative thinking is I am not going to get what I expected. I will be disappointed. The ticking time bomb is a dud.

Right now, at this very moment I am waiting patiently, sitting still in the midst of the storm, neither reacting to any action or inaction from others. It is so unlike me to just be idle and not destroy what is causing me to wait. The enemy is out there and it's right where I am at, in the trenches of life playing the waiting game. It waits for me to destroy myself – it is not going to happen, at least from my end.

My Higher Power doesn't care what I am thinking, only that I do the right thing. I am being selfish by asking for my wishes be fulfilled when there is something better than the things I want at the moment. It is a different kind of surrender I must go through and it is irritating the heck out of me.

Reason 129, There Something Wrong, Why Me?

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

It seems I am riding a different wave and it's going down the toilet. If I play my cards right I may land on my feet or end up laying flat on the ground. This unfortunately is one of the things I have to go through to get to the other side. Just when I think things have settled down, a little rift causes a fissure in my life. Do I like it? Heck NO! It is my unwillingness to accept things as they are to change that sends fear and an upheaval of emotions into my being.

Someone once said that serenity is not what we get after the storm, it is what we work to attain during the storm. My life might be in constant turmoil and change, but if I stay still and listen to that little voice in my being then I believe I will be able to ride it out.

Usually it is my reaction to the action that causes me the most harm. Things will occur on their own without my help. If I mind my own business and remain close to my Higher Power, maintaining that consciousness through out, of having hope and faith then I will persevere.

Reason 130, I'm Going To Miss Her

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

There are some things I wish I could do without. My mind in its desperate attempt to sabotage whatever I am trying to strive for seeks to destroy whatever happiness I might have. It is a constant barrage of negative thoughts, of impending doom, of bad things that I think can happen. Then there is the thoughts of what if it does happen? How will I handle it? What will happen to me?

Some days are better than others. I usually walk through the bombardment of doom and despair unscathed, ignoring the negative voices in my head. Then there are times the pit of despair is an abyss with no way out. Everything I have worked for is unimportant and worthless. The pain I have suffered intensifies. I have no hope.

The most scariest time of my life is when hope is gone. I have nothing left. My reasons to exist do not matter to anyone moreso with myself. I have nothing to live for – no addictions I can use to escape my reality. Even the fantasy world I used to love to live in isn't appealing. Without hope I have no faith. Hope is the only thing keeping me going when everything else has failed.

Reason 131, Eight Months Today

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

I have learned so much in the past eight months. I am grateful to be grateful for all the things I have, all the things I have learned, all the experiences I needed to go through in order to grow and change. I have a lot less fear today than I did in the past. I am now willing to look at myself and take stock of the character defects that stand between me and my service to others. I ask my Higher Power to humbly remove the defects of character that no longer work for me.

While the pain of what could have been went through my soul, my heart survived the jolt; and while it also wrecked havoc with my mental and emotional state, I realized that I am ready. I am available and open to love. I am capable of love, to be loved and to love. The virtues of patience, faith and hope is understanding that love will come when it is to come. I must learn to wait. I will love and have no fear.

The valuable lessons outnumber the degrees of pain I endured. Everyone who follows the food plan will attest to a clarity of mind, a lightness of being and a hunger for life never been experienced before. While I am always hungry, I did not pass out or die in between meals.

Reason 132, Eating The Poison Hoping You Would Die

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

“Move back! Move away from the plate and no one will get hurt!” Said the voice in my head. I slowly back away cautiously. “Drop your weapon!” I drop the fork listening to it ding as it falls on the plate.

“What are you doing?” I ask, realizing I'm having a conversation with myself.

“Nothing! I was believing that the food obsession will not hurt me. I want the lie to be the truth.”

I use to hear in AA meetings, “I drink the poison hoping you would die!” In my case, I was eating over a resentment that I had against someone. The problem is the person you are eating over doesn't really care and most likely will never even know that you are pissed off at them. By eating compulsively to punish another you are only deceiving yourself. Drinking or eating yourself to death is not the answer.

How am I to rid of this resentment?

Prayer. Pray for that person, wish them all the blessings you wish to have for yourself onto them.

Otherwise ask yourself, who is the one getting fatter and more miserable while the other person continues on living happily unaware of anything you feel against them?

Reason 133, The Easier, Softer Way

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

As a compulsive eater, I am always looking for the easy way out, the hidden loopholes, the shortcut, the free ride, the secret, what trinket do I need to carry around to get what I want. It is never about how much work I need to do to accomplish my desires. It is who can I use to get what I want when I want it.

Eating myself to death is not the easiest method of killing myself. Using a gun would be very messy, taking pills – well if it didn't put me to sleep permanently it would have given me a serious headache aside from the pain of having my stomach pumped. I have thought about driving the car off the cliff, with my luck I would survive and the insurance wouldn't cover the damage to my car.

As I look at my life, it has never been easy. I have struggled, toiled, crawled, scratched, begged my way to nowhere. The top of the hill is never within my grasp. This is because I am always pushing the huge boulder up the hill without any help from anyone. Anyone is my Higher Power. The boulder are all my life problems, the wreckage of my past, the hurts, the resentments I carry around.

To surrender is to stop pushing the boulder.

Reason 134, Survival Instinct

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

As a child growing up in an abusive household, I shut down my feeling using massive quantities of food. I stuffed my feeling deep down in an abyss that could never be filled. This is after I had experienced a beating beyond my comprehension. I did not understand why or the cause for such anger against a child.

The only thing I knew how to do was to survive. I withheld my feelings from those that hurt me and those that could potentially do me harm. I trusted no one including myself. It was the injustice, the travesty of the punishment that did not fit the crime.

I was six years old when I endured physical trauma that would change my life forever. I began to mitigate staying alive by studying my family's behavior. I made a choice to not have a parent, instead I chose to call my natural maternal parent by her first name. She was never to be my Mom for as long as I lived. She was just another person who inflicted hell on me. The resentment of torture is not easy to let go, even moreso not being able to tell your own parent that you love them. One cannot make the heart feel what it doesn't.

Reason 135, I Am Grateful That I Am Grateful

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. Page 44, AA Big Book.

Either way, I am screwed. For a compulsive eater like myself, I find either alternatives not that appealing. It is my mind, the disease centers in my mind where anything negative is more likely possible. Eating myself to death was a solution to my way of thinking. It was the best I could do to survive my life that I hated and despised living. Food provided love, comfort and security from the outside world. As with alcohol, it brought my life closer to the end, closer to death because I wanted out from my life.

I hated everything in my life. I hated my parents, God, anyone who stood in the way of wanting to rid of my life. I had no self-esteem, no judgment to make anything of my life and no reason to live except to eat myself to oblivion. I was too chicken-shit to kill myself.

If anyone told me almost eight months ago when I started this abstinence (food plan) that I would once again have another spiritual awakening; I would have said they are out of their mind.

Reason 136, Sometimes It's All I Have

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

I feel so alone sometimes it gets lonely. Not that I want to be the center of attention all the time, but it would be nice to be in the limelight once in a while in life. I really do not want to be the center of attraction, yet my ego says it is all about me! It is because I feel so lost and bewildered thus causing my feeling of loneliness.

I was driving home today and started daydreaming. It is not a good thing being on the freeway, but then my mind suddenly went into a fantasy. My mind is known to be delusional and at time psychotic about the things it thinks about. It has no control switch, it has only a stop and go, a fast and slow speed with nothing in between.

What I was dreaming or fantasizing is not that important, but what is important is to say that my life is pathetic and hopeless. The only thing I have going is that I am working the program, following the food plan and being of service. Aside from all that I have nothing, at least nothing that I consider important. Pity.

Reason 137, Abnormal State Of Mind

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

Being on a food plan, abstaining from compulsive eating and negative thinking has put me in an abnormal state of mind. My normal state of mind is to be in oblivion from the world, from my feelings and in a state of denial that is incomprehensible to explain. The joke about compulsive eaters is that the disease is going to kill you, yet that is not enough to make you stop.

Admitting you are powerless and to your innermost self that you are a compulsive eater is only a beginning. If someone asked me today what is “it” that made me stop eating compulsively and begin on this road to recovery? I probably could not tell you one specific thing only that I made a decision. I made a decision to stop, that no matter how many tries it took to get it right, I will stop eating compulsively no matter what even if it kills me trying.

If I fall off the horse, I will dust myself off and get back on it. I will do this meal after meal after day after day until it stuck. The object is to stop eating compulsively in between and at meals – I try to follow the food plan. This is not about being perfect. It is about allowing God's Grace to enter into your life. Let go and let God. Then I pray like there is no tomorrow.

Reason 138, This Too Shall Pass

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

Sometimes it really pisses me off. I am pissed off at my Higher Power, but mostly I am pissed off at myself. I have these feelings that are annoying as hell and any little thing tends to piss me off more. It is like I am angry at the world. I don't know why or what to be angry at.

I guess, if I had to take a shot at it – it would be that God is not coming through with what I want. I want what I want and I want it now! It's not the feeling of disappointment that I won't get what I want that is annoying, it's the feeling of wanting. Then there are all the questions of why – why not, why now, why me, why is it taking so long?

The problem is the idle mind. If I am not busy doing service then my mind runs the problem of thinking. If things are not the way they are suppose to be – meaning to my needs and wants, then I have a very good reason to be miffed.

The solution is to wait it out, eventually my mind settles down and it passes.

Reason 139, The Long Journey Home

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

I was thinking about this, this morning, that my recovery has been long and slow. While I have struggled with the disease of compulsive eating, it has been a steady progression – two steps forward and one step back. I must not discount all the things I have learned about myself and the disease of compulsive eating, the addiction.

The biggest contributing factor of my recovery is coming to peace with my Higher Power. A even bigger element is understanding that love is a feeling masquerading as an illusion underneath layers of deception. I wanted to love, to be loved, I wanted something, someone to fix me. As a child I wanted to be loved by my parents. My mind realized the disease of dysfunction, a combination of alcoholism, compulsive eating and untreated spirituality – following a religion is not spirituality. At that time as a child I knew what love was and made the decision not to love. Instead I searched for it in addictions – compulsive eating, bulimia, alcoholism and in people to love me the way I wanted to be loved. No such thing!

I surrender the lost cause – no use pretending. I found myself to love me.

Reason 140, Time Could Not Change Me

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

At least, I had one dream in my lifetime come true. Freedom for me was education. It was my only way out. As the first high school graduate in the family of generations, I received the first embrace from my parents, a congratulatory hug. My parents did not have any aspirations for me. I had survived the torture, emotional and mental anguish of abuse passed down for generations.

In the search for tomorrow, my prison continued to follow me. The freedom from bondage was an illusive dream. My release was only physical, I was still incarcerated emotionally and spiritually. My past and I followed me everywhere I went. I accepted the responsibility from my parents of hurting myself with food. The shift from food to alcohol shifted during my high school years. I drank daily to escape my life and my past.

With food and alcohol, my mind took me to places I've never been. I imagined relationships traveling through time feeling everything as if it were real. Now in sobriety and abstinence, I am dealing with ghost of a past in a trap that I regret. Relationships are different but the same as of the past.

Reason 141, La Mentira

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

One cannot make the heart feel what it doesn't. As a child, survival shadowed the understanding of my environment and the violence in my home. I was not meant for this world. Wanting to be free of any suffering, I searched for sanity in a hopeless existence. They could not love me, yet the love I had was true. I continued to survive by living in my own thoughts, in daydreams, in imaginary places, at times wanting to run away and wishing death to come. I wanted to be anywhere else except where I was.

My parents would not listen, they did not know how. I suffered for years until I could understand my own actions. I realized I could turn off my feelings, shut down my thoughts. I made decisions I shouldn't have. I did not have a choice. The choices to set myself free were to catch the feeling of soothing comfort taking my life into a slow and silent death. I survived the beatings knowing I could comfort myself with food. The love I thought I had from my parents was nowhere to be found. It was never expressed or told. I found my love in food.

Reason 142, The Illusion Of Hope

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

As a compulsive eater the anguish of trying to separate expectation from hope is excruciating painful. I want to have hope, yet I know somewhere deep down I will be disappointed. It is a battle inside my being that is fought as an endless war.

To be hopeful is an illusion of desire. It is fleeting and ends in settling for less. Rarely have I garnered something better. It takes time, lots of time to move from the mediocre to substantial. It is the life dance of two steps forward, one step back.

Two things are a must if I am to survive. I must have faith, the other is to surrender. I must wait, be patient and be open-minded to my Higher Power's will. When I am hopeful with an expectation, I am using my self-will trying to control the outcome. When I surrender and have faith, then I am letting God's will for me govern the results.

Negative thinking is the destroyer of any optimism. I must work on being optimistic – on a minute by minute basis. I must constantly turn my life and will over to the care of God. God help me!

Reason 143, Things Change On A Dime!

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

For a few days I was filled with the feeling of happiness. The joy was of living with the tingly feeling of fear called terror. It was a feeling of sheer excitement and anticipation. It is something I hardly ever experience. I so looked forward to this event that is so rare in my life it could be compared to stellar event like the visitation of a comet.

Once the event began unfolding, things did not appear to what I thought it supposed to be. Instead the visitation of the comet was a huge asteroid headed on course for a collision. I prepared for the worse yet remained hopeful. I strengthened my resolve to continue on my path that no matter what I would not let my program of recovery falter. I braced myself for the worse.

The day after was a catastrophic. My heart was ripped apart and lay strewn about like a disaster area. If it were not for a couple of close friends the feelings of despair, anger and resentment could have taken over and most likely continued the destruction. Instead I was saved by the care and love of those who understand me.

Reason 144, Please! Make The Pain Stop And Go Away!

Why I Hate Being Fat – 217 Reasons ~ 217 Pounds

Obsession is not only believing the lie but after accepting the lie trying to make it into a truth, then it falls apart. I have two friends that love chick flicks. I have seen these two people view many movies repeatedly, yet remain isolated, alone and obese. Both, as with myself have a problem with the obsession of eating compulsively. I have managed to stop. Both of my friends continue eating knowing that it might someday kill them.

My two friends live vicariously through the movies. I, on the other hand have lived vicariously by eating myself to oblivion. Everything I always wanted to do occurred in my mind, food was a catalyst by which I thought I was living, when in actuality I was dead. I did nothing in my reality. I wanted to die and for the pain of living to be removed.

Food gave me comfort from fear, from my emotions and daily life. I had no life only to live in my mind the fantasies that I was incapable of doing. When I surfaced to reality, I was usually faced with self-hatred, anger and resentment. I wanted to die.