Self protection

[Neagrm]

This topic is coming up a lot lately, brought to my attention over and over by others and in reading I come across. It's as if someone is tapping me on the shoulder saying, Hey, look at this! LOL. (okay okay, I get it, I'm looking, lol)

I'm trying to look at it. How much of a part do you think it plays in the extra weight?

It would be very helpful to hear others' thoughts and experience in this. Rather than pm's, could people share on here so I can see it? So there might be an exchange of ideas about it?

Someone said to me the other day, those early experiences affect you more than you think. It might be that I've minimized a couple bad experiences I had when 17 and then 18 y.o. At the time I didn't get it. It's only decades later that I've become aware there was an impact and I made some unconscious decisions in reaction.

About 14 years ago I had a flashback for the first time in my life. It brought things to my attention. I worked through it with a therapist and thought I dealt with it.

I don't know that there's any connection, but I never really had a problem with weight until about 16 years ago when it began creeping up and my eating habits began deteriorating. I've attributed it to creeping bad habits that persisted and now my body is addicted. Also, attributed it to getting older and to other bouts of illness that sometimes made it difficult to stay active. When my walking regimen is interrupted, it's taken forever to get back into it.

I've gradually fallen into guilt and shame about the weight and amount of sugar I consume. I know how to eat right and I cooked for my family all these years in a fairly healthy way, until recent years when I struggled with depression, perimenopause, surgeries, medication that gave me the hungry horrors, and lost all motivation for it. I'm feeling much better in recent months, but I am stuck in old patterns. I am responsible and fear I have some fatal flaws ... sloth and gluttony! I now have 30 pounds to lose, or more.

I'm aware of what happened many years ago when I was a teen-ager/very naive young adult. I'm not in denial about it I don't think. I've worked through it a lot. I thought it was pretty much healed and in the past. There is still a bit of emotional charge around one incident, but sheesh, what more can I do? People go through much, much worse things and they survive okay.

A friend is suggesting those experiences could have a lot to do with my current eating addiction/body issues. I don't know.

What is your experience, strength and hope? Any and all bits appreciated! Thanks so much for being here.

[TryingisDying]

I have used weight as protection. It came from being molested and raped when little. I think the extra weight made me feel safe so to speak. When I lost weight I got a alot of attention from men and that just made me mad but the weight made me miserable. For me I think it is about boundry setting and knowing that I can protect myself now....

[renee18]

Self protection for me is because of my past with guys as well. I have been emotional, physical and sexual abused by guys younger and older then me. I keep on the weight to keep guys away from me. It works for the most part. I am in counseling now dealing with the pain from my dad touching me in inapproicate places when I was around 7 that is I think when I started gaining the weight and now I am 21years old. so I have carried for many years just like others have. Talk about it with someone you trust that has helped me. For me right now it is just being aware why I binge and keep the weight now. You do have to have boundaries with others that make you safe and those boundaries are different for everyone. My boundaries right now include not really being around guys for the most part and if I am I make sure i am with friends that understand my background and they help me too. Not all guys will hurt and abuse you but you have to open up and see that too experience good things from guys and i know that is hard to do I am still working on that too. It takes time. you did not get that way over night.

much love

[Biscuits]

Hi all

Self protection for me was allowing myself to be unattractive, and it wasn't just being fat that helped, it was wearing unflattering clothes, not wearing make-up and not being bothered about what i looked like as that way i did not attract the kind of attention from men that i was avoiding.

I was abused by a family member for a number of years and did not feel like i was protected at all my my parents - here i really mean my father, he was supposed to be my superhero.

I never connected the two until i came into OA, i never understood why when i began losing weight i could never maintain it. I just felt so uncomfortable being slim and getting attention that i would always panic and put it all back on.

My experience's before OA was that i was a piece of meat to be abused by men, especially older men when i was looking for a father figure.

I am grateful to OA today as it prepared me to go into therapy to deal with all the issue's around the abuse. I no longer feel victimised or abondoned or unloveable.

The most amazing miracle of all was when i hugged the person who had abused me and felt no hate or anger at him, God did for me what i could not do for myself. He allowed me compassion for my abuser and the ability to forgive him. I choose not to have this person in my life today as i do not need him to be part of it.

I see now that my lifes journey has been full of many obstacles and one day at a time i can recover from the damage of them.

Today by the grace of God i maintain my weight loss and care about who i am and how i look, all of this has been an inside job that has shown on the outside.

[Neagrm]

Thank you so much, Trying, Renee, and Biscuits. Your posts mean a lot.

Biscuits, what a hopeful story. Didn't I read in another post somewhere on here, that you reached your weight goals some time ago? If your willing to share I'd so appreciate hearing more about how you came to that.

I know you've said some about it, but I was wondering about details like -- how you got to the point where food wasn't an addiction any more, or that it wasn't controlling you. What thoughts and feelings did you deal with to get there and related things?

Thanks all ...

[Biscuits]

Hi Neagrm

I'm not really sure how i eventually got to the point where i felt food was not controlling me. I came into OA extremely overweight topping nearly 19 stones (not sure what that is in pounds) and bursting out of a UK size 28 clothes. When i first entered the rooms i heard others talk about the things i did with food and they called it addiction.

I hadn't really thought about it like that but it struck a chord and i kept coming back. It's funny but for the first 5 months my bingeing became worse than ever. I think that was due to the fact that for the first time in my life i was accepting who i was and was eating out in the open not secretively. My husband bless him accepted this as part of what i had to go through and never questioned it. (I am lucky enough to have married a guy who's mother has worked the twelve steps for 32 years and passed alot of this knowledge on to him)

I got a sponsor and started to work the program. I was fine working the steps on every area of my life and had no problems sharing all the shame and guilt i felt over my abuse but when it came to sharing about my food i found this so difficult. I hadn't relaised that my relatrionship with food was such a personal thing.

I became abstinent on the 9th July 1997 (Well at least 3 meals a day - quite huge one's to begin with and my sponsor said that was okay as i was not eating compulsively - they were planned).

The more i worked the program around the food the more i realised what my trigger foods were and became willing to have God remove them. I was quite stubborn at times and couldn't imagine life without some of them. I tried many experiement to try to keep hold of some of them only to land flat on my face. I laugh today with some of the irrational ways i tried to include them in a food plan.

I thank God as he sent me a very patient sponsor who never made me feel like i was failing, she just kept giving me suggestions and eventually i started to use them. I never liked the idea of having a food sponsor so i didn't for a long time and it was a big mistake. A year and a half into recovery i thought i was cured and that i would be able to take back my trigger foods. I sat one day with a cup of tea and chose to have a couple of biscuits which at that time was okay but by the end of the week i had triggered the physical cravings and was bingeing out of control. (Hence my name on this site, i never want to forget the pain that one little biscuit caused me) This i feel was when i fully surrended my will around the food to my higher power.

I learnt many lessons from this experience and got myself a food sponsor, i couldn't use my regular sponsor as she worked a program for another addiction so i asked someone in OA and have been using a food plan with her for about 8 years one day at a time.

I am not saying that i never get food cravings but today because i do not keep what i am eating or feeling around food a secret it does not have the power it once had over me.

I ask God for my abstinence each morning when i pray and live between my meals.

Life is so much easier today, i may have had to abstain from some foods completely but when i surrended i was willing to go to any lengths for my recovery.

Hope this answers some of what you were asking. (I could probably write all day about this but it would be too much to read in one sitting)

[TheGirlInside]

Thanks for this thread!

Awesome posts, Biscuit!! I've just begun going to OA meetings, and I have this weird thing I do: immediately after the meeting, I feel like eating and eating and eating, almost as though I'm operating in panic mode or something ("like it's goin' out of style" as we used to say as kids)! Thanks for your story...I now think that maybe I can get over that behavior, eventually...it seems so incredibly irrational.

I was sexually abused when I was younger, and also by both husbands when I was older. I've struggled with my weight since puberty, and figured that it was just a puberty thing, but I know better. I kept my weight pretty normal, just about 10 lbs overweight most of my life, but struggled to keep it there, and created very poor eating plans, addiction to exercise, etc...
With my recent marriage, (and after my second childe) a part of me knew that I wanted to be fat, so that my H wouldn't want to touch me...it was very sick that I married him for security, and suspected that I didn't really love him for a long time.

I wanted no one in my life at that time to touch me, yet I longed so desperately for a kind loving touch (something that seemed incomprehensible to both H1 & H2).
I now see my fat as a way of keeping people at a distance, since I didn't feel strong enough to have any "non-tangible" boundaries, the fat was a tangible boundary that couldn't be avoided.

I've been listening to and reading Joyce Meyers (I know, she's not approved literature, but was borrowed to me, so I figure...it's free, I may as well...), and now believe that I don't need to wear my own armor, and carry my sword and shield at the ready, because my HP has already surrounded me with guardians. As long as I believe and trust in HP, those guardians will continue to protect me, and give me the ability to recognize people who are bad for me.

My fattest (excepting during pregnancy) was 224 lbs. I lost about 35 lbs (??kg) on Atkins in 2003, and struggled to keep it off, and have been gaining and losing the same 10 lbs ever since. I've finally dropped another 10, but have about 44 to go to get to my "ideal" weight (not underweight).

I avoid scales like the plague, and try to remember ALL the good things I'm getting from eating right and exercising (staying youthful for longer, good posture, nice skin, more limber and better range of motion, giving my kids a healthy role model (getting there, that is), etc...)

[Biscuits]

Hi Kari

Glad to hear you are attending OA meetings, i truly believe they saved my life. At my lowest point before i came into OA i tried suicide and when that didn't work i tried to walk out on my beautiful children and husband. I just couldn't stand being me anymore, i hated everything about who i was and truly believed that my family would be better off without me. My kids and hubby could find someone better than me, someone who they deserved.

I thank God today that he led me to OA, it has helped me to heal all the hurts of the past, and live obsession free 99 percent of the time.

OA is a fantastic fellowship and there will be many there who will share with you and guide you as you walk the path.

Along with OA i also had to go into therapy for a few years to deal with the trauma of the abuse, OA paved the way for me to do this and strengthed my program at the same time.

p.s. Most of us read non-approved literature at times and it OK as long as we remember the traditions and don't endorse them in meetings.

[Neagrm]

Oh! Thank you both for your great posts. This is so helpful and hopeful to me.

I have thought in the past that I had fallen gradually into bad habits and that's all there was to it, creating a physical addiction over time. I've been aware for a long time about eating to try to meet needs, but somehow that wasn't enough to be aware.

Maybe it would be a good idea to revisit the "emotional eating" aspect. Well, I have been taking a closer look since joining this forum about a month ago. I'm acknowledging in a deeper honesty with myself that it's a problem. I've become more aware of when I eat the sweets and began asking myself the why of it to try to identify if there's a trigger and what it might be.

A couple people have recently mentioned to me about extra weight being protection and it's common for those who've endured past abuse, to carry extra pound. Maybe I've been dismissing this idea as not applicable to me because I had a protected childhood. I was molested in a subway at age 17 and date-raped by a good friend at 18.

I've counted myself very fortunate, but perhaps it had more effects than I've realized. I don't know. I thought I'd dealt with it all several years ago with a counselor. I've been in shame about the secret eating of snacks/sweets, but considered it a character flaw I've allowed to develop, thus I'm guilty, guilty, guilty.

A doctor said to me, You just have to have will power and do it. More shame and guilt. I know I'm responsible. All this self-knowledge seems to do no good. In fact it seems I'm only more out of control despite renewed intentions for change.

I've run out of time and must go for now. Biscuits, I'm hoping as I continue to work the program that things will gradually turn around. The work you've done is powerful and inspiring to me.
TheGirlInside, your story is so helpful also, and you're doing a great job. I like your idea of being surrounded by angels/protection.

Please keep writing, you guys. This discussion is crucial I think, to my readiness and willingness. Thanks so much everyone!

[Biscuits]

Hi Neagrm

Its sounds to me like you have suffered a great deal of pain and trauma through the events in your teens and yes i can understand that maybe you do not connect that much with the overeating, it took me a while to do that. I just got into the habit of saying "oh well i was abused by my bother but he didn't kill me" and i just kinda shelved it.

What i realise today is that i have a desease that can and will kill me if i allow it. Maybe not in the physical sense but definetly in the emotional and spiritual sense (I have lost friends to this desease, some ate themselves to death and some committed suicide) and i cry at times because i found recovery and they didn't. (I know thats a God job)

There are many in my group who have not had the type of childhood i encountered, many come from stable loving homes but our desease does not discriminate it chooses at random and although they may not have been abused whatever triggered there addiction was as painful for them as my abuse was to me.

I'm glad that we are able to share here it gives me so much serenity and peace when i log in here before i start a busy day at work.

Hugs to you babe and keep coming back.

[rahsue]

until I came here I just thought maybe my past had something to do with my weight gain, now it looks like I was right. although my story is abit different, I wasn't abused by anyone but myself, oh men were included but for some reason I thought I was just having fun, well later on in life I realized I was ashamed of myself for the behavior. then the weight came. I've only been realizing this for a few weeks so I have alot of ground to make up but Ill get there.
thanks everyone

[Neagrm]

Do you think it is just some internal conflict re a part of you (meaning people in general, not specific 'you') feels unable to effectively set safe boundaries? Or, maybe it's a sense that you won't be heard even if you say 'no!', that you won't be respected? Despite self-awareness and understanding, there is a part of you that doesn't believe you're safe?

Okay, I can see there could be quite a dilemma setup here, an impossible conflict. How can this be resolved? How do you heal the fear, overcome the old conditioning, re-write the internal vow that you made without knowing at the time?

Those of you that have overcome this, what was your actual process, what turned things around for you? How were you able to change the script?

I wonder if a general 'need to please' is also at work here, sabotaging effots to change? Or, not knowing a better way to get the love and human touch you need? Perhaps also feeling undeserving for some reason?

How does one undo these deeply ingrained patterns? I want to resolve the internal conflicts. I attend Alanon. I have a sponsor. I read and work on the Steps. What more can I do to change? Are there people who just cannot heal these wounds? What then? How do you make peace with it?

(sorry, so much angst/questions/etc.) Thanks for letting me rant.