Great magazine piece!

[janeeyre]

Hi all!

While in the grocery store checkout, I spied one of my favorite author's names on the front of "O" - The Oprah Magazine, so I bought it. I've never read this magazine in my life, but I am so glad I picked it up today.

The author whose name I noticed was Anne Lamott. Her piece was titled, "The Binge from Hell (and Back)--She needed pain relief: cookies, ice cream, apple fritters. But why did a few tiny nibbles have to turn into a daylong, zillion-calorie pig-out? Racked with guilt and indigestion, Anne Lamott finds the grace to deal with her food (and other) demons."
This is such a wonderful article! I checked on the magazine's website to see if they had it online, but no such luck. I really can't transcribe the whole piece here onto this thread--it's pretty long-- but just thought I'd tell you all about it--maybe you'd like to pick up a copy of the magazine's July issue. If you only read Lamott's piece, it'll be a well-spent $4.50.

Here's a little bit from it, though:

"(This is) me, trying to make any progress at all with family, work, relationships, self-image: skooch, skooch, stall; skooch, stall, catastrophic reversal, bog, bog, skooch. I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things. Also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and skooch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.

I suppose that if you were snatched out of the mess, you'd miss the lesson; the lesson is the slog...

...I was unmoored. Within minutes, I was on the edge of a full-on food binge. I couldn't find my way back to the path that I've relied upon for the past 15 years, the path of feeding myself when I am hungry, trusting my own appetite, and staying at the same weight without too much painful obsession. Suddenly I was starving, and nuts...

All I could think to do was what all addicts think of doing: Kill the pain. Gorge, drink, online sex, fix somebody, whatever. I sometimes wish I used something besides food to self-medicate. It would certainly be less fattening to compulsively gamble online or assault-shop at Macy's...But this is the lie that the grass is always greener, etc. Hell is hell, however you trick it out."

...I was so lost, and I couldn't follow the bread crumbs back to the path of mental health, because I'd eaten them all. So I ended up eating junk, off and on, until bedtime. I can't even describe how I felt when it was over: like a manatee alone in an aquarium.

It's hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos...

I (finally)...respond(ed) to myself as tenderly as I would to you; this is all I am ever really hungry for. I got myself some cool water, a soft pair of socks: skooch, skooch. Then waves of nausea and self-loathing: backtrack, bog. I thought of all the times my friends have given off light in the darkness, by their generosity, by trying to help in the world, by simply making it through the hard patches with a little dignity, so that other people could see that this could be done. So I was simply kind to myself, and I skooched. Also, I burped my terrible Cyclops burps, which brought such relief that I finally remembered who I am: one of the sometimes miserable all-of-us. I am a soul, not a faulty digestive system. Not a bad neck; not my ruckles and wrinkles and pouches. A woman, with a few small unresolved issues.

No tinkling silver bells, but when I remembered that, I was finally able to call a couple of friends.

I told them that I was lost, and fat, and had once again, in trying to give myself comfort, turned to the wrong thing. That I'd been bingeing all day.

'Oh, honey,' they both said. 'Oh, Bubbie. How can we help you?'...

Grace arrived, like tiny stitches in torn fabric. When I woke up the next morning, I felt more kindly toward myself again. I've felt pretty relaxed about food--mostly--for the last few weeks..."

Sheesh, turns out I typed quite a bit anyway--but there's so much more to the article in its entirety. If any of you get the chance to read it, I hope it's as uplifting for you as it was for me!

Hugs,
Jane

[Nina Kay]

Jane,
I just wanted to say thanks for sharing this. I've heard some others talk about the article in the O magazine, but didn't know what they were talking about. That must have been it. I'll have to go and get it.