The Tipping Point (Or How It All Began)

I had eaten two of the big, industrial size canisters of whipped cream from Costco in eight days. According to Land ‘o Lakes, it was 140 servings. It really didn’t seem like that much but I was eating it by the cupful so who could say.

As I contemplated my whipped cream intake in my smock-style shirt and tight, short pants that were zipped not buttoned, I wondered what it was like to wake up each morning and know that all your clothes fit you. To be the same size from day to day, week to week, month to month. For me, it would just be a relief.

For most of my life I’ve been semi-obsessed by food and weight. My fatness. Or my perceived fatness. Starting in my teens I’d gain and lose 50 to 75 pounds every two years so depending on when you saw me last, there was no telling how thin or heavy I’d be.

I was once again on the heavy side of the equation and struck by how huge I had become. How could I gain so much weight and be so seemingly unaware? How was I able to go such long periods of time looking only at my face and never seeing the nightmare beneath my neck? How I longed to be able to wake up each morning and not be tortured by my closet.

Faced with the realization that I was stuck in a vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting for the last 20 years that may very well continue all my life, I knew I needed expert help. I started looking for a therapist that dealt specifically with eating disorders. It was 2003 and I was 36 years old. 

I was in therapy before, in my 20s. I was an awful patient. But it was my last hope, and I was afraid of what would happen when even my last hope was gone. The whole premise of therapy is that you talk and talk and talk and come to some resolution about the shit storm that you’re dredging up. At the time, I considered it intrusive if someone asked what I did over the weekend so revealing my innermost thoughts and feelings was a special form of hell for me. I would go to my shrink Janice’s office, sit on the couch facing away from her with something in my hands, usually a pillow or tissues that I could wring, force myself through whatever painful conversation we were having until I could make my escape, go home and take to my couch. I did this twice a week for eight years and felt a bit like Sisyphus, condemned to repeat the same torture for all of eternity.

While a lot of good came from it, I never got any relief with the things I went in for which were work, men and my weight. After I concluded that fantastic journey, I hated my job even though I had several over the years, still had no physical contact with a man, and gained and lost at least 300 pounds.    

It’s not a testimonial for my shrink but it wasn’t her fault, I don’t like to “share.” I even hated the word, whether literal or figurative. But there is no doubt that it helped. When I first met Janice and recapped my three problem areas, she said I had just one: me. I hated myself. But probably the greatest thing that came out of therapy was seeing the role of my family which, shocking as it is given my very dysfunctional past, I never considered. Thanks to Janice I was able to set boundaries with them so that our relationship wasn’t solely on their terms. I think considering what I was able to give to the process, it worked out okay. I blame the brick wall I hit on my inability to reveal certain things about myself that were just too personal. My childhood sexual abuse played no role in my therapy and, years later when I reconnected with Janice, she had no memory or knowledge of it.

Fast forward a few years and while I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of starting therapy again, I hoped that being at a different place and point in time would make it easier. I was so much more open and better equipped to talk about painful things, thanks to Janice. If I was to get better – be thin, meet a man, have sex – all the things I wanted to do, I had to be able to discuss them without falling apart of feeling overwhelmed by shame.

While my weight was the catalyst to get me back into therapy, the real goal was to find love, something that eluded me. I was desperate to change that and the only way I knew how to start was through my weight. While plenty of people successfully date and fall in love at any size or weight, I am not that person. My weight, in my view, was a direct hindrance to me ever finding love. I considered myself unacceptable, period. That meant taking drastic action to try and understand the why of my weight gains and losses and learn how to end the cycle.

Finding a shrink is a lot like finding a job or making friends. Fit matters. I requested a list of referrals from my medical plan for therapists specializing in eating disorders. After a series of phone calls, I had one viable prospect.

All I can say is that any lunatic in the free world can call themselves a therapist. Upon meeting, she handed me a stack of poorly copied questionnaires and inventories that I was to complete to save her the trouble of having a conversation with me. Worse, I had been so explicit that I didn’t need her to help me figure out how to lose weight, I had that down to a science, but to help me understand why I gained so much weight and how to prevent it. Her inquiries into my diet or proffering advice about the amount of protein I ate were infuriating. Rather than focus on what I was clearly saying and my issues, she blathered away about the importance of taking vitamins and getting regular checkups. The good news is that I only went to her twice.

I went back to my medical plan and got referrals for psychiatrists hoping the advanced training would help. Interestingly, four of the five were men.

During an inquiry phone call with one I briefly explained my weight swings and he deduced that I wasn’t anorexic, bulimic or addicted to laxatives, just extreme and binged to my heart’s content or followed a very rigid plan and had done so for the last 15 years. He thought it was sad and I was touched.

My first thought upon meeting him was, “Dear God, let this be his father.” He was ancient. I explained it was important for me to work with someone with a lot of experience with eating disorders. He told me he didn’t see a lot of people, of any kind. I wasn’t surprised. I explained my weight gains and losses and he remarked that all women are obsessed with their weight and yo-yo up and down. He somewhat begrudgingly agreed that my 50- to 75-pound fluctuations were outside the realm of normal but then remarked that I was “reasonably attractive.” Well!

It clearly wasn’t a match, and I was disappointed. Christ almighty, should it be this difficult to get good quality mental health treatment? On my way home, ominously past a Krispy Kreme (side note: I used to own Krispy Kreme stock and consider them the king of doughnuts), I heard the siren call and got a dozen doughnuts. They were delicious and it started a fairly regular binge from that point forward.

Again, I sat and pondered what I was doing with my life and how I was going to get better. While I didn’t consider it a pronouncement or sentence, old-timer shrink nonchalantly informed me that people with weight issues such as mine tended to keep them their whole life. As if it hadn’t been awful enough to torture myself over my weight for the last 20 years, I should be condemned to continuing this pastime for the next 40? 

I was back at square one but had a list to work through. I picked the shrink closest to my home and arranged to meet. It was unbelievably cold, and I didn’t want to leave my apartment or Olive, my vicious beastie girl.

He greeted me and I was put off by the fact that he was fat. All the referrals I had were supposed to be for people who treated eating disorders. He led me to the waiting room and said he’d be with me shortly.

The waiting room can only be described as a short, narrow hallway. I sat on plastic lawn furniture and couldn’t help but notice how threadbare the carpet was, how dirty the furniture, the overwhelming smell of dust and what a dilapidated and depressing area it was. The asshole kept me waiting 15 minutes for an appointment whose time and date he chose. 

He and his patient finally exited his office and had to squeeze by me but couldn’t. I literally had to leave the hallway/room so that the other patient could get to the door. I took all of 90 seconds to explain that this just wasn’t going to work and shivered and bitched the whole way home.

Not ready to admit defeat, I met the last shrink on my list and miracle of miracles, the fourth time was the charm, at least compared to the rest. If nothing else, I managed to get through the time without being overly annoyed by him. I thought I was open and assertive. He surfaced the idea of medication and I said I wasn’t overly receptive to it but that that wasn’t a firm no. Also, he asked me a very leading question about if there was abuse in my life and I told him that, with all due respect, I didn’t want to get into it with him because I had been down this road before and had no desire to share my secrets with people who didn’t need to hear them. He was good about that too. I thought he was decent and credible; at least he had diplomas visibly displayed.

I’d been seeing the shrink for a few months and wasn’t wild about him. I found him judgmental and combative, two things I didn’t need from a professional I was supposed to bear the darkest recesses of my soul to. But given how hard it was to find him, I was reluctant to start down that path again. My only real concern was that I had a vulnerability problem, i.e., I was very reluctant to be vulnerable so I feared I would be at an impasse because I didn’t want to engage in conversations with him that would leave me teary and sad. That couldn’t be good. But then I started to think that maybe I wanted to rid myself of him not so much because of his shortcomings, but so that I wouldn’t have to deal with my issues, which made me redouble my efforts.

On the plus side, I stopped smoking cigarettes, again. It had been almost two weeks and I endured a weekend at home, so I thought it was done and that was a beautiful thing.

On the negative end of the spectrum, I was eating like an animal. I didn’t know why and even though I recognized that I was doing it, I didn’t seem inclined to stop. I was hopeful that if I continued with the shrink it would become more manageable.

A few weeks later I came in bounding with some news and he immediately started talking about his inability to collect payment from my medical plan. It turns out the lazy fuck made one phone call and expected me to resolve his billing issue. I wrote him a check for the session and informed him that I wouldn’t be returning.

So, it was done, and I felt quite liberated. I stuck with him far longer than I wanted because I wasn’t sure whether it was him or shrinkage itself but apparently it was him. While I may not enjoy psychotherapy, not trusting or liking said shrink is not a recipe for success. Which brings us back to fit. If you’re in the market for a therapist, really consider whether they are a good match for you and don’t give up until you find one that is.

With that grand experiment behind me and the arrival of a new year, 2004, I was ready to begin dieting again in earnest. I decided to try Atkins. I was one of the many that trashed it as being unhealthy and ineffective, but I need to get engrossed in my diet and was on Weight Watchers too many times to begin it again with any kind of excitement or enthusiasm. There are whole books devoted to Atkins which meant I could be indoctrinated into the plan and have ongoing reading material to take me through the first couple of weeks. Also, it’s fairly radical and I always enjoy the shock to the system. I purchased the Complete Dr. Atkins and was ready and looking forward to beginning.

I was a believer. The science is all there. It makes so much sense when you take the time to read it. Okay, I was banking on a miracle and ready to suspend disbelief. Onto the possible deal breakers. You can’t have fruit. True, but only for the first two weeks. You can’t have bread, pasta, rice or potatoes. I’m not a rice fan and rarely eat pasta so that would be okay. I do, however, love bread and potatoes. Biggest potential deal breaker: no condiments except mustard. I am all about condiments with ketchup a big number one on the list. I would have to tread very carefully. Biggest bright spots. I could eat a Cobb salad every day. All the bacon, avocado, chicken, cheese and blue cheese dressing I wanted!

First weigh in at a morbidly obese 252 pounds, 112 pounds from my goal weight. There was nowhere to go but down.

I lost nine pounds during the two-week induction period and have never been hungrier. Deli meat was my salvation and some of the stuff you can eat is truly fab. But most important, I was in the zone and it felt fantastic. Until I started gaming the system. The bad thing about being on the hottest diet was that manufacturers took notice. Where my world was black and white with what I could eat when I began, suddenly there were any number of low carb breads, ice creams, cookies and candies available. I did incredibly well and was down 45 pounds to 207 but it was becoming a struggle. Then it was over. The genie couldn’t be put back in the bottle.

The months went by and I didn’t know how much weight I put on but guessed 15 to 20 pounds. The reality was that my weight problem may be tamped down from time to time but unless I made an effort to resolve it for good, I would spend the rest of my life in an endless cycle of dieting and gaining weight. I just didn’t have the energy for it.

When I was ready to try therapy again, I looked on website referral boards for someone who specialized in eating disorders. Rachel, my new shrink, wasn’t through my medical plan which meant there would be no billing disputes and she is thin, so I was cautiously optimistic.

Rachel’s practice is focused on trauma and her specialty is EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, is a psychotherapy technique that helps people suffering from trauma. While I went to her to get a handle on my weight, she wanted to focus on the trauma. I was sexually abused by my stepfather and, to a lesser extent my cousin. I don’t know when it began but it continued until I was 10. Other than my mother, I never told anyone, discussed it or thought about it. It was my scarlet letter and so deeply shameful that I literally thought I would die if I divulged it.

That all changed when I started working with Rachel in 2005. She believed that my weight was merely a symptom of the abuse and only by examining it could I have the life and the love I wanted. So began the next 12 years of my life working with Rachel and EMDR, a chiropractor to release trapped “fight or flight” responses, a sex therapist and group therapy for sexual abuse.