My Life is a Work in Progress

I was in a state of desperation, depression, shame, despair, and self-loathing.

Photo by Luca Upper on Unsplash

It’s time for me to celebrate. Tomorrow, August 8, 2024, marks the one-year anniversary of participating in a 12 Step program. I’ve gone to a meeting every day for the entire year. A year ago, I was so scrambled that I can’t accurately say what precipitated my decision to find a meeting. Sometimes I dissociate from my memory.

What I do know is that I was in a state of desperation, depression, shame, despair, and self-loathing. Completely overwhelmed. I had, as the phrase goes, “hit bottom.” And I hit it hard.

It was time for me to come out. It meant being transparent with my partner, my nurse practitioner, and my therapist. But come out, I did. Through an onrush of tears, I said to my girlfriend, “Sweetheart, I have an eating disorder.” She looked at me with such love and compassion, a gentle smile on her face, all acceptance, and her whispered reply was, “I know,” as she took me in her arms and soothed me.

She knew. I knew. My care providers knew. Everyone knew. I isolated so I could binge in secret. Day after day, month after month, year after year, sheer denial. There were things happening in my life that I wasn’t talking about or dealing with. Pushing my feelings down, eating them, as it were, I numbed myself with food.

I need to say this, even though it sounds a little harsh. I’ve always had this sardonic thought about my eating disorder, about my body, especially when I’m fat. I was the elephant in the room. The first time I ever heard that expression was in a 12 Step meeting. It’s used to describe a situation that’s blatantly clear to everyone, but no one wants to address. And, god help anyone who tried to broach the topic with me. I had explanations and excuses, and if those didn’t work, I’d just shut those people down, and shut them out.

Now and then, I’d talk to my clinicians, in a state of “I don’t know how I got this way.” I deprived myself of nutrition and good self-care. I dieted, binged, over-exercised, explored bariatric surgery, used drugs to curb my appetite. At one point I lost so much weight, I was on the cusp of anorexia, and then I gained weight to the point of “morbid obesity.” That’s an expression I despise, because it’s clinical and judgmental, but I’m using it for the sake of clarity. With all of my efforts to try and solve the problem, I never looked at the WHY of it. I never dug deep enough to understand that this is a disease of not wanting to feel feelings. It's not about food at all. Just like any other maladaptive coping mechanism. For me, it was primarily food that I reached for or deprived myself of. For others, it can be alcohol, narcotics, gambling, or sex. We pick things up to numb our feelings, the fear, the anxiety, the sadness. Anything to avoid being vulnerable. And the behaviors make everything worse, while we keep telling ourselves we’re in control.

My therapist said that I needed to add an aspect of spirituality to my healing work, whether I believed in god or not. She said I was making such great progress in the work we did together, but if I didn’t bring a spiritual element in, I wouldn’t go as far as I could. I took her at her word.

Program wasn’t new to me. I’d been in and out of 12 Step rooms for more than 30 years. Mostly out. I’d hit many bottoms over the years, but it seems the bottom I hit last year was the one I was waiting for.

I’ve lived a good life for the most part, though I’ve experienced extreme mental health challenges and health issues along the way. Childhood trauma affected every aspect of my life. Thanks to my excellent therapist and my commitment to Program, I’ve been been able to make peace with much of my history. There were hospitalizations for severe depression. I isolated, lied, and hated myself. Always looking for something that would “fix” my life, I hunted for short-cuts that garnered few results. Medications that would numb me further often caused weight gain. Tangled in a web of disordered thinking and eating, the voice that overshadowed everything I did or thought was a vicious one, a voice that said, “You can’t. You’re not good enough and never will be. Why would anyone love you, or care?”

I was judgmental, impatient, cruel at times, and extremely codependent. Instead of being able to ground myself in the present––to live in the now of life––I see-sawed between holding resentments about my past to experiencing nothing but fear and anxiety about the future. When life got too hard for me to deal with, my default was suicidal ideation. It became an automatic response to life’s challenges. The thoughts served as my fantasy escape hatch, my ejector seat. I could always leave life, if life got too hard. And I refused to accept that my eating disorder was a slow suicidal behavior in and of itself.

I discovered my 12 Step program on the internet after going to a meeting of my former program. I remembered that this original format wasn’t a good fit for me, it was too rigid and controlling. But it was the only game in town I was aware of. When I searched again, I found the program I’m in now. It spoke to what I needed most, something gentler that recognized that recovering from eating disorders can’t be addressed with abstinence––one can’t abstain from food. In alcohol and substance-use programs it’s appropriate to abstain, for some. The key was attaining balance in all areas of my life, including my relationship with food. The middle way. That philosophy felt revelatory to me. My life lacked balance. I was––and still am––prone to black and white thinking at times. Good/bad, right/wrong, happy/sad. I didn’t know that feelings and ideas could live on a continuum and coexist peacefully. It’s possible to have more than one feeling at a time. No more either/or, now it’s about and and both.

I could say that I crawled into that first Zoom meeting on my hands and knees, as a metaphor for how I felt that day. If I could have been scraped off the floor and poured into a chair that would have helped. I was raw, and feeling so much shame and defeat, I felt vulnerable and scared. Noticing that a lot of participants had their cameras turned off––for whatever reason––I decided that wasn’t something I wanted to do. I’d hidden myself long enough, by physically isolating, and covering my body in layers of fat and baggy clothing. I kept my camera on, uncomfortable as it was to look at myself and to be seen, and I raised my hand to share. When called on, I spoke through tired tears, “my name is Nan, and I have an eating disorder.” I rambled incoherently for my allotted time. Everyone got the message, because they’d been there, too. They sent me emoji hearts and prayer hands. I don’t remember much of what I said. I do remember saying that the first thing I needed was a sponsor. I learned later that it wasn’t the first thing I needed. The first thing I needed was to just show up at meetings, share, listen, read the literature, ask for support, and commit to the work––one moment, one day at a time. I needed to slow the fuck down.

I went to a meeting every day, and found myself flying high from the experience of listening to so many people who had similar stories and struggles. These were people with whom I could share freely, safely––and admit the hardest things––without fear of judgment or rejection. I soon found myself on that pink cloud that Program people talk about. Elated to have found a solution, I underestimated how hard recovery can be. I was quickly brought back down to Earth, because I was humbled and called out for some unacceptable behaviors. That was a turning point in my recovery.

Eventually, I found a sponsor. I worked the Steps, and now I’m a sponsor, too.

Fully engaged in Program, I’m working for the greater good. I do service in my meeting and I share myself in a way that’s open and boundaried. I’m learning to listen with curiosity, not judgment––and when my critical streak pops in––and oh, boy does it ever––I get curious about why I’m triggered. I’m owning my shit. I’ve seen miracles happen this year. “Miracle” is a word I rarely used before my experience in 12 Step. I’ve learned humility and patience, and I’m accessing my Higher Self. The Self who knows how to take care of me. Instead of the sabotaging voice of my eating disorder, I’m beginning to hear the voice of a benevolent friend. A friend who wants the best for me, every day.

There are promises offered in 12 Step programs. The first time I heard The Ninth Step Promises¹, I felt they would never happen for me. It seemed unattainable. But deep within me, there was a seed of hope that kept me coming back, day after day. And, I took those promises and wrapped myself up in them, like a soft blanket cuddling my shoulders, with the desire that I’d realize at least some of them. I’m here to tell you all of the Promises are coming true for me. I’m not ready to say I’m recovered yet, but at present, I’m free of eating disordered behaviors. I don’t need a quick fix anymore, I’m in for the duration.

This year. This past year has been magical. I’ve noticed changes in me and so have the people in my world. I’m not isolating the way I used to. My road rage has evaporated. My patience has multiplied. I’m writing here every week. And the writing, the newsletter? Would never have happened if it weren’t for my 12 Step work. And when I look at myself in my Zoom rectangle? Well, I love that smiling woman looking back at me. She’s beautiful.

I am a work in progress with no destination or ETA. I’m very, very, good with that.

1. “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down we have fallen, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will see that our service to God, our Higher Power, or the greater good has done for us what seemed humanly impossible. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.”

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