The making of an eating disorder, Part One--a pseudo response to my beloved Allison.
I don't feel so great this morning. I am either having reactions to my birth control or I am terribly reactive to chili powder. Weird choice, I know, but it is indeed one or the other.
Anyway, I got a long email from Allison a day or go, but I figured that I would answer it here instead of on email. She gave me the book Wasted to read. I am usually wary of books like that, but it is amazing. The woman not only shares her story, but talks so much about the research on eating disorders. I am learning a lot that I never knew. I am also reading words that seem like I wrote them since the feeling of recognition is so strong. For me, as I think for Allison, eating disorders are about power and control. Though we hate what we do to ourselves, there is part of us that is so drawn to it for that very reason: WE did it to OURSELVES. No one did it to us. We own it, we control it, we have power over it. Or so we think. Of course, that is about as realistic as an alcoholic who swears he drinks because he has power over that intake. That is the magic of disease, it is so a product of illusion. Or is that delusion? The other thing I see in this book, hear from Allison, and see in myself, is that eating disorders are dissociative. We obsess about our food so that we do not have to deal with other issues. I know a little of what Allision's are, and I think they are getting amplified by the fact that she has been physically unwell, and the wedding. So much must feel out of her control, and weddings just bring up every dark, sticky bit of family goo that exists. They are gross in so many ways. For me, I fought to disassociate from a father who was deeply depressed. He was physically and emotionally violent or he was completely unavailable. My mother, well, I don't know exactly what is wrong with her. She suffers from depression, she is overly controlling and hypercritical, emotionally crippled and crippling, delusional, and so needy that yesterday she actually pulled out an obituary that she was carrying around in her purse because she was favorably mentioned in it. Even a woman's death has significance because my mother was involved; or so Rena thinks. I was also disassociating from years of bizarre abuse. I have an uncle who still lives with my grandmother. He is her baby, as he is my mother's also. He is gender disphoric, but that was never acknowledged or dealt with. So, he took solace in me, creating me as his confidant. As such, he took me with him shopping for women's clothes. He made me steal clothes and make-up for him; he made me call him women's names; he showed me transvestite porn; he made me shave his legs, put make-up and clothes on him; on and on. He did it from about the time I was 4 until I was about 10 or 12, when I told him I would not do it anymore. Then the game switched. He used the fact that I did not want to be near him, as a way of getting attention from my mother and grandmother. For example, he would go to them at family dinners and complain that I was sitting with Josh (his brother, my other uncle) and that I didn't want to sit and cuddle with him. My mother and grandmother would then drag me off and lecture me interminably about how badly I treated David, and I needed to spend time with him just like I did with Josh. And I better stop hurting his feelings and get out there and cuddle up to him. Need I even explain how nauseating all this was? Better, they tended to blame my hatred of David on the fact that I was so much smarter than he was. Now tell me, kind reader, how dumb do you think David was? Anyway, this continued until February of 2001. It was at this point that I finally had to tell my parent's about what had and was going on. Why? My fucking wedding. David was using it as an opportunity to really stir the "Jezahbelle hates me" pot, since Josh had a role in the wedding, and he did not. As such, I could no longer stand the constant barrage of my mother telling me how great David was, how shitty Josh was, and how I should LOVE David and HATE Josh. So, I sat down and told them. This sent my father into a great depression, and my mother into a tizzy of denial. After several sessions with our therapist (the almighty Dr. Sheila, long may she reign), my mother realized the truth of the situation and confronted David. Of course, David denied the whole thing. Well, even with his denial, I would expect the situation to have shifted. In fact, it really hasn't. Rena has taken right back to her normal role as David's protector, full with the need to convince me he's "trying." She has also had several occasions of using the whole situation against me, wanted to know why I wasn't "over it yet". Nice. It has been this, combined with the fact that my mother attempts to turn every situation into a huge fucking drama (that she can then) participate in, that I find myself loosing sympathy for her. This is something I am going to talk to Dr. Sheila about tomorrow. My life would be easier if I could cut relations with my parents. Unfortunately, I love them and there is much about them that I like. But all of this is making me nuts, and somewhat unable to speak to Rena. We'll see.
Anyway, I got a long email from Allison a day or go, but I figured that I would answer it here instead of on email. She gave me the book Wasted to read. I am usually wary of books like that, but it is amazing. The woman not only shares her story, but talks so much about the research on eating disorders. I am learning a lot that I never knew. I am also reading words that seem like I wrote them since the feeling of recognition is so strong. For me, as I think for Allison, eating disorders are about power and control. Though we hate what we do to ourselves, there is part of us that is so drawn to it for that very reason: WE did it to OURSELVES. No one did it to us. We own it, we control it, we have power over it. Or so we think. Of course, that is about as realistic as an alcoholic who swears he drinks because he has power over that intake. That is the magic of disease, it is so a product of illusion. Or is that delusion? The other thing I see in this book, hear from Allison, and see in myself, is that eating disorders are dissociative. We obsess about our food so that we do not have to deal with other issues. I know a little of what Allision's are, and I think they are getting amplified by the fact that she has been physically unwell, and the wedding. So much must feel out of her control, and weddings just bring up every dark, sticky bit of family goo that exists. They are gross in so many ways. For me, I fought to disassociate from a father who was deeply depressed. He was physically and emotionally violent or he was completely unavailable. My mother, well, I don't know exactly what is wrong with her. She suffers from depression, she is overly controlling and hypercritical, emotionally crippled and crippling, delusional, and so needy that yesterday she actually pulled out an obituary that she was carrying around in her purse because she was favorably mentioned in it. Even a woman's death has significance because my mother was involved; or so Rena thinks. I was also disassociating from years of bizarre abuse. I have an uncle who still lives with my grandmother. He is her baby, as he is my mother's also. He is gender disphoric, but that was never acknowledged or dealt with. So, he took solace in me, creating me as his confidant. As such, he took me with him shopping for women's clothes. He made me steal clothes and make-up for him; he made me call him women's names; he showed me transvestite porn; he made me shave his legs, put make-up and clothes on him; on and on. He did it from about the time I was 4 until I was about 10 or 12, when I told him I would not do it anymore. Then the game switched. He used the fact that I did not want to be near him, as a way of getting attention from my mother and grandmother. For example, he would go to them at family dinners and complain that I was sitting with Josh (his brother, my other uncle) and that I didn't want to sit and cuddle with him. My mother and grandmother would then drag me off and lecture me interminably about how badly I treated David, and I needed to spend time with him just like I did with Josh. And I better stop hurting his feelings and get out there and cuddle up to him. Need I even explain how nauseating all this was? Better, they tended to blame my hatred of David on the fact that I was so much smarter than he was. Now tell me, kind reader, how dumb do you think David was? Anyway, this continued until February of 2001. It was at this point that I finally had to tell my parent's about what had and was going on. Why? My fucking wedding. David was using it as an opportunity to really stir the "Jezahbelle hates me" pot, since Josh had a role in the wedding, and he did not. As such, I could no longer stand the constant barrage of my mother telling me how great David was, how shitty Josh was, and how I should LOVE David and HATE Josh. So, I sat down and told them. This sent my father into a great depression, and my mother into a tizzy of denial. After several sessions with our therapist (the almighty Dr. Sheila, long may she reign), my mother realized the truth of the situation and confronted David. Of course, David denied the whole thing. Well, even with his denial, I would expect the situation to have shifted. In fact, it really hasn't. Rena has taken right back to her normal role as David's protector, full with the need to convince me he's "trying." She has also had several occasions of using the whole situation against me, wanted to know why I wasn't "over it yet". Nice. It has been this, combined with the fact that my mother attempts to turn every situation into a huge fucking drama (that she can then) participate in, that I find myself loosing sympathy for her. This is something I am going to talk to Dr. Sheila about tomorrow. My life would be easier if I could cut relations with my parents. Unfortunately, I love them and there is much about them that I like. But all of this is making me nuts, and somewhat unable to speak to Rena. We'll see.