No More Hiding.

I don’t watch much TV, but one night late I happened to turn it on and tune in to a show I had never watched before, A&E’s Intervention. The series is apparently about drug and alcohol interventions, but this episode caught my attention and impacted me deeply. It was about a lovely young woman from an advantaged background, who had dropped out of college and become a stripper for money to support her habit. Her addiction? Bulimia.

Now, I have never binged and purged, so I didn’t think think this was an issue for me, but I found the show oddly compelling. I thought I would feel revolted, and certainly it wasn’t pretty, but I ended up mostly feeling sad about the shame and lies and pain and anger and hopelessness this was causing everyone. This young lady had given up her future for immediate food in front of her. Her loving parents were ready to give her up to make the cycle of disappointed hope and broken promises stop. My main sense was, “What a tragic waste!”

But, at the same time, I felt afraid, exposed somehow. I have never wolfed down such enormous quantities of food in quite the same unstoppable way she did — but, I recognized a kindred spirit, and I didn’t like it! I suddenly remembered episodes in my life. I remembered laying in bed as a teen, waiting for the family to fall asleep so I could sneak out to the kitchen for the rest of the cheesecake. (As I tiptoed down the hall, I found my mom and sisters already at the kitchen table finishing it all. Talk about dysfunctional!) I remember as a young mom, buying six pastry cream horns to share with my family, then cramming 3 of them in my mouth, ferociously, one after the other, one the way home in the car in the dark, then sneaking the evidence in secetly, wondering how to hide it to disguise my shame – and to keep the rest for myself later. I remember once after all my babies were older, losing weight very well for quite a while, getting my weight down into the ‘normal’ range, and feeling invincible — until on our way home from a special weekend away that meant a lot to me, my husband off-handedly said and did some things that brought up all my old issues in our marriage, and something in me decided it was all no use. I didn’t say anything to him, but when I walked into the house, I dove vengefully into pie and ice cream, and never looked back until I’d regained all the weight and then some.

So, although I could look at that woman on TV and tell myself I am not like that, I could also see that, yes, I am someone whose heart could race and hand could tremble at the thought of hiding in secret to devour the world. Yes, I am someone whose life and health and self-respect and loved ones have paid a price because of my food issues. Yes, I am someone who could go there, little by little, choice by choice. Thank God, I have not acted on many of those impulses — but, the possibility exists, the siren song is there somewhere in the back of my mind.

This whole process, to me, ceased to be just about a number on a scale or a size hanging in my closet. This is my journey toward wholeness, and away from being crippled and damaged and not quite good enough and always afraid that the world would suddenly come crashing down on me if I didn’t keep holding everything together. This is my personal quest for peace and freedom, for transparency and honesty and integrity, within myself and toward God. This is me learning the amazingness of grace – giving up my own white-knuckled efforts at running my universe with perfection, learning to be comfortable with my failings and unimpressed with my achievements, coming to terms with life as it is, learning to trust.

Will I ever binge again? I don’t know. I hope not. But I won’t binge forever, alone and lost and ashamed. I’m not hiding anymore.