Straightening the Cake

I wrote this essay several years ago, and just ran across it again...

S'mores Cake

I remember as a kid, standing in front of the refrigerator, scanning for something I wanted to eat and not finding it amidst the low-fat cottage cheese in the pink container, the non-fat milk in the blue container, and the steamed, skinless chicken breast wrapped in plastic. My mother would yell at me to shut the door and stop wasting energy. She meant the energy the fridge used. Looking back I realize I was wasting my energy trying to find something I actually wanted to eat. Outside in the garage we had an extra freezer that housed Sara Lee cheese cakes and pound cakes - for my mother's dinner parties. I liked to open that freezer door and stand there too, wasting energy.

My mother hid "goodies" for herself. On top of the fridge in a big wooden bowl, under a towel lay a bag of malted milk balls. Her stash. My two older sisters taught me to climb onto the counter and find the bag. We would each have a couple. Not too many or Mother would notice.

When my mother threw those elaborate dinner parties, she created dishes out of Gourmet magazine. Gourmet magazines filled the rack in the bathroom. I could read about buttery sauces and cheese filled pasta while sitting on the toilet. But in the kitchen, there was nothing good to eat.

At my mother's parties, I learned to sit at the table and pretend to be satisfied with a smidge of this and a sliver of that. I ate the salad with the real dressing, full of fat, and pretended I didn't want more. I ate the pasta filled with ricotta and spinach and parmesan and pretended I didn't want more. I ate the dessert - one of those frozen cheesecakes, now defrosted and decorated with cherry pie filling. I pretended I didn't want to eat the whole thing.

When the parties were over, and it was my turn to help clear the table and clean the kitchen, I would sneak more food. I carried the warm brie and crackers from the living room back to the kitchen, sneaking a bite as I set it on the counter. I ate the remnants of pasta off the serving plate before washing and drying it. And when there was cake left over, I sliced off a tiny wedge, so no one would notice.

My sisters would do the same. We were in cahoots, conspiring with each other as we ate forbidden food, literally behind my mother's back. Sometimes my mother would even be "in" on the process. If my mother turned around at just the right moment, she might catch one of us enjoying a transparently thin slice of cake. My sister Sue, in training to become a master manipulator, would say innocently, "I'm just straightening it out. It was crooked."

We would all laugh, nervous laughter, the laughter of recognition. We ALL wanted more cake, even mom. Sometimes, we would put the cake in the middle of the kitchen table. Mom and her three daughters would sit around the table talking, making each other laugh, and straightening the cake.

Though my mother restricted our food (or tried) and dragged us to Weight Watchers, and complained bitterly when we got fat, and despaired over her own (usually minimal) arm flab, I can't blame her for the shame I felt about my body. It was her shame too. In the process of trying to protect us and ensure our happiness, living in a culture that hates fat, she did her best to keep us thin. She fed us her anxiety on a bed of undressed lettuce, topped with a weighed and measured portion of very dry chicken.

Who is Your Body FOR? (a little saturday morning rant)

Guess what? Your body is for you. Your life is for you too. If the word, "selfish" is flashing in your mind? Brush it away. Don't let it distract you from what I'm about to say.

My friend and fellow therapist, Valerie Torres, posted this article on Facebook today:

Waxing: Damned if you Do an Damned if you Don't: How Pubic Hair Became Political

Which then launched us into a conversation about how sad it is that teenagers are still being indoctrinated into self-mutilation in one form or another to conform to an artificial standard of beauty that is neither healthy nor in their best interest.

This is true of a host of culturally encouraged behaviors from crazy diets, to walking in torturous shoes, to plastic surgery, to hair removal (which often results in cuts, ingrown hairs, and weirdly unattractive 5pm shadow - akin to plucked chicken skin). Pain is not sexy. Neither are sexual partners that objectify us or our body parts.

What I find most painful about this ongoing historical and multi-cultural phenomenon is how sad it is that anyone has to choose between feeling valued, wanted, included, etc. and feeling like who they are is just fine without one iota of alteration.

When one person is deemed "less than" based on appearance, taste, beliefs, choices, etc., we all suffer. We could be next. And the mammalian drive to be part of a pair, a family, a group is powerful. It's evolved over millions of years to ensure our safety. So we will betray ourselves to be part of the larger social structure - especially to be sexy, and pass our genes down to the next generation.

Yet, changing your appearance (or really anything about you) to please other people is a betrayal of your very own self. Do you really want to live inside the body of someone who will sell you out to fit in? It's a crazy making thing. I'm sure there's a German word to describe the dilemma. If anyone knows what it is, please post it in the comments.

Our only recourse is to commit to each others' safety by practicing acceptance and teaching acceptance. Don't get all hyperbolic and ask if this means we have to accept axe murderers. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we all need to be loved and accepted, hairy or smooth, tall or short, fat or thin.

Your body is for YOU. Your life is for YOU. If the people in your circles need you to be different from who you are, please find new people.

Helpless Humiliation and Wondrous Healing

So in my last post I mentioned that out of my year of difficulty, I gained some wonderful wisdom that I might not have been open to had I not been in serious emotional pain. So here's one of the most important things I've learned.

First, the world is not always a safe place. Neither is it always a dangerous place. For me it has been mostly safe physically, and often times, not so safe emotionally. Anger, sadness, pain, loneliness and fear were not welcomed in my family. My mother regularly let me know I was "too sensitive." My father loved to provoke me to anger and then laugh, leaving me feeling helpless and humiliated.  I stayed small, quiet, and ate away my feelings and needs, since neither of my parents had the capacity to provide safety or soothing.

Yet over the years I have discovered that in the presence of people who are kind and respectful, I thrive. I am resilient. Even in the midst of a stinker of a year, I can lift up my head and feel awe watching bees drinking from flowers (especially knowing that bees are struggling to stay alive these days). I still believe in miracles like butter, redwood trees, sweat pants, and being held close by someone who loves me.

I am deeply aware that I am not alone. There is no way to get through this life unscathed. The trick is to remain open hearted or "whole-hearted" as Brené Brown likes to say. For me, keeping an open heart requires feeling safe in the company of other people. In this past year, I have been battered by people who, I'm sure, have been battered themselves.

The insurance rep, who I mentioned last time, was like a stern school principal, certain that every client is going to attempt insurance fraud. The contractor who was fond of bending the truth, I'm sure feels tossed around by the whims of the economy, trying to make as much money as possible while there is work available. With these pressures, it's easy to lose integrity and become untrustworthy.

For me, dealing with these personalities daily felt like I was being ground into fine dust - an apt metaphor since most of my house was covered in plaster dust. What was being ground away was my civility, my politeness, my calm. The raw nerves underneath were angry. And not just any kind of anger, but the most poisonous type: helpless rage.

At the time I didn't know that my armor (civility, politeness and calm) was about to be cracked open so I would have to heal that old wound inside - humiliation.

I've long understood that the pairing of anger and fear in me was connected to how my anger was treated when I was little. I didn't fully understand that it was a fear of being humiliated. I didn't know yet that the brain registers humiliation as a traumatic experience. As social creatures, humiliation, which separates us from the safety of others, is a threat. It turns out that sticks, stones AND words can all hurt us.

So enter insurance guy who treats me like a naughty child. Slightly humiliating. Enter contractor who keeps "forgetting" that he needed another day's work for this and another list of supplies for that. Mix in a husband who is worried that we won't be able to find anyone else to do the work (another long story of how difficult it was to find this guy in the first place). And I don't feel like I have any power - like the power to fire the guy - in our negotiations. Mix in a few personal attacks from a family member who has his own abuse history and tends toward abusive behavior when he's stressed out. And it's the perfect storm.

I lose my composure. I lose my cool. I lose my shit.
And it's about time.

At first my anger comes mixed in with the humiliation and the fear. I hate this kind of anger - hard to feel strong when your voice is shaking and you're sweaty and half your thoughts disappear in a fine, red mist before you can say them aloud. This is the vagus nerve, shutting down the body in the expectation that you're about to be eaten. Sucks when you're trying to stand up for yourself.

But over the next few weeks, through an amazing process called Somatic Experiencing, I start to embrace my healthy, strong, no-one-can-mess-with-me, anger. I like to call this Big Cat anger. The image in my mind is of a lioness, lying in tall grass, peaceful and alert. Muscles relaxed but also ready, if needed, at any moment. This calm is so different from the suffocating armor of being small and quiet and eating instead of biting in anger. It's a peace that comes from knowing that with one roar, one swipe of my claws, I can take down any of life's hyenas. And in that knowing, not needing to take anyone down. Just raising an eyebrow when someone is being a jerk, as if to say, "Really? Do you know who I am?"

In this state of empowerment, the world looks brighter, sharper, clearer. My body feels stronger, more agile, and my mind feels awake, open. My heart is open too. Safe to love even more deeply.

This is how healing from attachment trauma goes. We use the best and only defenses available as kids to keep ourselves safe and connected to family that should, but can't, protect and cherish us. For most of us, the defense involves being what our families needed us to be - the good one, the bad one, the skinny one, the fat one. And then those defenses fail. At first it can be terrifying. But moving through the process consciously, with the help of someone who gets it and cares allows for transformation - new strengths, new awareness and a deepening feeling of grounding, and centering. We become our Big Cat selves.

Is it Atypical Depression?

Most people lose their appetites when they get depressed. Not so with Atypical Depression. Here, the symptoms are:

• Feelings of sadness, emptiness or feeling tearful
  
• Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
  
• Increased appetite
  
• Unintentional weight gain
  
• Increased desire to sleep
  
• Heavy, leaden feeling in the arms and legs
  
• Sensitivity to rejection or criticism that interferes with your social life or job
  
• Fear of rejection that leads to avoiding relationships
  
• Having depression that temporarily lifts with good news or positive events but returns later

I think that many people who use food to soothe their emotions may have Atypical Depression. This is good news in a way. When you know what's going on, the path toward healing becomes clearer and easier to follow.

There are probably many causes for Atypical Depression, from brain chemistry to complicated grief to being deprived of a certain kind of soothing or bonding in childhood.

Changing your chemistry may involve changing your diet, trying medication or natural anti-depressants, and structuring your life so that you build in positive, mood-lifting situations.

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Since Atypical Depression often lifts with positive events, it may be useful to seek therapy with someone who understands and practices some form of positive psychology - someone who will celebrate your strengths and achievements with you, as well as understand and accept the times you feel stuck or sad or irritable.

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Finding a group of people who share an interest - hiking, cooking, knitting, etc., and who are easy-going, non-judgmental and fun is a great way to boost your mood. If you feel shy at first, try asking a friend to go with you the first few times, to help ease you in and break the ice.

For medication and dietary advice, it's best to talk with your doctor or a nutritionist, always keeping a close eye on your physical and emotional responses to medication or dietary changes. Your body knows and will tell you what's right for you when you listen closely.

Inner Child Work

I recently attended a workshop with Carol Munter – one of the authors of Overcoming Overeating. She co-led with Robyn Posin, a psychotherapist from Ojai who has a website based on her inner-child work, called “For the Little Ones Inside.”

Robyn has spent much of her life devoted to honoring, allowing, cultivating and celebrating the feminine, nurturing and loving aspects of the self. In the workshop, I realized that those of us struggling with food, weight and body image OFTEN have deep mothering wounds – feelings or beliefs that we were too much for our mothers – that we wore them out or needed too much. Some of us experienced competition with our mothers. Others felt controlled by our mothers. And still others of us learned to distance ourselves from our mothers, valuing our fathers’ ways of being – for whatever reason.

These mothering wounds stay with us into adulthood, leaving us always HUNGRY for:

• Unconditional love and acceptance
• Recognition of our feminine strength and power
• Respect for our intuitive knowing
• Permission to move at our own pace, in our own ways, as we give birth to ideas, experiences and aspects of ourselves

Our relationship with food is but a doorway to FEEDING our hearts, souls and minds.

For more information about Robyn’s work, visit www.forthelittleonesinside.com. Be sure to click her link, Eating My Way Home.

Anxiety: The Heart of Addictions and Compulsions

We tend to think of Addictions and Compulsive behaviors as problems that stand alone. Once the addiction or compulsion is stopped, everything is okay. And while recovery from an addiction or compulsion is a huge relief, it is also essential to heal the underlying emotions. As George Carlin once said, “Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town."

So what’s under the addiction or compulsion?
It all starts with anxiety - specifically anxiety about being deficient, or “not good enough.” Typical indicators of this anxiety are:

• Perfectionism – striving to meet an unattainable ideal
• Avoidance – hiding imperfections from others
• Compensation – Having outward signs of success, but feeling like a fraud inside
• Judgment – Finding fault with everything and everyone; feeling frustrated that no one can measure up
• Self-Judgment – Finding fault with oneself
• Irritability – a toned-down (and socially more acceptable) expression of anger about having to prove one’s worth
• Depression – a “why bother” response to repeated failure at “measuring up”

How does Anxiety Become an Addiction or Compulsion?
Compulsions are actions we are compelled to take even though they don’t make sense and may have negative consequences. At first, the compulsion provides pleasure and relief from anxiety. Then, guilt or shame over the negative consequences becomes the focus of the thoughts and the unpleasantness. Compulsions are a great distraction.

Addictions operate like compulsions, but in addition to the psychological component, there is also a physical component. The body requires a substance to achieve equilibrium. Recovery entails healing both the body and the psyche.

The Anxiety-Compulsion Cycle
The belief “I’m not good enough” is self-perpetuating. The truth is, we are all flawed. That’s just normal. It’s the fantasy that we shouldn’t be flawed that causes distress and an unending pursuit of relief from that distress.

Addictions and compulsions provide that relief for a while. Eventually, the addiction or compulsion creates more anxiety than relief. When this happens, people become obsessed with controlling their behavior. “I can stop anytime,” is the mantra, and indeed there are many “successful” days, months, even years when the new problem remains under control.

Often the success lies in transferring the obsessive thoughts to controlling the problem behavior (getting the monkey off your back). When we channel energy into dieting or abstinence, each day of success “proves” that we are “good enough.”

There’s just one problem. The original wounds that resulted in the belief about NOT being good enough are still there, unattended (this is the circus that George Carlin refers to). The positive feelings that result from successful abstinence are shaky at best, because they are conditional. One misstep or slip, and the negative self-judgment is re-confirmed.

Why Traditional Approaches Fail
Approaches like AA, Weight Watchers, or Clutterers Anonymous fail for three reasons.

1. By focusing on the addiction or compulsion, they give anxiety a new area of focus: doing the program “good enough.” The result is an addiction to AA or the gym or some other source of “help.”
2. Because they don’t heal the underlying anxiety, the risk for relapse is always high. Interestingly, both AA and dieting have a 95% failure rate after 3 years.
3. Traditional approaches inadvertently perpetuate the fear of judgment. In AA and other 12-step groups, people count their days of abstinence. If they “slip,” they have to start over at day one. It’s like being a bad kid who’s sent to the back of the line. With dieting, it’s much the same. As long as you’re on the diet you’re “good.” As soon as you go off, you’re “bad.”

So What’s the Answer?
Identifying and healing the original wounds that set the whole thing into motion.

These wounds are frequently the result of criticism and judgment by family members, teachers, peers or other important people as we’re growing up. We internalize this judgment and develop our own “inner critic” – the voice in our own minds which is often more harsh than the original criticism.

When we identify the source of these wounds as adults, we realize that those original messages were inaccurate and distorted. We also come to see that the expectation that we become “perfect” is unrealistic and unnecessary. These realizations allow us to form more appropriate and realistic beliefs and expectations about ourselves and others. We can relax into our imperfections and come to like ourselves as we are, unconditionally.

While this work is neither simple or easy, it is incredibly rewarding and effective. Not only do you get to enjoy life without addictions or compulsions, you get to live with a person (YOU) who is kind, respectful, forgiving, nurturing encouraging…in short, you get to love yourself.

Stop Overeating and Binging by Legalizing Food

Using the non-diet approach to heal emotional eating means letting go of diet thinking and diet behavior. If you've decided to try this out, you already know that diets don't work. In fact, the physical process of dieting causes your metabolism to slow, so you actually gain weight more easily. And the mental process of dieting reinforces harmful and inaccurate beliefs like

1. You can't be trusted to feed yourself
2. You're out of control
3. Or you're bad for wanting to feel good

By legalizing food, you give yourself the opportunity to know that you are not out of control. It was deprivation that made you think you were addicted to brownies (or chips or whatever).

At first, when you legalize food, you may find yourself eating a lot of foods that used to be forbidden or restricted. Over time, your mind and body see that these foods are not going away - that you are not just binging in preparation for the next diet. And then you get to relax. The food is not going to be taken away from you. EVER. So it's okay to wait until you're hungry to eat it. It's okay to wait until you really want it.

Over time, food loses the magical allure of the forbidden. And you discover that sometimes, you don't feel like a brownie. What you really want is a baked potato (or a chicken leg or whatever). When this happens, you may feel relieved, or sad or both. The relief comes from knowing that you can be trusted to feed yourself in ways that are nourishing and caring. You are not out of control.

The sadness often comes from losing a ritual - waiting for the desire to build and the tension to rise, fighting with yourself over should-shouldn't, good-bad. And then giving in to the desire, maybe even hiding your eating. It's like a secret lover. When you legalize all food, your lover becomes "legal" like a husband or wife. You get to be loved in the morning with bad hair and bad breath. And in exchange for the comfort, you lose some of the passion. The trade off is well worth it.

I know what you're thinking - "but what about my cholesterol (blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.) I can't just eat ANYTHING!" But that's the next post.