The Perfectionism-Food Connection

I heard Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, speak on Sunday night and Monday morning. A few take-aways and connections I'm mulling over:

We are created for empathy.

When two volunteers are hooked up to monitors and one is pricked with a pin, both people's brains register the pain. 

We are created for connection.

When two people spend even a few minutes together, the "more expressive" person's emotions will be picked up by the other. 

We are created for comfort.

When a child sees his mother crying, goes up to her and says, "I love you Mommy!" he has literally picked up her emotions, is feeling her pain, and is now doing his best to replace her pain with his love.

When relationships with people don't work, we will replace them with relationships that do.

If you've read or heard my testimony, you know that I almost died of an eating disorder as a teenager. I'll never forget my mother's question, "Why are you doing this to us?" during our first counseling session when I was an inpatient in the Eating Disorder Unit at the Brea Neuropsychiatric Hospital the summer before I started college.

I couldn't answer. I didn't know what I was "doing this" to her. I didn't even know why I was "doing this" to me! 

But now, I do.

I was always a best friend kinda girl. I craved a close connection with one person who knew and understood me well. I now understand that my identity and sense of well-being became dependent on regular interactions with my BFF, at a brain-function level.

But in 3rd grade, Kimmi moved. In 6th grade, Marcia moved. In 7th grade, Suzie decided she hated me. And in 8th grade, Derek (who'd been my boyfriend since 4th grade) dumped me. 

No coincidence that I'd been struggling with binge eating in junior high and developed a full-blown eating disorder during my freshman year of high school. Finding people too fickle to depend on, my brain sought a more regular source of need fulfillment. Food, especially the kind that could add "sweetness" to my life, was the perfect replacement for people. 

For more than half my life, I've been ashamed of my eating disorder. Beaten myself up for being so stupidly "needy." So un-self-disciplined. With millions of children starving around the world, wasn't it the height of hypocrisy to starve myself? to binge and purge? 

For decades, I've gone in and out of counseling, trying to find the root cause of my eating disorder, trying to get a handle on related issues (compulsive spending, isolating, depression). While I have some memories of an inappropriate sexual encounter in my preschool years, pursuing the details has proved far more frustrating than freeing. Maybe that's "it." Maybe it's not. 

But earlier this year, I learned an important detail about my life that I'd never known. My mother's personality underwent a dramatic change after she moved from Boston, MA, to southern California. 

Now that much of her memory has been lost to Alzheimer's Disease, my brother and father keep commenting on how she's "the happiest she's been in 45 years." While this comment gave them comfort, I found it unsettling until I finally realized why: 

I just turned 45 years old. I was born 6 weeks before the move. 

My mother has been depressed for my entire life, and I'm only just now finding out.

I was created for empathy...I felt what my mother felt.

I was created wired for connection...a connection hijacked by depression.

I was created for comfort...which I could never successfully give or receive.

So, I turned to best friends for comfort. And when they failed me once too many, I turned to food. When my life spun out of control, anorexia became a new "BFF" and brought it back under control. 

But Jesus told him, 

"No! The Scriptures say, 

'People do no live by bread alone, 

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 

Matthew 4:4

One of the unexpected results of The PURSE-onality Challenge for me has been an increased ability to recognize when I'm "using" food and greater ease in shifting from food to God. 

I'll aim to write about that tomorrow (I'm already waaay over 300 words for today!)

Your Turn:  I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences! Feel free to comment below or write your own blog post and leave a link in the comments!

Day 7: FREE (+ Reason Why #4)

Our Give-Away for Today!

Just Too Busy: Taking Your Family on a Radical Sabbatical

Just Too Busy is the true story of the Kraft family's head-on collision with busyness and the twelve-month experiment that changed their lives. When their children could recite the dollar value meals at McDonalds faster than their times-tables, they knew something was very wrong. So, instead of continuing their bad habits and fitting more into their schedules, they took a year off from all activities and learned how to be a family again. 

In this book, readers will laugh their way to learning the ten tell-tale signs that they are too busy and discover the symptoms for a common disorder known to moms today: A.D.D. (Activity Denial Disorder). Families will find simple ways to guard themselves from the temptation of constant distraction.


Joanne Kraft has a passion for encouraging women. A sought-after speaker, Joanne has been published in Today's Christian Woman, In Touch, ParentLife, Kyria, and P31 Woman Magazine. Her family is in the midst of moving from California to Nashville, TN. "Like" Joanne on Facebook and check out her website! 

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Why We G.R.I.P.E.

Continuing our exploration of the 5 goals of complaining+ (via the acronym G.R.I.P.E):

P = Power

Complaining is a natural language for taking CONTROL of a situation.

You’ve seen it happen. Everyone in a planning group is excited about a new idea that’s gaining momentum.

And then the lone dissenter speaks:  “It will never work!  Whose lame-brain idea was this?”

And what happens to the energy in the room? 

To the overall atmosphere of the planning session?

Swaying others to agree or intimidating people to back down are classic Choleric “I’m-in-control-here” power plays.

Hi, My Name is Cheri...

...and I’m a Control Freak

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who tried to be good.  I grew up knowing all the rules, and wanting to follow them.  

I was a “good girl.”

By my freshman year of high school, everyone expected me to be good, so I decided to aim for perfect scores on every single Geometry test the entire year.  With enormous effort, I pulled this off for two full quarters . . . until, in disbelief, I watched Mr. Vickers red pen mark “minus 1” on my “perfect” test.  I ran from the room, hid behind the gym, and cried for 2 hours. 

Well, that minus 1 may have knocked me down, but I was no quitter.   I decided what I really needed was a 4.0 GPA for all four years of high school.  Wouldn’t that be the ultimate in being a GOOD girl?

A Very Good Girl

In my journal, that October, I wrote: 

I’m expected to bring home good grades -- nobody seems to realize that I DO have to work for them!  They don’t just happen!  

I’ve learned not to expect praise for anything I do, but somewhere inside me the little girl still drops a tear or two when it doesn’t come.  I could let it get me down and just stop trying, but I still have to do my best for me -- a hard taskmaster.  

But, even though I’ve written all this, it doesn’t bother me a lot. In fact, I didn’t realize half of it before it came out of my pen!  I live with it, though at times, I am just a bit wistful.

What started out as a personal challenge became a drive to “succeed” at all cost.  And I defined “succeed” as doing lots of GOOD things and being very GOOD at them:  4.0 GPA, yearbook editor, Student Body Religious Vice President, plus community volunteer work.

Secret Control

What I didn’t know at the time is that my family needed me to succeed -- needed me to be a very GOOD girl.  All I knew was that I had a secret, and it was driving me crazy.

My older brother had “confided” in me that he was doing drugs.  Pot, heroine, cocaine, and others I’d never heard of.  And along with all the sordid details, came the dire warning, “but don’t you dare tell Mother and Daddy!”  That day, I picked up a burden far too great for a 14-year-old to bear.

Night after night I lay awake, wondering if he’d come home safely or if we’d get a knock on the door from a police officer.  Day after day for one long year, I struggled.  Keeping the secret didn’t seem to be what a GOOD daughter would do.  Telling my parents didn’t seem to be what a GOOD sister would do.  I didn’t know what to do, and I had nobody to turn to for help.  I felt so alone.

Finally, during one sleepless night when he still wasn’t home at 3:00 am, I slipped, and the truth came out.  My brother was so angry with me because I wasn’t supposed to tell!  My parents were so angry with me because I hadn’t told them sooner.

In my journal that day, I wrote:  

I really don’t know how to feel or what to do -- I’m sort of dead to it all, now. Somehow it doesn’t effect me, yet it must; I guess I’m shying away from the pain as long as I can.

And then, on a seemingly unrelated subject:  

I’m starting a diet today.

The Control Trap

And did I ever get “GOOD” at that diet.  Over the next year, as the turmoil of my brother’s issues raged loudly in the house, I quietly lost pound after pound after pound . . . and proudly became thinner and thinner and thinner.  My periods stopped.  My hipbones stuck out.  


My entire focus in life narrowed down to being GOOD at this one thing:  losing weight.

Well, I was so “good,” I was admitted to an inpatient Eating Disorder Hospital program with the diagnosis of Anorexia.  Six weeks of therapy, assertiveness training, and nutritional counseling had minimal effect. 

All I’d ever wanted was to be a “good girl,” and I was really good at this weight loss thing.  And I was no quitter!  I was not ready to give it up, yet -- maybe once lost a little more and hit my goal (85 pounds) but not before.

Controlled to Death

One night, after a particularly rough family counseling session -- “rough” because my counselor was once again pushing me to share my feelings with my parents, something a GOOD girl was not going to do -- I opened my Bible, hoping to read myself to sleep.  In Psalm 18, I read:

The cords of the grave coiled around me;

the snares of death confronted me.

This jarred me awake.  I realized this was me!  I was dying.  Anorexia was not just a diet. Anorexia was committing suicide...slowly.

In my distress I called to the Lord;

I cried to my God for help!

Really?!?  There was someone I could go to for help?  I was not alone?  I was in “distress” and I could call to God for help?!

The earth trembled and quaked,

and the foundations of the mountains shook;

they trembled because he was angry.

God’s response was dramatic -- he was angry, but not at me -- he was angry for me!  I read on and found that His version of “help” included lightning bolts, thunder, and earthquakes.  


I was WOWed!  Here was someone I could trust to really take control of my out-of-control life!

 

Rescue

And on that day, 27 years ago, this last line read as a personal note from God to this wistful little girl who just wanted to be good enough to be loved:  

He rescued me because he delighted in me. 

Not because of my perfect performances, not because of my 4.0, not because I was Religious Vice Anything.  

God delighted in me!  

God delighted in me.  

God delighted in me!  

From Very Good Girl to Very Good News

(Can't see image? Click here to download Romans 8:1-2)

The details of your life story no doubt differ from mine.  

Perhaps, in your own way, you’ve tried to be a “good girl." Good enough to be loved.  

Whatever your “once upon a time” has included thus far, God, "the author and finisher of our faith,” loves writing our stories of freedom. 

When we give Him control, our stories no longer dwell on condemnation.

When we give Him control, our stories celebrate belonging.

When we give Him control, our stories overflow with the power of the life-giving Spirit.

When we give Him control, we will have good news to tell and re-tell: our stories of how Jesus has set us free!




Try this today:  Write out your testimony of how Jesus has set you free. Share it by e-mail, on your blog, in our comments, and/or by reading it aloud to someone.

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To enter today’s drawing, leave a comment 

• responding to today’s blog, and/or

• sharing your Day #1-7 experience of replacing “baditude” with God’s word and gratitude, and/or

• about anything else on your heart!

All drawing winners will be announced ASAP!

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(Catch up on any "Warm-Up Week" Blog Posts!)