Strange but true – a huge relationship exits between my overeating and the Spanish Flu in 1918. 

My childhood wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t all good either. In retrospect, my parents really loved me – it just wasn’t at all clear at the time.

My Dad was an active alcoholic. He worked two jobs all week ( and didn’t drink at all) and then he drank all weekend – every weekend. This led to him being a dry drunk all week long followed by two days of coming home late, drunk, and very scary to a small child. All I remember on weekends was him stumbling up the stairs and loud arguments coming out of my parent’s bedroom. During the week, he didn’t drink and was always hyper, nervous, and angry. No one was allowed to talk at the dinner table since he was rushing from one job to another. I felt powerless to change anything.

My mother’s mother died when my mother was 3 years old when the Spanish flu hit hard. My mother never felt loved again since no love could replace the only love that really mattered to her – her mother’s. In so many ways, my mom was emotionally 3 years old until the day she died at age 88. A three year old doesn’t do the best job of mothering. Her way of dealing with me when I didn’t follow orders was to call me names: when I was small – I was called lazy, miserable; when I was a teen I was called a whore. It was just the three year old dealing with life in the best way she knew how. But when you are the child and your mother is calling you names, you just shut down.

I remember thinking that a mother is supposed to love you – if my mother thinks I am so terrible, then it must be true. I must be lower than low. No good. And thus was born a young girl with no self-esteem. Raised by a drunk and a three year old. They were doing the best they could; I even understand why they did what they did – but it wasn’t what I needed.

During my childhood, I had two recurring dreams. Its only recently that I realize what they meant.

In the first dream I was in a car with no brakes, screaming to avoid crashing as the car accelerated down a hill. Now I believe that this dream was expressing my life feeling so out of control. My life was not working and I was powerless to change anything.

In the second recurring dream, I was roller skating and fell and lost my voice. Someone was pursuing me and I wanted to scream so very badly – but I had no voice. Doesn’t take a psych degree to analyze that one – I had no voice in that family.

Somewhere around age 8 I started overeating. I just never stopped.

There was no sound coming out of my mouth – no voice. But my mouth could chew.

I couldn’t control my mom’s wrath or her words; I couldn’t stop my dad from drinking – but I could control what I ate. I could buy junk, focus on it, think about it, eat it, and keep so darn busy doing those things that I didn’t have to focus on everything I couldn’t control.

So my addiction was born somewhere around age 8. I ate to cope. I ate to control. I ate to silence. I ate to speak. And then I stopped learning other ways of coping. I didn’t learn to be physical – since I couldn’t. I didn’t learn to talk things out – since I couldn’t be heard. I just didn’t learn the things I needed to learn.

I’m hoping its not too late to learn those things. I am committed to follow the path of OA. Committed to not eat compulsively. But to do that, I must learn new tools for coping.

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