Confessions of an addict. [View All]

[demgurl]

I am an addict. There, I have said it. For the most part I hide my dirty little secret and I feel I have had it under control for quite a while now but I was broadsided by someone when I went to lunch today and I have been shaken ever since. I know her secret and she does not even realize I know. The only reason I know is because there are times in my life when I would have felt a close kinship to this woman.

Beating an addiction seems relatively simple. If you smoke then you quite your cigarette habit. Do you drink and drive? You have a problem and should give up your alcohol. Do you depend on drugs to take away the problems of the real world? We have rehab for that and you go through a process to give up the drugs. Got an addiction? Give up your vice and you will have beaten it. Simple, right?

Some things are so much more complicated than they seem. That brings me back to my bathroom stall story. The restroom was empty when I entered. I felt safe taking the handicap stall. I am a bigger person and some stalls appear too small. A few minutes later someone made their way into the room and tried to open my stall. Finding my door locked, they apologized and went into the stall across from mine. I usually do not pay attention to others in the bathroom but for some reason I paid attention to this woman. I noticed she was taking a rather long time (guess that means I was as well?). I looked through the slit in my door to the floor in her stall. Was that her sandals? Was she facing the toilet? For a split second I thought of how men use the bathroom and panic struck that I was in the wrong room. My intellectual side kicked in and I realized I had checked the door before I entered. I watched as she turned around to use the stall properly.

I sat and wondered about this other person. Could it be? Could she be an addict? All the signs were there - all the things I used to do. It all fit nicely together, too nicely. When I used to throw up I would head for the big stall so I could have room to crouch around the toilet. The handicap stall was taken? Go in another one to wait so you are not so obvious. If they take too long then go with what you have. Oh! The most important thing is camouflage! You learn how to throw up to disguise the retching sound. You can learn to make it sound as if you are just normally going to the bathroom. You learn what it does to your teeth and if you are home you immediately go to brush your teeth. Yes, there is an art to binging and purging and I knew this woman had it down when I saw her feet turn around once more and I could hear her vomiting into the toilet.

I was frozen and not sure what to do. It has been a couple of years since I have thrown up and I know I would not have listened to a stranger in a restaurant. I have seen pictures of emaciated people but was not ready for what I saw when I left my stall. I could make out every bone in her arm! Her waist was so tiny and she looked so frail. I thought maybe I should tip off friends at her table but I soon found out she was sitting by herself. People in this state are very much in denial. I struggled over whether I was taking the easy way out by not saying anything - even giving her my email in case she ever wanted to talk. I was saddened as she went back to the buffet and heaped on another pile of food.

If you are addicted you just give up your vice, right? What if you are addicted to food? If you want to live you can never give up food. With any other addiction you can avoid what haunts you most and you will be safe. With food you just can not get away from your addiction - ever! (not until the day you die)

If you have never lived with a food addiction then you just do not know the struggles people go through. It is not just a matter of not being able to control yourself. One of my best friends once confided that after dinner she would send the kids outside and then she would eat every single scrap off of their plates. Another friend confessed throwing food away, to try and fight the addiction, and going back through the garbage an hour or two later when she could no longer fight it. I was once on a diet and I would make a grip of steel on my wheel every time I would pass a fast food restaurant.

I have had those times when I would binge and purge. I have had times when I went to the extremes with exercise. I have gone to the hospital because I am throwing up blood from damage of purging too much. Then there are times I have just binged.

There are all sorts of theories about reasons people go to these extremes, however, I have never heard the term 'addiction to food' used except from others who are struggling themselves. I have done this for as long as I can remember but in my teens it was just to keep my weight under control. In my teens I may have thrown up a total of possibly 25 times. I believe I now do it because of long after effects of my rape. I have talked to others who have had the same problem after a rape. Whatever the reason, this is me and I am not ready to just blame a bad childhood or a trauma that happened.

So what do you do when you are faced with your demons in the stall directly across from you? Some interactions (was that an interaction?) are like ghosts that stay with you and haunt you to your core. I wanted to reach out to this woman today but did not know how. All I knew was the denial most addicts feel. She could never give up food but could she give up purging? Would she die before she ever did? When this 75 lb., 47 year old lady looked in the mirror, does she see the fat lady from a circus?

I would never envy someone who is an addict. I know people who have been to rehab and I know the struggle they have gone through. I do wish that I had an addiction of a substance which I do not have to digest daily. Just ask anyone who has been addicted to alcohol or drugs and they will tell you they stay far away from their vices. It is much easier to deal with that addiction when you do not have to fight it everyday and consume the substance everyday.

How do you deal with a lost soul when you are one of them yourselves? How do you help another when you can not help yourself?