The words still sting a little when I remember a day from my pre-teen years when a classmate shouted across an open yard that I was "short, fat and ugly." She said it in front of a boy I liked, and he laughed. And for the first time I looked in the mirror in a way that would stick with me for the rest of my life. Ugly? I looked as awkward as any other kid my age, but up until that point I'd never considered my appearance as somehow sub par. I was, in fact, short but what in the world was I to do to correct that? So I zeroed in on what I could control. I was overweight - I weighed in at my first Weight Watchers meeting at age 12 at 142 pounds - and oh how I hated myself for that.
As destructive as self-loathing is, it did propel me through the Weight Watchers program, and I lost about 30 pounds in a little more than six months. I learned how to maintain a healthy diet, although I didn't fully comprehend the absolute necessity of exercise until years later. I was making friends, finally. Boys noticed me. Life was good. But inside lurked an undeniable fear that if I regained weight I would experience the same rejection I felt when that classmate chided me from afar all those years ago. I never fully accepted what I saw in the mirror; my reflection would always be an awkward-looking little fat girl. And when life circumstances got tough, the terror pushed me into self-destruction mode.
I'm not blaming that little girl who called me names for my negative body image. Believe me, others shared similar thoughts over the years as well. One boyfriend told me, "If you'd just lose 15 pounds, you'd be unstoppable." In the end, he was right. I lost 20 pounds, walked out of his life and never looked back. Unkind evaluations from others aside, what we tell ourselves in our solitude is far worse than what they say to our faces.
Several years ago I was experiencing some relationship struggles, which had become pretty frustrating after years of nowhere dating. I knew Christ and was growing every day in the Word, but I was still trying to fill my broken spirit with something else. So I fed it ice cream. A lot of ice cream.
By that time I'd spent a couple of years getting my body into the shape I'd been after forever, depriving myself of pretty much anything remotely fattening. No salad dressing. No soda. No chocolate. Just whole grains, fruits and vegetables and anything made of soy. Coupled with near-daily exercise my methods were paying off, but I knew I could kiss it all goodbye if my ice cream indulgence became a nightly venture. So I bought sugar-free frozen yogurt, which I figured tastes close enough to the real thing to satisfy my growing sweet tooth without making me feel guilty for eating a whole dish of it. I resisted doing even that, but every time I had a bad day or felt a tinge of rejection, the stress sent me straight to the freezer. And let me tell you, when you're a newspaper reporter that happens pretty often.
One night, after a particularly difficult day, I didn't want to stop at one dish. I went back for the carton and ate it as fast as I could, foregoing the dish and eating straight from the carton. It was strawberry, but after a while I couldn't really taste it. My mouth was numb. In fact, the next day thin layers of tissue from the roof of my mouth peeled off. As I scarfed, the thought hit me that I couldn't keep the body I'd worked so hard to acquire if I continued on this path. That thought sent a wave of terror through me and without a second thought I ran to the bathroom. For the first time ever, I knelt in front of the toilet, stuck two fingers down my throat and heaved it all up. It all happened so fast I could feel the coldness lurch up my gullet.
Wow, I thought. That was horrible. I'll never allow myself to go there again. But I did, and more often than I care to admit. Not every day. It was more like once a week, if that. But it always followed an emotionally-draining event or relationship set back. To this day I don't believe I was bulimic; I didn't have a disease. I'm not suggesting that no one who binges and purges has a bona fide disease, mind you. Experts in eating disorders estimate that one in 35 people have bulimia. But for me it was a control issue. Of all of the frustrating aspects of my life, my weight was the one thing I felt I had control over and I'd discovered a covert way to keep that control while indulging in what I'd built up in my mind as an evil thing - food. I thought I'd found a way to sin without consequence.
Let me be clear: Eating isn't a sin; it's absolutely essential. When it becomes sin is the point you seek to satisfy yourself with it rather than God. From the outset of my fear, worry, discontent and insecurity, I should have been running to the only one who loves me perfectly. Instead, I ran to the fridge.
The trouble is that sin is never without consequence, not even for those who know the Lord. God gave us a tragic example in David, a man after His own heart. After making a host of transgressions that included impregnating another man's wife and having him killed, David lost a baby and his daughter was raped by his son, who would then be killed by another of his sons. With hundreds of wives and concubines also to consider, it's plain to see that David had a major problem with lust, and he tended to allow his desires to play out. David was dearly loved by God, but while the Father forgave David when he confessed, He did not prevent the natural consequences of sin. He doesn't do that in our lives either.
I kept thinking about how disgusting my purging was, about how the acid would ruin my teeth and about all the stories of people who had done irreparable damage to their hearts over years of binging and purging. Meanwhile, my throat burned and stomach muscles ached. But once I was alone with that carton in my hands, I would eat until I saw its paper bottom. There was a compulsion to finish it, but maybe the real compulsion was to punish myself. I would try to gauge whether I'd thrown up enough to keep me from gaining weight. In the end I would cry, retreat to bed with a sense of overwhelming shame and pray that all this would stop.
Thankfully it did, and the Lord got my attention before I had to experience the kind of physical destruction this sort of behavior can cause. I wish I could say that being in a healthy relationship gave me the fulfillment I craved and that I stopped throwing up after I got married. It happened less than a handful of times after my wedding, but it did continue. The last time I threw up was a few weeks after the birth of my firstborn. (By the way, another reason I don't believe I was bulimic is that I made the choice not to purge during my pregnancy. I figured that I owed my baby a healthy life, even if in my clouded mind I didn't think I deserved one.) I remember looking at my daughter afterward and realizing that she was watching me, even in her infancy, and I didn't want her to grow up with that kind of role model. I didn't want her to have a mother so wrapped up in herself and what others thought of her that she was willing to put her health at risk. I wanted her to see Jesus when she looked at me.
Her eyes remind me that God is watching me, too. While the world might see someone who has it all together, God knows better and loves me anyway. He knows I need Him long before I realize it.
I'm living a life far better than I could have imagined for myself, but it definitely remains a challenge. And to be honest, it all falls so short of perfection that it would be easy for me to go back to seeking control over my weight again. But God put that little girl in my life and she's still watching me, and her eyes continually remind me that I don't want to pass along to her the fear and insecurity I've lived with all these years. I want her to feel the complete love and acceptance of Christ from the beginning without having to first unload the baggage that comes from a belief that her imperfections will lead to rejection. She'll have her own battles within and she'll have to find a way to fight them. My hope is that she looks to the Lord to fill her up.
It's been more than two years since I purged, but I still struggle with control in so many ways. Stress hits me and I try to grab control in any way I can, and often impatience and sharp words are my weapons of choice. It's bad enough that my purging damaged my body; now my go-to reaction damages relationships. I think the latter is worse. It's hardly the gentle and quiet spirit God said He esteems.
The behaviors we struggle to change - my purging and bad attitudes, someone else's addictions or distrust - all have roots in our core beliefs about God. Do I try so hard to please other people because I believe God will reject me just like they have? Do I seek to control the details of my life because deep down in those places I keep hidden from everyone I don't believe God is in control of it? And while destructive behaviors might change with the seasons of life, these core issues remain to taint other areas. Either we deal with them or we spend the rest of our lives in spiritual shackles, after Jesus gave His life so that we would be free.
So now I'm left with desperate prayers for refinement, for God to draw me closer to Him to change the attitudes that poison my heart and mind. I keep asking for healing, but sometimes I wonder if this is the thorn in my flesh that will keep me running to God like Paul's did. Maybe it's so I'll share it with you and God will use it to make a difference in your life. Either way, I'm as thankful as the apostle was that His strength is made perfect in my weakness.
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