Imagine a beautiful woman. Not physically beautiful in the way the media would define it. I mean one of those people you can look at and think "there's beauty from the inside." A natural kind of beauty. But she's hiding in the shadows. If you look closely, you can guess why... She's got telling bruises and scars; but even more than that, her face is full of sorrow. Why is she allowing the man in her life to do this to her? "He loves me," she says. "He really does! He just has a hard time showing it sometimes." You've probably encountered someone like her sometime in your life. Hopefully only on TV.
I'm fortunate to have a husband who loves and cares for me and our children like the kind-hearted spirit he always has been. And that's a TREMENDOUS gift. But that's not to say I haven't had an abuser or two in my life. I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about sources of oppression which all of us struggle with day-to-day. I'm realizing that food had actually become one of them for me.
Am I blaming the food? Of course not. I know full well that when I say "that box of cookies was relentlessly calling to me," that its "voice" was in my head alone. But I'm now realizing how much the "comfort" it offered me is costing. My relationship with food, the excuses I used to make for eating when my body didn't call for fuel, the way I quite literally hid sometimes to eat it (as though it wouldn't be abundantly clear a few days later just by looking at me)--all remind me of how the victim in a relationship of abuse makes excuses and hides. That's NOT comfort--and it's certainly NOT love.
I guess you could say I showed my food addiction to the door on Sept 20, 2011. (Insert the lyrics from "I Will Survive" LOL) I've changed the locks and issued a restraining order. I no longer want a relationship with it. I want to control IT--not let it control ME.
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