“Let’s be honest, open and brave!”
–Robin Korth
Why I Thought My Eating Disorder Was the Answer
As a woman who threw up for more than four decades to control my weight, even as I needed the comfort and “cure” that over-eating provided, I have some insights on what the “over love of food” is all about. It wasn’t the problem. It was the answer. The cure for food disorders is not just intervention on the behavior. It is intervention with a soul that is lost and knows no other way to fill the hurt and the despair.
By age 12, my inner self was very confused and terribly hurt. I had no understanding as to what life was about—and there was no one coming up with answers for me that made any sense. My body was changing and driving me into emotions and urges that I had no guideposts for. All I had was a cultural model that told me that “Twiggy” was cool, I needed to be sexy-thin and that being who I was wasn’t important or valid. I was a young girl morphing into womanhood who knew that a “kiss on a boo-boo” from one of my parents was no longer going to heal my wounds.
I was in a place of serious growing pain. My mind was firing on all cylinders with questions and my soul was blossoming into a knowing that the answers coming at me were somehow flawed and not what I needed.I was floundering and trying to find a place of balance for my feet and my heart. No one was talking about the things that were aching me: Why am I here? What is the purpose of existence? Why does it hurt so much?
I began to find comfort in food. I began to over eat. I used food to fill a gaping hole in my soul where a self-loving and self-knowing me belonged. The food also occupied my mind and distracted me from the pain . . .
