Janelle M.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEA.info.org

So the first Friday of the month at this meeting, we have a speaker. So tonight's speaker is Janelle.
Thanks, Janelle. Thanks, Kay, my name is Janelle and I'm an addictive eater and very grateful to be at the meeting. I was just thinking about, you know, what was going to share and just thinking back to my earliest memories around food, and I wasn't, I wasn't born with an off switch, where food is concerned and I still haven't got an off switch but what I've been given is a daily reprieve by my higher power so just thinking back to being being a preschooler I was probably four and I can remember being given - I‘m not sure whether it was mine or whether it was my younger sisters - little play set of pots and pans, tiny, tiny little ones. They were metal. And I can remember dragging a chair over to the bench and popping them on the stove and turning the element on and putting something in it to cook and and I just knew that I wasn't gonna I didn't do pretend food I just knew that if you put something in that pot, you could cook it and you could eat it and I'm not sure how far I can‘t imagine mum let me go the whole way and you know, cook something but I can certainly remember knowing what to do with that pot and knowing that you put food in it and you were going to you're going to eat it. And my other memory about that time is we had we were given vitamin orange flavored vitamin C tablets and fluoride tablets because the water wasn't fluoride fluoridated in Timaru and climbing up to the top cupboard because they're in the top cupboard because you know you don't want your children to get them but I got the chair and got into the top cupboard and ate I'm not sure how many of the fluoride tablets they were they were ghastly they were horrible things but I ate them and the vitamin C tablets I ate them as well so that was the end of the vitamin C and the fluoride for the whole family because you know mum just stopped getting them after that so I just always always always always was food focused and can remember primary school with my friend sneaking sugar from the kitchen and going down and getting rhubarb stems and going behind the garage and dipping the rhubarb - breaking the end off the rhubarb - dipping it in the sugar and eating that so just just food food focussed... taking money out of mum's purse to go to the shop to buy lollies and then eating them on the way home and then sitting down to have my tea. And sometimes mum would send me around you could get pieces of sort of a cream filled sponge and that was going to be for the lunches so of course I had to run my finger around before it got home; getting the the fresh bread from the dairy and nibbling all around the bottom of the crust because they it wasn't sliced and it wasn't wrapped, so every sandwich would have had the two bottom corners missing out of the sandwich because I'd nibbled my way around the bottom of the loaf so I was a little food seeking missile from the word go. So as a consequence you know of that eating I was overweight as a child and obese as an adult; children's parties I I wasn't there for the games I couldn't wait until the food started. And the you know the the worst game of all was the chocolate game where you had to put the hat and the scarf and the gloves on and you had to throw a six and if you've got the six then it was your turn and then you had to eat the chocolate with the knife and fork and then someone else'd throw a six so you had to take all that off and pass it to them and you know the the nearly getting there but having to take take it all off ‘cos someone else had got the six and I was I was just there for the food. I wasn't there to play games or celebrate anyone's birthday. So that was that was sort of the the makings of my eating which just carried on through my life. I left school and went to work in a bakery and said
 - oh prior to that baking at home for the lunches, so called ‘for the lunches‘ and I‘d eat the creamed butter and sugar and then I‘d eat the mixture raw, and then I'd burn my tongue on it when it came out of the oven. And then later on, when I had my own home and I was baking, I generally had to make a double mixture because by the time I'd eaten it in all forms, there needed to be a double mixture for there to be enough for anyone else to eat. So I got a job in a bakery, and I said to myself, I'm not going to eat anything, not going to eat anything from the... anywhere. So that lasted till probably a day and a half. And was my job to ice the slices and the biscuits and cakes and things. And I justified my eating that when when there was a big slice, and you had to trim the crusts off it, that eating those trimmings wasn't eating because I was I was just eating the crusts, and it wasn't eating. And if I ate savories out of the cooler that were cold, well that wasn't eating because they were cold savories. They weren't hot savories, so that wasn't a savory. If I had a sausage roll out of the pie warmer, and I just ate the pastry, well, that wasn't eating a sausage roll, I was only eating the pastry. So I had all these warped ideas in my ... my mind that that justified my eating, sneaks, sneaking food, stealing food from there, I could walk with a tray of apple shortcake from my bench out to the shop, which was about four meters in in the, the bit where you went through the curtain, I could inhale a piece of apple slice, and even and swallow it without chewing and then carry on my way out. And you know, that was the little blind spot that I knew no one could see me so. So just, you know, I was I was my whole life, I was either eating food or thinking about what I was going to eat next. And as a consequence of that eating, as I said, you know, I was I was obese as an adult, and thought, from my mid teens, that when I'm a normal size, I won't want to eat all the time I'll be fixed and I'll suddenly know how to do life because I didn't know how you did life. I felt like I was born without the instruction manual. And I'd know how you had a boyfriend because I didn't know how you did that. And I'd know what job I wanted to do. And I'd know how to have friends, because I didn't know how you had friends. And life sort of happened over there just out of reach, it was somewhere over there. And I was over here and it was like there was a wall between me and life happening. And I just knew miraculously, well I thought that that would miraculously all sort itself ou, when I when I was a normal size. And I can remember in primary school as a 10 year old thinking, ‘well, when I got got to intermediate,‘ which was sort of I don't know, in middle school, ‘when I got an intermediate I'd life would be better.‘ And and then life at intermediate wasn't any better and I thought when I get to high school life would be better and I don't know many 10 year olds that are thinking that life will get better. I think they're just doing life and playing and doing things but I was I just thought life's got to be better. Something's got to be better, for it will be better I just thought it will be better and then is when I got to my mid teens I thought ‘well when I'm a normal size it would be better‘ and I had depression in my sixth form year and carried on with that depression through my life really. But looking back now it was just basic complete self centeredness. So I got married I married the first the first chap that asked me out because I thought ‘well, no one else will have me so I better grab him‘ and I didn't particularly like him but I thought well, no one else will have me and
thought well we'd had our own home and then I cos I lived at home until I got married and mum would say to me, ‘don't you think you've had enough to eat?‘ And when I had my own home, it was just open slather because there was no one there to, to sort of look and see my eating and she wouldn't have seen she would have seen a fraction of my eating because I, you know ate at nighttime I stole food out of the cupboards. So then I've got my own my own home and my ex husband worked night shift. So I could do a lot of eating at nighttime when he wasn't there. And I'd have I'd be backwards and forwards to the freezer, and I'd have a teaspoon and I‘d have a teaspoon of ice cream, and I'd go back and then I'd be backwards and forwards and then half the container of ice cream would have gone and I thought ‘but I've only had a teaspoon? a teaspoon!‘ Yes but you've been backwards and forwards 10 times I didn't see that. So I became more and more obese. And the more I ate and the bigger I was the worse I felt and the worse I felt the more I ate so I was becoming bigger and my life was becoming smaller and smaller and smaller to the point where I could barely answer the telephone or go out the door because I knew that people knew that I ate too much. And so along with my eating, which was the first half of the first step, which was all I could see that was wrong with me, I had no idea about the unmanageability of my life and looking back that unmanageability was far and away bigger than my eating ever was and it was just sitting in meetings and relating to people talking about how their lives used to be and that they weren't like that anymore, and heard a lot about fear and realized after you know, a few months coming that that squirmy feeling I had in my stomach that I thought was hunger was actually fear and I would eat and it would go away and I‘d think ‘oh well I must you know, I was obviously hungry‘ but there's no way that anyone who ate as frequently and the vast quantities of food that I ate was ever ever ever going to be hungry. And then started the sort of the joining the dots of the you know the crippling fear the the being taken to preschool and thinking ‘well mum‘s not coming back to get me‘ so having to sit looking at the door the whole time thinking ‘she's not coming back to get me‘ and getting to high school and my wheels fell off basically in the third one because I just couldn't I couldn't do high school it was too much of a change. And I I just I couldn't cope and you know, the fear from that caused me to have alopecia and I had a a bald spot my hair on the back of my head fell out. So you know, I was already self conscious about my weight so now I've got a bald patch on the top of my head. So you know, I was doubly self conscious. And you know, my eating‘s just increasing and so along with it the you know, the depression, the anxiety, the hopelessness, and despair really, which had always, always always been in my life. And what what got me to the program was at 32 going to a diet club and losing weight and getting to a normal size. And people saying, ‘Gosh, you look wonderful! You must feel great.‘ And I felt no different on the inside. And I knew then in the heart of hearts that whatever was wrong with me a diet wasn't the answer to what was wrong with me. And I walked around for about a fortnight saying ‘what well you know, what is the answer?‘ and I believe that my higher power heard and found in the a library display of information at a local library and picked the 14 uh the 15 questions pamphlet up, and ticked 14 out of 15 of those and took it home and showed my ex husband and said you know said and he said I says ‘Oh do you think this sounds like me?‘ And he says ‘Oh no you're not that bad‘ because no one saw the amount of food that I needed to eat. It was all done in secret. And
so I rang the number went and spoke to someone or she spoke to me and invited me to a meeting which I came to and here for the first time were the people who were like me because I thought I was the only one in the world who ate the way I ate. And, you know, I'd been to the doctor, I‘d tried, I‘d tried diets, but you know, by morning tea, I couldn't, I couldn't hold on any longer. I couldn't hold the dam back and tried diet pills from the doctor, which I loved. And I knew that I'd better not go back and get anymore of those diet pills. Hadn't done counseling, or therapy because I couldn't tell anyone about my eating and the way, the way I and the way I felt about myself the self hatred and the self loathing. So here were a room full of people. And they just looked like normal people. They were happy and chatting and there was something about them that was really, really attractive to me. And I knew I was home, I knew that this was my tribe and I kept... I started coming, I came for a couple of weeks. And we needed to get a babysitter because my ex husband had overtime. And I thought, ‘well, I can do this. I can come for a couple of weeks.‘ And I had a cleaning job at that time, and they had some sort of snack boxes - it was after hours and they had snack boxes that staff could buy things out of and I started eating and I ate the whole snack box and ate for five days when I went back to my no... one, two or three days ate for three days and on the Tuesday was my weigh in... and because I was still going to the diet club and, I'd put on five kgs in three days and I knew that there was no limit to the amount that I could eat. And that was constant eating 24/7 and my jaw ached and my stomach hurt and I had to keep eating and thankfully, the lady who 12 stepped me gave me a ring, she hadn't seen me. And I said ‘I think I need to come back.‘ And I'm so grateful that I did come back and you know became willing to do what what we need to do to be sober and to live well lives. And so it's interesting, you know, interesting journey I came for, I wasn't eating and all because all I could see that was wrong with me was the weight. And I had a food plan. And I thought well that‘s it I'm I'm fixed. And then 15 months later, I woke up one morning, it was a good Friday, and I just had this radio station, screaming in my head. And I thought ‘oh my god, this thing's in my head1‘. It's it's my thinking it's not what goes in my mouth. It's it's in my head. And I just got out of bed and I'm just on my knees sign beside the bed saying to God, ‘you've got to fix me, you've got to do this because I can't, I can't do this‘ and for me I believe that was was a turning point. It was a surrender. And knowing that I couldn't, I couldn't do it. And I was beyond human aid and I waited, you know, a few hours to ring my sponsor, and she said ‘well go to a lunchtime meeting.‘ And in between that five o'clock and the 12 o'clock meeting, I felt much better, actually. And thought ‘oh well I don't, I don't really need to go to a meeting, because I'm really really much better... oh, well. I told my sponsor I'd go so I‘d better go.‘ So I got to the meeting and you know, it's just one of the the miracles of this program. And there was a chap there who said, ‘I've got a disease that tells me I don't have a disease.‘ And I thought ‘well, that was my experience‘, you know, and I just knew I became willing then to do the things that I hadn't really been willing to do. I was, my sponsor would say, ‘Are you ringing people?‘ and I‘d say ‘Yes!‘ Hand on my heart. I could say I was ringing people. But I rang the people I knew who were going to be at work because I didn't actually want to talk to them. And I became willing to talk to the people just to ring and do every single thing because all of a sudden I was mad I was absolutely mad.
Completely mad and sitting in a meeting gave me an hour and a half's reprieve and all I could do was to not pick up the first one, get to a meeting and put my head on the pillow and if I hadn't done that that was a good day. And the obsession was, you know, the obsession out was about seven out of... 700 out of 100. Just that constant, constant, constant constant wanting to eat and and I just had to be on my knees, I just had to be praying, I just had to be made meditating until it passed, and being willing to go to any lengths during a fourth and fifth step, and but the fear didn't leave me the fear, the fear of eating again, I couldn't, I couldn't say I was in recovery, I couldn't, I couldn't trust that the problem had been removed, because I just couldn't, I just couldn't. So that led me eight years into recovery to trying to end my life I couldn't do the third step is what the problem was, I couldn't hand the woman the life over to the care of God, because I thought I had to be 300 and 10, do everything 310% perfectly, or I was going to eat. And so as a consequence of that, um thankfully, I wasn't successful. And I spent time in a psychiatric hospital and the day that I went there... so here was someone whose biggest fear there was that the problem hadn't been removed, and they were going to eat again. So it was a Friday, and I got taken there about lunchtime, and showed to my room. And heard someone say, ‘Oh, good. It's fish and chips for tea.‘ And I thought, ‘oh, my God, here I am, I can't, I can't prepare my food plan. I'm completely powerless over this situation. I‘m completely powerless over my food.‘ And I just said to God, ‘well, if it's fish and chips for tea, it's fish and chips for tea.‘ And if the problem‘s the well, actually I didn't even think that I just thought ‘if it‘s fish and chips for tea, I got to trust that I'll be all right.‘  And so came to tea time and, I think there were about 80 people on the ward, and 18... or 17 people ordered fish and chips. I hadn't made my order, because you ordered it the day before. So I was just having fish and chips. And then a vegetarian meal came that nobody had ordered. No one on that ward ordered a vegetarian meal. So I had vegetarian meal, which was closer to my food plan than fish and chips were and then I just had that knowing from that moment that whatever happened to me, it was gonna be all right, because I certainly hadn't ordered that vegetarian meal, but it arrived. And, you know, I was looked after. You know, I've been looked after from that time on. So that was the beginning of the trust and the faith when I was in a situation that I could only pray over and develop that knowing that whatever happened, it was gonna be alright. So it's, you know, it's ironic that the things I worried about when I was eating - crippled by what would happen in the what if this happened? And what if that happened? And then you know, what's going to happen to me? Far far worse things have happened in recovery then ever happened when I was eating and I've been looked after and um... my children, I left my marriage and my children, they were 15 and 18. They wouldn't speak to me. And I didn't see them or talk to them for eight months. And I knew I couldn't fix that either. I could not. If I was going to get in there and try and fix that. That relationship with them. I just knew I would make it worse. I just had to leave it and I saw them on Christmas day they came to my parents house Christmas Day. And then shortly a few days later, they they came to my flat and from then on, you know, we've developed a loving, you know, a loving parent, child they're they're men now but you know, I've got a lovely relationship with them. And I just knew that was something I couldn't fix, either. And,
you know, and to all intents and purposes today, I've got what looks like a very, very normal life which starts with getting out of bed, having the breakfast cleaning the teeth getting dressed. Well that certainly never happened. When I was you know when I was in the food, I wasn't able to do my job. I'd turn up right on time, and I'd leave a few minutes early, I wouldn't, I wouldn't work, I'd think, well, my attitude was 'well you're jolly lucky to have me, don't expect me to work, you're lucky I've turned up.' So, you know, that's not my attitude today either. And I can be, you know, can be a mother and a nanna. And a sister, I couldn't be a sister, I felt like I was an only child, I've got two younger sisters, you know, I can support my parents who are aging, who are you know, thrilled to see me, you know, I can be in a loving relationship today. Think of other people, and I guess that's a really big thing. Because I was just crippled by self, you know, my, you know, my attitude was, I never asked to be born. It's all mums fault, because I never asked to be born. So that gave me the chip on my shoulder, which allowed me to do what I wanted, and, you know, to know that today I've got a fellowship that I belong to and belong in. And you know, the fellowship is my kin. And through hearing other people's recovery and seeing their recovery, I've learned how to do life and having a higher power today who does for me what I can't do for myself, because you know, I'm still a food addict. But I'm given a daily reprieve and that higher power hasn't let me down yet. And you know, sometimes things you know, there's transitions and there's new things happened and you know, a bit unsure how all this  is going to go but I just basically do the next thing in front of me because I'm not you know, I'm not running my life. You know, I've got my belief that that my higher power wants what's best for me and and develop that conscious contact through meditation and prayer and the comfort you know, that that brings and the stability of having that faith that you know, I don't have to you know, I'm not the one flying the plane today I'm the one down the back serving the drinks and I let God fly the plane and you know my best efforts at running my life got me here - that's how good I am you know at running my life and you know, grateful for sponsorship. That there is someone who I can run things past and has got my best interests at heart and it's not always what I want to hear. But it's what I need to hear and when I haven't been put wrong, thus far an y'know, I just know that if I do tomorrow what I've done today, then I'll have another sober day and...life, life continues to get better it was for me at the end of my eating it was a a black tunnel life was a black tunnel getting darker and blacker and narrow narrower and today it's the reverse it gets, you know, lighter and brighter and I get lighter and brighter. I'm not so caught up in myself. And you know, it opens out and you know, just encourage anyone who's new just just to keep coming and you know, the miracle will happen for you too. So, thank you for the opportunity to share.