Janelle M.

This story has been recorded at an Addictive Eaters Anonymous meeting in New Zealand, you can email us at contact@aeanz.org
And since this is the first Friday of the month, it's a speaker meeting. And tonight we have Janelle.
Thank you, Tina. My name is Janelle. I'm an addictive eater. I was thinking today about what I was going to share tonight. And I kept coming back to my first meeting. And what I found, what I found at that meeting and what it was like and then I've found a paragraph from the big book, which I'll just read first, which, you know, I really like and identify with. So it's on page 52. From We Agnostics. ''When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.'' And you know, I believe today that I'm sober by the grace of God not eating and know that, that God does for me what I can't do for myself, because I certainly couldn't stop myself eating. And I knew, I realized once I'd come here, and I heard, heard everyone's stories that I was I'd tried enough things that hadn't worked, I was beyond human aid. And I, I had, I thought, if I was a normal size, I wouldn't want to eat all the time, I thought a diet would fix me from my mid teens, I thought, well, when I'm a normal size, I won't want to eat all the time. And I'd wanted to eat all the time from as far back as I can remember, as a, as a preschooler, I can remember you know, I climbed up, I climbed up the cupboards to get to the top cupboard that had the fluoride tablets in it. And ate the fluoride tablets. And that was the you know, that was the end of the fluoride tablets. Mum didn't you know, she didn't get any more, but I, I also ate the vitamin C tablets. And we had malt I didn't really like the malt, but it was sweet. I, you know, I had that. But I really didn't like the Lanes Emulsion. I don't know if anyone knows what Lanes Emulsion is, it was a tonic. And it was hideous, and I didn't like that. But you know, I can remember being given a little would have been a little play, little pot set for your little dolls stove, you know, but it was made out of metal. So I put it on the stove and turned it on, you know, because that's what you're doing your cook with it. So I'd climbed up and put the stove on in cooked with my little thing on the actual stove. Because I'm going to cook food, I'm not going to pretend to have food with my dolls. I'm going to put it on the stove and cook with it, which is what I did. And so, you know, as far back you know, I was born and I believe I was born a food addict and and always wanted more enough was never enough. And as I got older, the amounts that I wanted to eat got bigger. And if every meal every day didn't feel like Christmas dinner when I was fit to burst, well, I hadn't had enough to eat, you know. And then when I felt like that, I felt like I could I could burst I would think oh, I have something to eat, it'll make me feel better. You know. So my eating was pretty warped, you know from the word go. And as a result of that eating, I was overweight as a child and obese as an adult. And as I say, when I got to my mid teens, I thought well, when I'm a normal size when I can lose weight and get to normal size I won't want to eat all the time and um but I had a lot of eating to do between then and 32 when I got here having lost weight and got to a normal size. And people congratulating me in saying that I looked wonderful and nothing had changed. I was you know, I was I was slim, but I still wanted to eat all the time. And I knew then that whatever was wrong with me. A diet wasn't the answer. And found, you know, found our fellowship through the library display and, you know, you could say was that odd or was that God, you know that that display should be there. Just, you know, throughout the years that I've been coming, there have been so many situations that I haven't orchestrated, you know, and things have been put in my place that have helped me. And so, you know, I came, you know, came to my first meeting, and here were, you know, a room full of people there were men there, they're men and woman. And I was pretty nervous about what they were going to be like, I was sure that they would be odd, and have purple hair and just be weird, but, you know, they, they were normal looking people, and they were chatting, and they seemed friendly. And when they shared for the first time, I heard other people's eating, which was like mine, because I thought I was the only one I didn't know, there was anyone who ate the way I ate, because I was, you know, ashamed and guilty. And the puzzling thing was, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to eat that way. But when I started, I couldn't stop and, you know, I didn't have an off switch with food. So. So what what what they had was very attractive to me. And I couldn't have told you what they had. But it was, you know, looking back now, it was a sense of serenity and peace. And you know, they talked about their eating and the things they'd done. And, you know, I related to it, and then someone said that she'd eaten out of a rubbish bin and I thought, ah, fancy eating out of a rubbish bin! Well, then I, you know, I kept coming. And then I thought, so when I was going to throw that food out, and put it on the top and made sure nothing was around it in the rubbish bin, and then taking it out, that would technically qualify as eating out of a rubbish bin. So I thought, well, yes, you know, and I'd worked in a bakery when I left school, and, you know, eating the fresh food out of the pink bucket, the pig bin would technically qualify as eating out of a rubbish bin as well, you know. So, yeah, just began to piece together my story. And, you know, at that first meeting, people talked about well they shared about, you know, what it was, like, what happened and what it was like now. And they talked about coming to meetings, and reading the big book, and having a sponsor, and handing their will and life over to the care of God, and try, you know, working the steps and trying to help other people. And, and I could tell that they were different. They weren't just, you know, talking the talk. And I'd, I'd been to my doctor and told her, I couldn't stop eating. And in the first instance, she suggested a hobby, which didn't work, I went back, having been a Girl Guide leader, which was the worst thing I could have probably ever, ever attempted to be, couldn't wait to get out of there. And then her next suggestion was diet pills. And, you know, I loved the diet pills, and I knew I wasn't going back to getting any more because they made me very happy, but I didn't lose any weight. And I, you know, I could clean it 10 o'clock at night, you know, which was very unlike me, because I couldn't clean at 10 o'clock in the morning, let alone clean at 10 o'clock at night. So, I didn't go back and get any more and you know, she said to me, ''well, with a mother like yours, no wonder you ate.'' And, and I told her how mean mum was to me, but I didn't tell her how mean I was to mum. You know, I didn't give her my side of what I was actually like so. So, you know, that very first meeting and I was attracted, you know, I was I was attracted to what I saw here and and you know, I kept coming for a long time. 15 months I... all I could see was the weight. And I had no idea, no insight into the second half of the first step that my life was unmanageable. Because that had always been like that. And I just saw my weight and as time went on, I I began to see that the unmanageability was far bigger than my eating and my weight was in. You know, the top of that list was the crippling shyness and sensitivity and not being able to, I couldn't look people in the eye, I couldn't speak to them without going bright red.
I had no friends, I had my one primary school friend who kept in touch with me, I didn't, I was felt like I was born without the instruction manual, I had no idea how to do anything. And, you know, if there was money in the bank account, I had to spend it. If the, you know, the bills came, the power bill came, and I knew that, and I'd think ''how dare they! how dare they send me a bill, expecting me to pay it'', you know, I'd use the power, but I didn't think I should have to pay for it. So you know, by the time the third letter came, I knew that was the letter that said, if you don't pay your power, within seven days, we're gonna cut it off. And that's when I would begrudgingly pay it. And that happened month after month after month end. And, you know, my parenting hopeless, hopeless parenting, hopeless housekeeper just, you know, pretty all round hopeless, so. So that, you know that that realization came one morning, and I knew that I needed to get serious with the program, because I had a sponsor. And, you know, she would make suggestions. And I followed them to the best of my ability. And I had done a fourth and fifth step. And but I had the little voice on my shoulder that said, ''oh you know, you're not that bad.'' You know? And when she said, ''was I ringing people?'', I could say, ''Yes, I was ringing people'', I rang the people who weren't home, because I didn't actually want to talk to them. But when she said, ''Are you ringing?'' ''yes, I'm ringing.'' I know, they're not going to be home. I know, they're the people that are at work. And, and then after that, that day, I believe the surrender happened, you know, I became willing to do what I needed to do, because I knew that my life depended upon it. And, you know, it wasn't what went in my mouth. It was what went on in my head, and, you know, became willing to do the things. And you know, that's continues today. And I just know that without this program, and without God, and I was very scathing dismissive of people who went to church. The only time I went to church was on at Easter time, because someone had said, they give you an Easter egg. Which they did. That was the reason I went to church to get a marshmallow easter egg. But, you know, I, I'd drive, you know, on a Sunday, service, church service would have finished they'd be milling around the door, the minister would be sort of saying goodbye to people as they left, and they looked happy and well dressed. And I hated them. You know, and I thought, ''God, you must be you must have something missing in your life, if you've got to go to church'', you know, and here was me could barely answer the telephone, go out the door, depressed, isolated, lonely, y'know this bleak existence. So, you know, gradually, gradually, starting with a really basic concept of a higher power, and it was probably the pictures I'd seen of Jesus with the sheep and the, you know, the sheep hook thing, and, you know, the beard and the long robes and, you know, it's not the belief that I have today. And, you know, there have been times when, you know, I've had to pray. I've been, you know, different situations over the years where my resources have, I've had no resources whatsoever and can remember once you know, my prayer was ''please God'', you know, and I was given what I needed in that situation and you know, there's great comfort and that for me that I'm not alone. And, you know, I have, you know, have the fellowship, but, you know, the fellowship aren't there. If you know, three o'clock in the morning or when something awful is happening or whatever, but you know, I have that knowing, knowing that, that God's there, and you know, the freedom and the, the joy that I have today, and that wasn't destined to be my reality, you know, I would have been a consumer of the mental health system. My health, you know, goodness only knows, you know, I had my gallbladder out when I was 26 I'd stuffed it through my eating at 26... So, you know, that's, you know, that's not the reality today. And, you know, I'm so grateful that I've got that design for living that I never had. I've got the, you know, the instruction manual and keep coming and you know...And I love that, you know, we continue to get well, you know, and see the wellness in other people and you're grateful to be here and, you know, it's, it's a gift to know that. You know, I'll die with this disease, but I won't die from it, which is what you know, would have happened and uh... lots of lots of days yet, hopefully, before they happen. So thank you, Tina.