The weight of an eating disorder

One of the heaviest burdens of an eating disorder is loneliness. Isolation is your reality. It is also a fiction created by the disorder to insulate itself. The disease keeps you in danger by keeping itself safe from the relief of companionship.

The truth is that the loneliest place on the planet has more inhabitants than New York City. There are 11 million people, women and men, in the United States with eating disorders. Millions more suffer with "subthreshold" disordered eating that is dangerous and secretive. I am one of these millions.

In 1986 I dared to enter an eating disorder clinic for my compulsive binges. Before I crossed that threshold, I had never uttered a word about the cravings that controlled me. A counselor I came to trust invited me into a support group. "I can't," I said. "I'd be too ashamed to talk about this with anyone else." Hindsight shows me the thickness of my façade, the importance to my disease of keeping the cover pretty and tidy, and how vast the space was between my experience and my appearance.

I didn't believe there was anyone worthwhile (or maybe anyone at all) underneath my thick mask.

Zoom ahead roughly 25 years of slippery but strong recovery. Life has slam-dunked my year: death and cancer in my family along with three major shifts in my work. Toss in menopausal hormonal jabs-and insomnia. The stones that hold my recovery have begun to avalanche. Meditation practice, confidence, my ability to re-focus automatic negative thinking-these crashed in overloaded days revving up my lifelong anxiety. I stand on the edge of depression familiar from the old days.

My weight is stable. My diet remains healthy. I am still binge-free.

I know why. Every Monday afternoon I sit in a circle of a dozen women in long-term recovery from dysfunctional eating. We've met for two years and are planning our third year together. Many Mondays the disease tells me I'm too busy or tired to show up. I let my recovery take the wheel for the half-hour drive. My ego urges me to share the successes the outside world sees. And sometimes I do. Then I cry, admitting with humility and horror my insanity and inability, my pain and fear-how I fall for anxiety and other lies that don't serve me. I fall again and again. I report again and again.

I let these women see the ragged, jagged me. We laugh at the absurdities. I accept their hugs. Airing my "secrets" keeps me out of the food. It seems to be true that "We are only as sick as our secrets."

What happened in the two-plus decades between "before" and "after?" A month after ignoring the first invitation, I slunk into that support group at the eating disorder clinic. I surprised myself by joining in a cross-country ski weekend with them. It was even fun. I stepped into the next support group offered. I made friends whom I began to see outside of group meetings. We were hungry for each other.

I kept in touch and I kept honest and I kept my food clean.

In eating disorder recovery circles, then in creative writing workshops, journal therapy groups, and spiritual sangha, I kept opening my mouth.

I keep myself with people whose honestly-and open doors to their own wobbles-inspire my trust and my truth. The crutch of food is replaced with what my loneliness always really wanted: a place where I wholly belong.

Kindred spirits are not the only element of recovery. It's said that "You have to do it yourself, but you don't have to do it alone." There is much work to be done-work that demands support.

There's not always a person handy. I also have books. Blank books I fill with my daily experience unveiled. Books I read about others' recoveries (and now, women managing through midlife). Reading and writing help me be honest and open-and feel connected both to myself and to others who write nakedly.

I had thought recovery would be diet, nutrition, and weight management. But the "fringe benefit" at the core of recovery is trading isolation and secrecy for community and intimacy.

Don't stay in the loneliest place on the planet. I remember the days of closed drapes and unplugged phone. Find one safe person. Tell that person something true about yourself. Repeat.

Carolyn Jennings' path from isolation to intimacy is one of the threads of her memoir told in poetry, Hunger Speaks, winner of three Colorado Publishers Association Awards and finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards. To contact Carolyn Jennings, learn more about Hunger Speaks, or order a copy, see http://www.writingourwings.com/. Hunger Speaks: a memoir told in poetry is also available on Amazon.