Holiday Cheer:
Cheese Ball vs. Bowling Ball
Jenni Schaefer
Strike!
I bowled a strike. I knocked over all of the pins with the first bowl.
Christmas day was on a real upswing. Bowling balls replaced the holiday
cheese balls.
“Should I go for that pin?” replaced “Should I eat this cookie?” I could
finally relax.
After the traditional holiday meal, my cousins and I had left the house
where the rest of the family gathered --- yes, still mingling around the
food --- and headed to the bowling alley. I had always been a natural at
bowling. I think it was a way for me to release emotion without really
showing it. (I am mad at the little white pins, not my best friend. Strike!)
When we were bowling that day, one of my favorite cousins said, “You are
great. How do you stay so focused?”
Interestingly enough, his mom, my aunt, had asked me earlier in the day,
“You look great. How do you stay so thin?”
As I smiled outwardly toward my aunt, I sadly thought to myself, “You don’t
really want to know. Trust me.”
Anorexia and bulimia had a grip on me. I would never wish an eating disorder
on anyone. Eating disorders are not fads, phases, or diets. Similar to
alcoholism, eating disorders are real, life-threatening illnesses.
And just how alcoholics fighting against the disease often find New Year’s
Eve a challenge, people early in recovery from an eating disorder experience
many hurdles throughout the holidays. How many times did I lie to get out of
attending all of the additional dinners, parties, and other festivities?
Dinners and parties just meant food. To me, more food meant more darkness
and despair.
When I went to the holiday gatherings, my focus was not on the true meaning
of the event. I did not care about spending time with friends and family,
and I was not concerned with the various traditions of the season. I was
thinking about how to avoid eating or on how to eat everything in sight
without you knowing it. If you were speaking with me at a party, I was not
listening to you. I was staring at the food that was carefully displayed on
the ornamented table. I desperately wanted to listen to you and yearned to
connect with something aside from the food, but I was trapped in my eating
disorder.
Eventually I started to worry if you were actually listening to me. I
wondered if you were thinking, “Did she even eat today?” or “Is she binging
and purging?”
My friend, Aaron, who is in recovery from alcoholism, says he would ask
himself similar questions in years past, “Do they wonder if I have been
drinking?”
Needless to say, prior to recovery, neither Aaron nor I enjoyed the holiday
cheer, the mingling, or the cheese balls. Well, maybe Aaron liked the cheese
balls.
Aaron actually said that ultimately it did not matter to him whether it was
New Year’s Eve or the 14th of April. The fact is that he had to live in the
moment and be sober everyday. And those of us with eating disorders have to
do the same thing in May that we do at the end of the year. I learned that
to get through the holidays I had to live in the moment.
I had to focus on what really mattered and not worry about food each second.
In early recovery, it helped to plan activities for the holidays that were
not centered on the food. Bowling and basketball were family favorites.
Napping was a popular sport as well. I enjoyed spending precious time with
the people I cared about most in my life.
Before jumping into family events, I had to remember that I was the one who
had dove head first into recovery. My family truly wanted to support me, but
they did not always know the best way to do this. I learned that I had to
teach them how to support me. I told them what would be supportive and what
would not be so helpful. For instance, I asked them specifically not to make
comments about my appearance. Even if my mom had told me I was the most
beautiful woman in the world, I probably would have broken down in tears
believing that somehow she had just called me fat.
My support system of women in recovery also carried me throughout all of the
holidays. I was often out of town for big events, but my support team was
only an email or a phone call away. Today text messaging adds another
dimension to our support systems. I know a young woman who actually sent an
SOS text message for support directly from the holiday dinner table. And she
received positive reinforcement back immediately. My support system helped
me through many office parties, dinners, and family events.
When I was well on my way to a full recovery, my uncle commented on my
appearance at a holiday gathering, “You have put some meat on your bones.
You looked like a skeleton the last time I saw you.”
I immediately walked into the laundry room and called someone on my support
team to process my uncle’s ‘compliment.’
I left the laundry room and asked my favorite cousin, “Do you want to go
bowling?”
We grabbed our jackets.
Strike!
****
About The Author:
Jenni Schaefer is a singer/songwriter, speaker, and the author of Life
Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and
How You Can Too (McGraw-Hill). She is a consultant with the Center for
Change in Orem, UT. For more information, visit
www.jennischaefer.com or
email jenni@jennischaefer.com.
