Compulsions

9.30.06

I came across the following excerpt while studying the curriculum I will be using with my bariatric (stomach stapling) clients for Kaiser. The idea that Geneen espouses here is not new to me, but rather a concise treatise on what I have long felt as the daughter of an alcoholic mother and dreamer father, sister to a former drug abuser and a reformed bulemic myself. As I approach the daunting task of trying to help these clients address the reasons why they have 100, 200, 300 pounds of extra weight, I of course must look at my own "compulsions."


Excerpt from “When Food is Love”
By Geneen Roth

"Love and compulsion cannot coexist.

Love is the willingness and ability to be affected by another human being and to allow that effect to make a difference in what you do, say and become.

Compulsion is the act of wrapping ourselves around an activity, a substance, or a person to survive, to tolerate and numb our experience for the moment.

Love is a state of connectedness, one that includes vulnerability, surrender, self-valuing, steadiness and a willingness to face rather than run from the worst of our selves.

Compulsion is a state of isolation, one that includes self-absorption, invulnerability, low self-esteem, unpredictability, and fear that if we faced our pain, it would destroy us.

Love expands, compulsion diminishes.

It is my belief that we become compulsive because of wounds from our past and the decisions we made at that time about our self worth – decisions about our capacity to love and whether we deserve to be loved.

As children we have no resources, no power to make choices about our situations. We will and do switch our pain to something less threatening: a compulsion.

As adults it becomes our task to examine the decisions we mad long ago about our self-worth, for it is from these decisions that many of our beliefs about compulsion and love take root.

It is impossible to be obsessed with food or anything else and be truly intimate with ourselves or anyone else; there is simply not enough room. Yet all of us want intimacy. We all want to love and be loved.

Once we had no choice; now we do."

Maureen Dowd in the NYTIMES today wrote about our delusional president, his compulsion to be in total denial of the facts around this dreadful war he started. I look at him, and me and think what would it take for us to look in the mirror and see what others see? My clients look at me as a thin person, but I share with them that I too crave sugar when sad, angry, tired lonely. I just have better control over my substance of choice, keep more in balance with exercise and good nutrition, my hobbies, my connections. And I at least know the "pain" I am trying to manage with my shredded wheat or Double Bubble gum attacks. At one class last week, clients were asked to write a letter to their "fat" and a few started crying, asked if it was okay to get so emotional. I thought to myself, and then shared later the awareness, that it is very hard to eat when you are crying or ranting or singing or laughing. When we are fully feeling our emotions they come out of us; we are not putting something in. I wonder if we were better able to express these wide ranging feelings in a safe and constructive way, would be be eating, drinking, smoking, etc.-ing less?

What would Bush do if he got a shot of truth serum? Would he have any idea what really motivates his actions? Could he connect his role in the Bush dynasty, his privilege, his crony-ism with his tunnel vision? He is a reformed alcoholic. Has he perhaps substituted messianic convictions for his Manhattans? Does he ever have self-doubt? I think it was Nietzche who said "Convictions are the greater enemy of truth than lies." I believe this man, (and many of us) would rather cling to our beliefs like our infantile blankies than open an eye long enough to see that the fabric is torn, riddled with holes, dirty from snot, tears and mildewed applesauce. Because once we accept that our compulsions have failed us in our quests to thrive, to lead vibrant, authentic lives we are left alone in the playpen. When the blankie is gone, what is left to hold on to?

A thumb may go in the mouth, a donut, a cigarette, a slot machine arm, a new lover, an old porno site, a Valium. When do we wake up and realize it is a touch, a kiss, a nod of recognition, a hand to hold, a shared dream to pursue that we really crave? And then once realized, how do we go about honoring those needs? Do we throw out the entire bathtub, baby and blankie in search of our goals? Or do dare sit still long enough, re-finish the enamel, watch the baby grow and toss the tired old flannel in favor of time, patience, insight and an attempt at unconditional love?