Binges & Boundaries: A Love Affair

–Mari A. Lee M.A., MFT

As a sex and love addiction therapist who is passionate about my work in private practice, and as a counselor who celebrates my client’s courageous efforts in their own healing process, I realized it was finally time for me to come clean.

For many years I led a double life where I hid a secret affair. An affair, that for a time, became the most important relationship in my life. My love affair with Chip.  Chip consumed my daily thoughts. Whenever I was away from Chip, I craved the dark sweetness of our passion, the warmth that I felt, and the unconditional love. Chip was there for me, never critical, always comforting, day or night. Through the highs and lows of life – Chip’s tempting embrace was only an arms reach away.

Sometimes I would indulge with Chip in the same bed where only moments before I had made love with my significant other. Other times, I would sneak away to a clandestine spot and nibble on Chips delights.  Chip was everything to me and I craved those satisfying offerings like no other.  Shameful I know, but I ask that you try to withhold your judgment, and please understand…I simply could not help myself!

The years went by, and like most guilty secrets, the price I paid was shame, sorrow and low self esteem.

My affair with chocolate chips came to a screeching halt in my late 20’s when I finally came face to face with my inner food addict. Until that time, I had been blessed with genes that allowed me to consume large quantities of ‘Chip’ in the form of chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate chip brownies, and just plain old bags and bags of…you guessed it – chocolate chips! Equally important was the other Chip in my life: Potato chips. Pringles was my drug of choice. For those of you that may be unfamiliar with Pringles, this is a potato like product that is perfectly shaped and comes stacked in a foot tall tin can – it is not a stretch to say that Pringles are the food equivalent of a salt lick.

Clearly I did not have a discriminating pallet when it came to self-soothing.

And that is exactly how I used food – to soothe difficult emotions. Food was my opiate, my heroin, my sex. If I felt sad, overwhelmed, angry, joyful, confused, elated, or just plain bored, I turned to my drug to comfort me. Comforting was something that I could find in food, but could not trust in people…at least not for a very long time.

My background includes years of abuse in the foster care system, followed by a hellish adoption situation, which ended with me moving out on my own at 16.  By then, my chip affair was well under way.  My food addiction was steeped in neglect and abandonment-the cornerstones of my early years. Eventually this led to a foundation of dissatisfaction…an underlying assumption that there was something fundamentally wrong…with me. Much like the alcoholic drinks his sadness, or the smoker smokes her anger, or the gambler gambles away their stress – I ate my emotions. I ate and ate and stuffed them down in an avalanche of sugar and salt.

Still, it was easy to deny food addiction because that label did not exist back then.  Even if it did, food addicts were fat, right? Or at the very least, a person with an eating disorder must be ‘scarfing and barfing’, or ‘splurging and purging’ as my pack of teen friends and I would carelessly joke about. We did not understand the serious ramifications of eating disorders, including food addiction. We were young, thin and beautiful…so no biggy, right?

Wrong.

At 30 years old my denial finally caught up to me. Over the next two years, as my hormones changed subtly and somewhat insidiously, and as my career transitioned from very active, to sitting behind a desk for a decade, the pounds crept on, and with every expanding inch, my love affair came into light.  Having been blessed with a naturally slim figure, it never occurred to me that my food seduction would inevitably sell me out – enough so that eventually my health was jeopardized.

It would take pages (chapters really) to recount the years of yo-yo dieting, fad eating plans, liquid lunches, and you name it before I finally stood still enough in my life to hear the heartbeat of what was motivating my acting out with food. When I finally gifted myself with the chance to gently uncover the roots of my addiction and what I was really hungry for, it was then that my journey toward well being and healing began.

A journey that continues today.

An important discovery during those years of early exploration is that my lack of setting boundaries with food was a direct manifestation of my lack of setting boundaries with the people in my life. I spent the first three decades of my life overcompensating in relationships with others. I put on a happy face – the mask of a people pleasing good girl who was desperate to be accepted.  Eventually, this pseudo self would not tolerate anything less than perfection…no mistakes were allowed in others, and God forbid in me! When I suffered with bouts of depression, I soothed my broken heart into silence with junk food.

Yet, as my road to healing continued, I knew this way of coping had to change. As I allowed my truth to surface, and as I began clearly identifying triggering situations and people, working through early trauma and abuse, and recognizing and accepting my limits – I was then able to set and maintain boundaries with others. And slowly, I began to replace my life long habit of numbing with salt and sweets, with foods that felt restorative. Papaya, berries, and nuts became my new snacks. I learned about moderation in love and in life as well as with food.  I discovered that eating joyfully and healthily were actually synonymous after all!

I won’t try and fool you; it hasn’t been an easy road. I have stumbled many times and have fallen right back into the arms of my old love affair with Chip (and have had an occasional ménage a trois with his buddies pizza, cupcake and cheeseburger). But, in these times of relapse, I have learned to be gentle with myself and to look at my acting out as a barometer for what currently needs to be addressed and balanced in my life. And, best of all, I am learning to love (yes, love) my curves, my softness and my femininity.

What I have discovered is like so many women my age, I experience vicarious trauma every day as I am constantly surrounded by images that ‘should’ all over me – what I ‘should’ look like, how I ‘should’ dress, what I ‘should’ eat.  I am aging, year-by-year, yet the faces on the magazines that surround me at the grocery are forever young.  My 40-ish friends and I don’t see “us” anywhere anymore – not in commercials, magazines or billboards.

Here is the battle cry that echo’s off the voices of women my age everywhere – my friends, my sisters, my clients:Youuu whooo world of patriarchal advertising mad men. Hellloooo out there…where are the beautiful 40, 50, 60 and beyond women? We are not unicorns – we actually do exist!

Researchers have discovered that we are shown 3,000 images a day that are designed to appeal to our sense of vanity, of indulgence, of sexuality. Question: How am I supposed to feel good about buying a cream for my crow’s feet that is being sold to me by a photo-shopped 17-year-old print model? And while I am on the topic, I truly loathe that expression, “Crows feet”, what sadistic advertiser came up with that zinger anyway?! Don’t even get me started on that vial label, “Cougar.”

People please.

In the words of this modern Dorothy: Unicorns, crows and cougars – oh my! These images and accepted expressions are created to shame us into grasping for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the fountain of youth, beauty and perfection.

Yet, this is an impossible standard to live up to because, well, it doesn’t exist. Airbrushing is hardly a secret anymore, but so many of us have grown accustomed to feeling ‘less than’ in comparison to the impossible standard that has been shoved down our throats, that eating disorders are now at an all time high!

It is shocking to consider in the United States alone, as many as 10 in 100 young women suffer from eating disorders, and 1,000s of young girls have been on diets by the age of 10  (source: www.nationaleatingdisorders.org,) In an article written for www.abc.net, Bulimia is the third most common chronic illness for adolescent girls, causing more deaths than any other psychiatric disorder. Some authorities estimate that as many as one in five female students are bulimic.

In the face of so much bleak information, perhaps it is time to go back to basics. Adequate sleep, clean, clear water, exercise that is fun and fills your heart. I love hiking, getting out of the city and embracing nature. I recently bought a pink opalescent beach cruiser that brings me great joy. I named her “Pearl” and enjoy many hours a month zipping around my neighborhood ringing her cute heart shaped bell. I also relish yoga and dancing. And foods that nurture both the body and the soul.

And yes, that means chocolate too!

The bottom line for me is this: If I set an intention for myself [example: “This week I will make healthy eating choices and ride Pearl three times and allow enough hours to rest and sleep”], and then the week rolls out and I am rushed, eating without awareness, and sleep deprived, then I have not kept a promise to the most important person I will ever be in relationship with…myself. And if I break enough promises with me, then I cannot trust my own word…to me. And if I cannot trust me, then I will never be able to trust another person. And if I can’t build trust with me first, or another person, then I will never be able to trust that God has a good a perfect plan for my life.

And that just doesn’t work for me any longer.

I still love Chip. And I always will. But Chip and I have a much better relationship now that our secret life is over and I have defined and maintained boundaries around our time together.

So here’s to growing trust with self in 2010 – and cheers to that!

Be well, be boundaried, be bodacious and…be beautiful.

*****

Mari A. Lee, MA is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist who trained with Dr. Patrick Carnes. Mari counsels men, women and couples dealing with the impact of sex, pornography and love addiction at her private practice located in Pasadena, California. Mari facilitates weekly therapy groups for men [SRS – Sexual Recovery Support group for men], for women [H.E.A.R.T – Heal, Encourage, Accept, Restore, Trust support group], and for couples recovering from the devastating impact of sex addiction in their marriages [S.T.A.R. – Strengthen, Trust, Acknowledge, Repair].

Mari also speaks and writes on body image and self esteem and created her healing workshop called, “From Fairytales to Facelifts: Learning to love the image in the mirror.” Additionally, Mari is currently writing a book for women dealing with the impact of love addiction.  Mari can be reached at (818) 521-4370, or via email at marileetherapy@yahoo.com or you may visit her website at www.marileetherapy.com to learn more about her work.