Wow. That’s all I can say about this book. Wow. Okay, no, I’m going to say more.
But first, a recap about my workout tonight:
- Treadmill: 25 min 2.0 up to 2.6, but mostly around 2.3 as it doesn’t hurt my back as much.
Okay, back to the book.
Wow. In so many places, I felt as though I was reading my own story. Abandonment issues. Commitment issues. Sexual abuse. It’s all there. Geneen writes from the heart, that is clear. I wish that I could afford to send a copy to all I know who are struggling with these issues. Instead, I will share what I can on here.
- Compulsion is despair on an emotional level. The substances, people, or activities that we become compulsive about are those that we believe capable of taking our despair away.
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Especially if you were, like me, abused as a child. You were not in control of your life then – you had no choice but to stay in the abusive situation unless someone outside of the situation noticed what was going on and tried to rescue you. And even then, because you only know what you have experienced, you don’t want to be removed from a known terror to the unknown. And so as an adult – we still react to everything as a child.
- Food was love; eating was our way of being loved. Food was available when our parents weren’t. Food didn’t get up and leave us. Food didn’t hurt us. Food never said no. But it is only a substitute for love. Food will not ever be love.
And I think we all KNOW that intellectually, but emotionally, it’s tough. Once you’ve made food into anything other than what it is – nutrition that your body needs to function – then it’s so hard to see it for what it really is. It’s kind of like when you fall in love; you only see what you want to see, blinded by love.
- 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, become. Compulsion is the act of wrapping ourselves around an activity, a substance, or a person to survive, to tolerate and numb our experience of the moment.
As a compulsive eater, I have also allowed that compulsive behavior to bleed into other areas of my life. In the past, I have been compulsive about relationships (becoming obsessed with one friend, giving up my friendships to spend all of my time with my then-boyfriend), about expressing myself (beating a dead horse), about how I’m perceived (obsessing about an answer I gave in class for hours), etc.
It’s so exhausting to be a compulsive person. You read into everything that happens to you, around you, or things that never happen.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more from this amazing book.
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