This article was written to present the connection to my shadowy past and the struggles I worked through when I was caught up in the compulsive coping patterns of disordered eating. The transformational changes I went through on my healing journey opened the door to the company David and I co-founded and co-direct.
THE ANATOMY OF AN EATING DISORDER
By Coralie Darsey-Malloy
I sit and listen attentively to each woman as they openly
bear their souls. Within this sharing circle of emotional safety one by one
their stories are told. As they speak I
hear how some are working through their own process while others have come to
find answers for loved ones. Within my quiet observer mode I glance around the
room. Some mask their pain with a vacant stare while others speak in words
strangled with emotion. Sitting silently
and bearing witness to their individual and collective journeys my heart goes
out to them with deep empathy… because I was walked their path and am fully
aware of how difficult it is to believe there is any other way to live.
Their journey was once my journey…but no more. When it came
time for me to speak I began my testimony of hope. “I am
here to honor and support where you are—because I once walked this path and
fully understand the ties that bind you to it. However, after thirty years of
struggle and strife I finally found find another way to live. Yes, whether you
name it addition or a compulsive coping pattern I been free from the clutches
of anorexia, bulimia, compulsive over-eating and body-image issues for over
seventeen years. I am not a recovering
anything.but I am healed, whole, well and in better health now than I ever was
in my youth…and that is my offering of hope and encouragement to you.
There is dead silence as I scan the room it is clear that
the energy has changed and things feel slightly chilly. As I scan the room my
training as a
life coach and group leader
quickly reveals a tangible, inaudible ‘clunk’ as minds within the room suddenly
close simultaneously. It is clear that there is no receptivity to my viewpoint
and rather than push beyond the group’s comfort I choose to leave.
The next day I called the facilitator of the
group and discussed my observations.
Her
feedback confirmed my perceptions as she said; “Yes Coralie, even though the
group appreciates where you are there is a lot of denial, anger and feelings of
victimization within this group.
At this
point they only want to vent they feel and are not willing to change right now.
Perhaps they will be open to your approach in the future…but not now. Thank you
for your time…good-bye for now. Click!
As I hang up the phone I take a deep breath as my mind
wanders through time time-lines of my life to where it all began to unravel for
me. Around the age of eighteen I decided
to take a modeling course and see if I could make it in the fashion
industry. The women who headed up the
agency never bothered to tell me that my five foot two and a half inch height
would never allow me to go very far. She
willingly took money for the course and I blindly followed her lead. As I struggled to compensate for the obvious disadvantages
of my ‘vertically challenged height’ I decided to become skinnier. Couple that dynamic with a home life with a
controlling, abusive, alcoholic father and a passive enabling mother I began to
develop a sense of self that was outwardly directed. That shift in focus was
the beginning of my downfall.
As I continue wandering around in the musings of my mind I
vividly remember how I began starving myself so I could create
the body I had in my mind.
This was many years ago … long before there
was a clinical name for binging, purging, laxative abuse and creative self-starvation
techniques.
The process was effective in
my mind because it allowed me to become a skinny 89 pounds.
Initially the cycle pattern had started out with
restrictive calorie counting, frenetic bouts of intense exercising that were
difficult to sustain.
Each time I
‘failed’ a binge followed and then the whole cycle began again.
. Weight gains lowered self-esteem and
created an internal need to binge.
Food
was used to
compensate for growing feelings
of inadequacy or block out thoughts and emotions that were too uncomfortable to
handle.
Little did I realize at that
level of awareness that my fixation on food, weight and body image were
compulsive coping mechanism.
The fixated
thinking had become a way of denying what I believed to be insurmountable
issues in my personal and family life.
That awareness would only come many years later.
Then somewhere in my early twenties my father in his usual
unthinking fashion said something that re-routed my life again.
In one of my venting outbursts I declared
that I had to find a way to lose more weight so I could
‘measure up’ to the fashion and entertainment
industry’s stereotypes for the ‘perfect body.
In what became a milestone moment my father said in a calm voice, “Well,
why don’t you do what many jockeys, ballerinas and others with a high profile
do to keep their weight low?”
His serious tone caught my attention interest and I felt he
might just have a solution and I quickly said,
“What do they do?”
My father could see he had me—and he played the moment to
his advantage by taking a s drink from
his glass of Scotch and a slow puff on his cigarette before answering. “It is any easy fix—eat whatever you want,
then stick your fingers down your throat and throw it up. Some also use laxatives—between those two
things—you can be whatever weight you want and keep it. Simple huh?”
The impact of what he had just said was not lost to either
my mother or me.
I vividly recall the look
of horror on her face.
It was the exact
moment that the light bulb went on for me.
Needless to say there was nothing my mother could say or do to stop
me.
Little did I know then that my
father’s statement would re-route my life and create a quagmire of confusion
that would take years to emerge from.
As I continue to wander down memory lane I am
caught in a full circle moment of total recall and I vividly remember my first
binge/purge experience.
“Ahh—alone at last.
My stomach is bulging as I wander towards the bathroom.
I cannot help thinking about the volume of food
just consumed.
It was the biggest binge
of my life—but knowing that I was going to be able to ‘get rid of it’ created a
blissed out state while I was indulging.
Throughout the ‘stuffing’ I comforted myself with the reality that I was
about to embark on my first episode in throwing up.
No one could stop me now—I was on a whole new
path of liberation—or so I thought then.
As I stand in front of the toilet the stark while porcelain
bowl invites me to begin a ritual of association that will last far longer than
I ever wanted it to.
At this juncture I
foolishly believe I would be able to control my association with it—too bad I
didn’t know then what hard lessons I would have to learn as a result of what I
did next.
Before beginning I paused and
wondered how to do it.
For one brief
moment I felt like an initiate to some order—and this was the act that would
allow me to gain entry to some unseen power.
Hmm—I wonder how many fingers I should use?
I decide to hook my thumb and little finger
together and try three.
Ugh, that hurt,
maybe I should try two.
As I shove them
down my throat initially nothing happens, I try again—further down this
time—there I’m getting a gag response—keep it up—the energy within my intention
to master this art of body and weight control drives me to keep going.
As I push harder and deeper I gag more and I
keep it up, pushing, probing fingers deeper until I finally feel
my insides begin to respond.
As the inner upheaval begins to move I am
full of anticipation as I sense the massive amount of food I’d consumed is
rising upwards.
Excitement begins to
build as I feel lift-off occurring.
The food rushes up in a volcanic eruption.
Once I had the first experience in motion I
kept it up I did it once, twice, three—four—until I lost count and could
finally feel my stomach had released all its booty.
As I flushed the toilet for a final time and
closed the lid I looked at my formerly bulging abdomen and saw how flat it had
become and I absolutely delighted.
I
stood in mute silence admiring my handiwork.
Then within the
aftermath I feel
my knees slightly buckling and I sit on the toilet and
try to process what had just happened.
In retrospect it was one of the last times I paid any real
attention to my body’s responses.
From
that point on I become increasingly dissociated from anything it felt or
needed.
But initially symptoms were too
obvious to ignore.
I could not help but
notice what a physically demanding ritual the self-induced vomiting actually
was.
I felt weak, my neck and back were
stiff and sore from bending over.
Residues of bitter tasting bile lingered in my mouth and my eyes felt as
though they were stretched and bulging behind their sockets.
Coupled with all of that was an incredible
thirst and it was clear to me that I was severely dehydrated.
But I held on to the fact that I had managed
to do it and in the bizarre fashion of anyone with an eating disorder I felt
kind of good about my achievement.
The void within the moments afterwards was eventually filled
with something else.
Even though I felt
physically weak—something bigger and not clearly understood had occurred within
the unusual and rite of passage I had just undertaken.
I
noticed a sense of relief—as if on some emotional level I had a moment of
release from things I could not clearly define.
That gave me a profound sense of empowerment and I liked it.
Although it was not fully comprehended to
me at that time I came to see that something within that first experience put a
new set of beliefs in motion.
In
retrospect this first act created a false sense of security about controlling
my destiny and achieving every weight loss dream of skinniness I had been
harboring within.
As I embellished the
moment with romanticized ideas that this ritual would allow me to create the
perfect body size and shape—and with that
would come all the love, acceptance and appreciation I could not find anywhere
else.
As my mind ran along those line it
eclipsed any sense of how bizarre the path I was embarking on really was.
Logic and reason were replaced with an
unrealistic sense that everything I ever wanted or desired was now within my
reach.
I could eat whatever I wanted,
whenever I wanted in whatever amounts I wanted and never have to look
back.
On top of that I could show the
world that I could achieve something many others could not—a lean, strong, thin
body—something everyone wanted and now I could finally have.
As I continued along this deluded path in an ‘ignorance is
bliss’ approach.
.
Being able to binge and throw up worked for
awhile.
But what is now called bulimia
eventually began to upset my metabolism and eventually my digestive and
eliminative functions were severely affected.
The more I did it the less energy I had and it
was difficult to keep up my happy face about being thin at all costs.
When the process began to affect my ability
to eliminate I added my father’s second suggestion to the list and began using
laxatives to move what foot I could not ‘get rid of’ by throwing up.
Over the years of abuse my body became soft,
bloated and what I termed ‘gooshy.”
Then in
the midst of
feeling untoned, flabby and increasingly unhealthy I decided to go in a
different direction and I began to starve myself, exercise for hours and abuse
laxatives in growing amounts.
At one
point I was taking up to sixty laxatives a day to lose weight—but in my deep
states of denial and delusion I told myself it was safe because I only used
herbal laxatives.
During anorexic phases
of the eating disorder starving myself, throwing up, exercising excessively and
abusing laxatives worked quite well.
At
my lowest point I managed to starve myself down to 89 pounds.
I was proud of how I consistently surpassed
five pound increments until I was less than 90 pounds.
At that point I was hospitalized and went
through five years in and out of psychiatric wards.
I was subjected to massive amounts of
mood-altering drugs.
When didn’t work I
was given over 120 ECT treatments before they finally figured out none of it
was working.
No one within the medical
system ever considered addressing family life or what might be the root cause
of my debilitating health and personal problems.
Through that whole time no one ever addressed
the problems I was having at home and with my parents.
I consistently felt that I was the
problem—and that added to a growing loss of self-worth and any sense of
self.
There were times where I thought
it would be better to die and I often wished I could.
The depressing feelings of hopelessness and
helplessness were so bad at times I considered taking my own life so the pain
could end.
By the time I reached the ten year mark of struggle I was
28.
None of what the medical model had
to offer was doing anything to change my behavior—or my life.
So I made the decision to get out of the
system and find another way.
As I look
back over the anatomy of my eating disorder one of the most surreal aspects of
it was through the whole thirty year process I was still functioning on many
levels.
The five year stints in the
psychiatric wards were the most challenging and least productive times of my
life.
But after getting out of that kind
of constrictive ‘care’ I made a decision to do something—anything
different.
At age twenty-eight I married my childhood sweetheart and
began to journal and pray for direction and a way to heal my life.
It was clear that if I did not find a way
through the confusing maze of my disordered life and disordered eating I was
going to die.
My throat had started to
bleed when I stuck my fingers down my throat.
My intestines and stomach ached and I was increasingly sick and tired of
feeling sick and tired.
I have come to
accept that
the challenges I was having
in trying to find answers contributed to the break-up of my first marriage—but
there was nothing I could do—except keep on keeping on until I found another
way to cope.
My lifestyle was a
horrendous series of uphill and downhill slides into a world I feared I might
never be able to escape.
It was a lonely,
isolating world at times because I could never allow anyone to get too close,
lest they discover my terrible truth.
The irony of it all is that I still had an outer semblance of a
life.
I worked, socialized, dated and
even began writing, producing a series of talk shows on community access
television in
Winnipeg.
So to all appearance I had my act
together.
The shame of my secret
ritualistic life of self-destruction continued as I lived a life of ‘quiet,
unspoken desperation.’
It took another twenty years after that to finally have
enough of a spiritual epiphany to fully comprehend that my obsession with
thinness, fixated thinking about image-management and trying to define myself
from the outside were not the real issues.
Then in an amazing moment of clarity some of my prayers were
answered.
For the first time I could
see there was something very wrong with my whole lifestyle and my sense of self
within it and once I ‘got it’ things began to change.
When Karen Carpenter died I was amazed to
learn that what I had been doing since my late teens had finally had a name and
a diagnosis.
Well imagine that.
Too bad it hadn’t been addressed when I was
being tortured by the medical model all those years ago.
Up to that point a part of me did not really believe that
what I was doing could actually kill me.
I had been doing it for so long never in the thirty year span had any
doctor ever said that there could be some long term health problems with what I
was doing.
But the media hype around her
death mentioned that her heart gave out and that was a big newsflash for
me.
As unfortunate as it was to hear
about Karen’s death added another dimension to the clarity I was developing
from within.
It forced me to sit down
and ask myself some really tough questions.
As I sat quietly I could not help
but wonder whether I had an unspoken, formerly unacknowledged death with and
that maybe the eating disorders were how I was unconsciously planning to fulfill
it.
That hard core question about
whether my death wishes were stronger than my life wishes changed the course of
my life path.
I knew deep within my
being that I did not want to die and that I had better smarten up or the choice
might not be mine to make.
From that point on the course of my life path began to
change in strange and mysterious ways.
Once I made a decision to live I embarked on a quest to heal my life and
stop allowing feeling of victim hood to shape the events in my life.
As I kept my focus on regaining health,
balance I sought out a series of therapists and alternative health
practitioners in a whole-person approach to my healing.
Therapy helped me to stop playing the blame
game with my parents and put energy into taking responsibility for the choices
I was making within whatever circumstance I was in.
Had I had a hard life in some ways? Most
definitely.
Had my family of origin
contributed to my personal and health problems?
Undeniably.
But through time I had to accept that I could
either live in the past with all the hurt, regret, blame and shame or I could
choose to forgive all of it and move on.
And that was what I did and I continue to do that today.
Now admittedly the changes didn’t happen
overnight.
It took a lot of
self-ownership, therapy, changing my diet and my mindset to help me become
healthy rather than skinny.
The more I
focused on building a more positive sense of self and striving to be healthy
and whole the less time I had to worry about my outer appearance.
I was beginning to live life in the reverse
of how I once did—from the inside out.
As
I learned how to manage my life, handle stress and focus on goal setting and
goal-getting my world and everything in it changed for the better.
As I learned how like and love myself and
accept my shortcomings as part of being human I also was able to establish safe
boundaries with others.
As I progressed
along my path towards wholeness and happiness I recovered repressed memories of
sexual abuse and it became clear that I had been treating myself the way I had
been treated.
I had been abused and felt
that was what I deserved and I found a way to abuse myself—and what was what
the eating disorders represented for me.
It is so obvious now—all change begins with awareness and once I was
aware of why I did what I did I was able to change the pattern forever and
never go back.
I made it through and
life today is sweeter, richer, healthier and more abundant than it ever was in
what many call the prime years of their life.
I now thank God that when I had considered ending my life that it never
happened.
If I had died or taken my own
life I would be missing all the good that I now enjoy.
That is part of why I am so committed to
sharing what I have learned.
It has been
said that anyone who has met the challenge and overcome it has a moral duty to
chare it.
And so that is what I do.
As my journey through the past brings me back into present
time I realize why I felt a need to go sit in on that support group. They may not be ready to hear what I have to
say but I know there are many out there who are. As I was able to transform I began developing
and presenting workshops about a system of weight management that works from
the inside out. The Body Dynamics System
I developed with my life and business partner David Malloy has a proven track
record that assists people change their lives by changing and re-framing their
attitudes and behaviors. I've Been
There is the name of my memoir and it chronicles how anyone can change their
life for the better when they are ready and there is someone ready to offer
care, understanding and some guidance about how to do it.
That what our company the company David and I
run together is appropriately named Fresh Beginnings because it is never too
early or too late to get a start!
