Heidi's Food Addicts Boot Camp Journal #31

"Feeling like giving up is a message from your issues that they want you to stop and return to the status quo. The immature part of you is probably screaming for you to forget this whole thing and just accept being overweight and get on with your life. It just wants to be out of pain, no matter the cost." Dr. A

I feel like I am being smothered by the realization of my mundane immaturity. And I still don’t get it. Well, I think I am getting a glimmer of it, but not much. At least I can write about it. It (immaturity) seems such a simplistic cause of my inaction and inattention to my weight loss process. And yet, at the same time, I am beginning to see it is a very complex cause.

All I have been thinking about all week is: immature. My thoughts are immature, my attitudes are immature and my perspectives are immature. Did I leave anything out? Oh, and my choices and behavior are immature! And my immature part is indeed screaming! Screaming like its life depended on it! It screams: You are not immature; you have your act together in SO many ways! You handle this life in a superior way! You are more Ok than the average individual!

But I am immature, I say. And I repeat it often; quietly, over and over. It is the only way I can seem to begin to face it. It does seem so mundane, so simple and so not me. I am deep and complex and multi-faceted and multi-talented. Don’t I have some deep, dark pain that I am just too afraid to expose, so I stay fat? Don’t I have all these “issues” and “problems” that keep me fat? I find it so difficult to accept that there are probably no “hidden” issues, experiences or deep, dark secrets that are the cause of my weight. After several years of therapy, it is time for me to accept that reality.

So what am I left with? My immaturity is all that is left. It keeps coming up, over and over again. But I just do not want to accept it. How can I have let something like that hold me back? Maturity to face life is something that I logically knew as a 40 year old, 30 year old even as a 22 year old woman. I got a degree, got a job and paid my bills. Why the major disconnect to my inner world?

I am going to assign myself homework for this week. Since I can not seem to get “it” or face “it”, I will carry a little notebook all week and write down every time I have an immature thought, attitude, perspective or choice. I am afraid I will be spending the week with my nose inside the notebook! By doing this, I hope I can see in black and white my immaturity. Otherwise, I am not so sure I will accept it. It is so easy to slip into denial.
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Dr Anderson Responds to Heidi

Heidi, lets start with your comment about your “act”.

"And my immature part is indeed screaming! Screaming like its life depended on it! It screams: You are not immature; you have your act together in SO many ways! You handle this life in a superior way! You are more Ok than the average individual!" Heidi

Your comments contain a very important clue. Your immature part tells you that you have your act together in so many ways. The clue here is the use of the word ACT.

Yes, you have been working hard to put together an appearance of being completely together....but appearances can be deceiving. An act is not real. It is a fabrication. Getting one’s act together is what teens try to do because they so desperately want to appear cool, hip, sophisticated and competent. But it remains a fabrication.

Your task Heidi is not to create a together act. Your task is to grow up and become the competent, expressive, capable adult that you truly are. For real.

It seems that you were deceived by your own act even though your body has been screaming that something very different has been occurring. (Your weight does not lie.) Instead you listened to the act and then became surprised at the results you were producing.

Heidi, I suspect that this deception was a large 800 pound gorilla that lived in the kitchen and living room of your home as you grew up. Your family was probably plagued with a significant level of immaturity and no one was willing or able to admit or confront it. Thus you learned to do the same.

"It does seem so mundane, so simple and so not me. I am deep and complex and multi-faceted and multi-talented. Don’t I have some deep, dark pain that I am just too afraid to expose, so I stay fat? Don’t I have all these “issues” and “problems” that keep me fat?" Heidi

Heidi, immaturity may sound mundane to you but it can be highly dysfunctional and even down right dangerous if it is pervasive in one’s childhood. A family needs grownups as parents. If parents act, think and feel like children then there is no center, no grounding, no safety, no trustable guidance, no true authority or respect and no clarity about the path to adulthood. Children have to make their own way and thus they almost always grow up physically but not emotionally or intellectually. They develop attitudes, behaviors and emotional reactions to life that to them are adult but in actuality are vaguely camouflaged childishness. And as you know, a child cannot function effectively in this highly complex and stressful world.

You do have a dark pain, Heidi. But you have cloaked it in the word “mundane”. In fact, growing up in a family where immaturity reigns is frightening, confusing and often abusive. You were subject to all of these and each one lefts its mark on you.

I encourage you to look more deeply into the direct and painful effects of immaturity in a family, your own family. Look for how you felt, how it shaped your view of the world, of authorities, of relationships, of self-discipline.......etc. I think this process will help you discover that you do have ample reason for your difficulties in life and with your weight.

Ok, enough for today. God bless you for hanging in there and working this rather difficult issue.

Dr A

Comments

[Nicole]

Heidi,
I really want to thank you for pouring your heart out to all of us week after week. You seem to speak my own story in so many ways, particularly this week. I, too, felt that I had no deep issues or problems to resolve. In reflecting on your comments, I think the things I grew up with were "being a good girl" and stuffing down emotions and discontent. I think the only way I could rebel as a child was by eating what my mom told me not to or sneaking to the grocery store for a bag of Doritos... I have also had to learn to communicate in my marriage in a positive way - pretty difficult for me. I have waited for AHA moments for the last 10 or so years - as I look back, I realize that some of the moments were just little glimmers of understanding, some moments of intense pain. I still have over 100 pounds to lose, too, so I know that I am not there yet, either.

Be kind and gently loving to yourself and to your family. Thanks again for sharing your story so openly and honestly - especially when you really want to quit.
Nicole

[Heidi]

Thank you, Nicole. Your sharing was very affirming.

[Heidi]

Nicole~ Thank you for your very supportive note. It is reassuring to hear that my words have been helpful to you.