MORE THOUGHTS ON CONTROLLING THE OUT OF CONTROL "CHILD"

Hey there,

Thanks for your comments on yesterday's post. I appreciate your honesty and feedback and really see your points of view.

That said, I'm working hard on trusting myself now. Maybe i'll fall flat on my face, but i'm seeing some evidence of success.

As an FYI, I have been to so much therapy - 4 Hospital Inpatient Eating Disorder Programs, many eating disorder nutritionists and therapists. Just as my singing teacher arrived when i was "ready," I'm going to trust God that the right therapist/teacher will arrive when I am ready.

Right now, i'm going to stay on my own for a little while. I understand it can be intolerable to read. I'm sorry.

I think alot about Geneen Roth and the process her students go on, learning how to stop binge eating and I'm sure they go through pounds of butter as well, until they figure it out. My health is a concern, certainly, but honestly, i can't see going on another diet or "811" if I'm just going to gain it all back, which i just did. It seems pointless.

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I wrote the following last night. It was really helpful to me in recognizing that the focus of my out of control eating has been askew for a long, long time.

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So, my mother and father had a hard time controlling my eating as a child.

My brother and I are both adopted, so we're not genetically connected to my parents, or each other. My brother was always naturally slim. I was always naturally plump. My mother is a naturally thin person, as well. My father can have a tendency to be heavy, but was slender as a young man and adult, but when he got older and became less and less active, he put on weight.

My brother, being naturally thin, liked the good stuff - canned Chef Boyardee Ravioli's, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Tastykakes, icecream. My thin mother bought these items freely for my thin brother.

I, on the other hand, have been on a diet since I'm 10 years old. My mother bought me celery sticks and lo-fat dressings. I was forbidden from eating "Ricky's food."

When i came home from school, it was a big binge time for me. I remember being alone, as at that time, my mom was working, I was supposed to be vacuming, but there I was raiding the cabinets for my brother's food. I made many a can of his private Ravioli's, enjoyed many a box of his stolen Mac'n cheese.

It would be discovered that something of his was missing from the cabinets and I can just hear my father's voice, yelling for me, "Michelle?!!!!!" "Yes, Dad," my heart pounding. "Did you eat Ricky's Macaroni and Cheese?" Guilty, i nodded yes. "God dammit, you're gonna become the side of a barn!"

Maybe i did it to get attention? As a kid, you want any kind of attention you can get, even negative attention.

Soon my mom began hiding Ricky's special reserved foods all over the house. There would be canned Raviolis in the dining room cabinets and the mac 'n cheese would be hiding behind her china, as well. In mom's upstairs closet, I discovered many assortments of cookies, chocolates, M&M's. It became like a fun game! I'd search and dig and wow, find them all, and eat up everything! Success!

I was constantly getting punished for eating Ricky's food.

The punishing really didn't work. I still couldn't control myself. I still stole his food. My mother kept hiding it, thinking this time I wouldn't find it. My eating has been out of control for quite a long time.

Dinner time was never a pleasant experience. My father was never happy. He was harsh and overly critical, unkind, insensitive. I don't think i ever felt loved. I felt used and abused. I recall I was always full from my after school binges and that dinnertime was tense and hurtful. When cleaning up after dinner, i'd steal the food i wasn't allowed at dinner.

Stealing food is a very, very old pattern. Today i steal Cliff's food.

I know now of the pain i was stuffing. Pain from school, name calling and difficulties with school work. Pain from sexual abuse, mental and emotional abuse and hitting, too. Pain from constant shaming, name calling, belittling from people who supposedly loved me. I know I was acting out alot and that no one noticed that anything was "bothering" me... They only noticed the missing food and me getting fatter.

I recognize i'm TOTALLY guilty of that as well. I have pains today I rarely talk about, things in my many close relationships i'm not happy with, things that bother me, worry me. I don't talk about those enough. My dissatisfaction with my house, my way of life, my lack of a career... No, I talk about food and being fat. I'm guilty of doing just what my parents did.

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Somehow whenever I connect and really think about the parent in me taking charge, i'm able to break free of binge eating. I'm talking about the good and loving parent in me. (There is also the overly critical parental voice that lives in me as well.)

The child, the one who binges, for fun, for pleasure, in boredom, putting off what needs to be done, procrastinating, being fearful, anxious, for really any reason, can so easily overtake my internal psyche. She takes charge so easily, i really don't even notice.

I have to consciously connect with that good parent.

It dawned on me that the good parent is really probably the same as the "higher man" concept in Christianity. And the out of control child is probably akin to the "sin self" in Christianity as well. It's all the same thing, but you can call it different names.

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When I think of my cousin and how she is with her three grown daughters, i often become very angry at her, not at her children. Her chidren are miserable, nasty, rude and mean to their mother. But, my cousin trained her children to treat her like they do. She does everything for them, bends over backwards for them, and they treat her like crap, are not considerate of her, nor loving, or caring. She has little control over them. Or rather, she has ALLOWED them to take control.

She gave away her control. She's desperate to get their love, but she doesn't have their respect.

When we allow children to take charge, things don't work out too good. Children don't have the wisdom to make the right choices and decisions.

When I wake up and don't get in contact with my "higher man" or the good parent in me, the child or my sin self can take over so easily.

This appears to be a spiritual problem, binge eating.

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I remember when I did my student teaching in German how awful it was. I have a PA Instructional I Certificate to teach German, yet I do not teach German. For fear of the children. I let them walk all over me. I had very little control over them.

The child in me, the timid child, was in charge and did a very poor job of it. I'm sure i did my fair share of eating then, too. I was quite heavy at the time.

Not possessing a wise internal authority figure, teaching became unmanagible. The lack of control over myself or others has kept me from pursuing school teaching all of these 20+ years, although i am certified.

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We've spoken about my terrible housekeeping. Did i tell you what i used to do as a kid, to my school desk? To my locker? I just cleaned out the back of my car today of binge wrappers and it reminded me. All of the wrappers filled a giant trash can.

Well, as a child I was no different. My elementary school desk was so jam packed with papers, old homework, old lunches, books, that the teacher wrote a note to my mother to come in and clean the desk out.

And my locker in high school smelled so bad from all of the diet lunches my mother packed me that i didn't eat - i preferred to borrow money and buy fattening lunches - that my mother used to come to school, at night, when no one was in the hallway, and clean out my locker for me.

Making messes has been another lifelong pattern. Ask Megan "Megabytes" about my house and she will tell you i'm still in that holding pattern. I have a room upstairs that was once so nice, but is now so jammed with stuff, that you can't even walk in there.

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Making shrimp for Cliff tonight, i realized I didn't have to eat it, that the parent could be in charge.

Suddenly, it was easy to say no. I walked by the shrimp over and over again and felt no urge to eat it. Wow. I KNOW I've hit upon something with all of this.

If i am going to get myself in control, i am going to have to wake up every day, contact that parental higher place, meditate on it, pray about it, and allow that higher wisdom to really take charge. I'll have to check in with the parent many times a day. It sounds good. What's so wrong with that?

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I am a huge fan of THE SUPERNANNY, you know, the TV show about parenting? The website is: http://www.supernanny.com/. Jo, the supernanny is so incredible, such an amazing parental force, loving, disciplining, nurturing, calm, in control. She is my idol! Jo is so adept at analyzing behaviors and finding solutions. My God, she is AMAZING. I have always loved that show since my teaching days. How does she KNOW how to do all of that stuff?, i often marveled. She would take a kid that was so out of control, acting out, and teach the parents to take charge, take control, with seemingly simple techniques, and the results were astounding, as long as the parent really committed to the course Jo created for them, and followed through on the advice.

Sometimes the advice seemed CONTRARY to what you would THINK would help. Such as with a crying baby. Jo teaches the mother to NOT pay attention to the child, NOT pick her up. She directs her to NOT make eye contact, sit in the bedroom, moving closer and closer to the door. After a few days of this, the child realizes she is safe being left alone and that mommy will not respond to her tantrums. Amazing.

At the follow up portion of the show, the kids are often in good control following their new routines, much happier to be in control that out. The parents are happier, too.

I think my problem is often that I don't follow through with a plan i'm on. Like now. I could easily get cold feet, get scared, give up, run back to dieting just when i am so close to actually contacting something akin to SELF CONTROL. I usually jump around from one plan to the next, from one expert to the next, instead of really digging my heels in and committing seriously to what I want. The problem is - i haven't established really sincerely what plan felt worthy of committing to.

I'm coming closer and closer to that realization.

I did well today with my food, all raw while working at Arnold's Way, a chocolate smoothie and a green smoothie for breakfast, some hummus and veggies and raw crackers for lunch, and then a big salad, raw cheese and organic crackers for dinner.

I'm realizing that I want it all. I want to have my cake and eat it, too. What's wrong with dreaming?

xoxo michelle joy