Hungry Ghosts of the Food Kind

Today I walked into a Weight Watchers center. I hadn't even put it on my "to-do" list or personal goals. In fact, I can't imagine losing weight at all. Yet, like an alcoholic who knows that the obsession with their favorite substance is ruining their life, I blindly made my way.

I told Partner at lunch that I thought I was going to go sign-up.

In the past, I had all kinds of reasons not to do it. Money. Time. Hormones. I already know about good nutrition and self-care. Don't I teach it myself?

Walking through the door felt incredibly scary. I was in the midst of wrestling with my demons, yet had enough sanity to continue walking and forced a smile. But deep within I felt shame. Deep shame and sadness. I wanted to cry. How did I get to this point?

My confusion has to do with food and my relationship to my self and the world.

My story line goes something like this: I grew up on a farm where "if we had nothing else, we damned sure had food." Another message: food is love. Survival at the physical and emotional levels seems to be the theme, even though I am about as safe as anyone could be at this time in my life.

I gained weight beginning in early childhood. I did my first Weight Watchers as a teenager. I've been teased about my weight from my earliest days. I've never been thin, but even when I was in a healthier range, my head was always in "fat girl" mode.

When I was in my 20's, I started to see a counselor to cope with the stresses of life. After several months into counseling, this brave person brought up my obsession with food. I worked at a health food store. Tried to fix healthy meals. Nutrition wasn't the issue. So, I was encouraged to study my eating habits.

A few weeks into self-observation, I found myself at home with two small crying children and feeling incredibly overwhelmed. I grabbed a pack of rice crackers, turned the rocking chair facing the corner of the room (as if to put myself into time out) and sat eating those dry, tasteless wheels as if they could somehow help.

This incident really helped me get in touch with my stress-eating response. It wouldn't be until just a few years ago that I actually felt a deeper connection to my condition. I lost weight and had a more balanced approach to eating for a while.

As I approached my 40's and now 50's, I simply didn't need as much food to live. At some point, I gave up trying to keep my weight down. Food brought me pleasure. At the same time, I felt like I was losing control of my own life.

I found myself overeating again and didn't seem to be able to stop. I was uncomfortable. I was aware I was doing this, but kept at it and decided to observe whatever arose.

One day in particular helped me gain understanding. As I ate and grew fuller, there was a point where the distention/pressure in my mid-section crossed over some kind of line. It was like an adrenaline pick-up. I experienced it as release. I could relax now.

Almost immediately afterwards, I realized that overeating caused some kind of relaxation response, I had a realization that this tight feeling felt like self-hugging. The bands of tissue, ribs, skin, or whatever else felt like tension, literally, held the "me" that was needing self-soothing or whatever I took for love.

It was an insight that, while useful, didn't really change anything. I did practice compassion for myself and others who use food to self-sooth. But, I continued to creep up the scale.

So why go to Weight Watchers now?

In trauma work, therapists talk about what happens once a person finally feels safe enough to "thaw" from their helplessness of the trauma. Is it possible that my life is finally "safe" enough or that I have enough pieces of a foundation for moving forward? Or am I just so miserable, that I feel that I cannot tolerate this self-abuse anymore? It just isn't worth the distorted pleasure that keeps tricking my brain into more eating.

Having a financial safety net that didn't exist earlier is helping me overcome the cost of paying for support. Then there have been the horrifying moments of seeing my naked self in the mirror. Or worse yet, after my father-in-law's death, I developed a crack in my skin under my belly fat. It took a week to heal. I was mortified. I was one of those fat people.

This is such a tender place. If you see me, don't scare the "me" that is afraid by talking too loudly or slapping me on the back for encouragement. Should I fail at this, it would just add to the shame. If I am "successful", then there are a whole host of problems around identity that worry me. And besides, what is failure or success when what I really just want is to live my life?

If you feel moved to share your hungry ghosts stories, whisper them to me - we don't want to give them any reason to stir up trouble.

Food and a Corpse

Death and food are weird partners in my family. Let me explain.

An understanding recently came to me: when my grandmother died a few weeks ago, that while her dead body was still cooling off in her bed and the funeral home caretaker was in her driveway sitting in a hearst, my parents and sister were eating lunch just a smidge away from a corpse.

I guess at one level it doesn't matter. I grew up in a farm family with life and death as a constant part of our drama. Memories of trying to eat our 4-H projects would be just one example.

Grandma died just before lunch at 12:15 p.m. The hospice nurse had been called. She did her thing. An uncle came and wailed. The funeral home was waiting to take the body, but a cousin wanted to see the remains at home before final departure. My sister called and left a message on my phone to return her call.

It didn't dawn on me when I returned my sister's call at 1:25 p.m. that when she said she needed to get off the phone for lunch, that Grandma was still in the bed, just a few steps away from the kitchen.

My diabetic dad and hypoglygemic sister were famished. The food was already ready.

"Gotta go; gotta eat," she said with urgency.

It wasn't until the next day when we spoke that I "got" the timeline and scenario. This was the same conversation where we were talking about mom's insistence to hold a meal after the funeral for family only back at the house.

There would be no public gathering for my very public grandmother; no sharing of food with others or connecting with friends for support. Just the family, back at the house - something my mother had been trying to organize for the past ten years. This time the family would submit. And they did.

Thinking back to the post-death scene, I'm not sure that lunch was necessary. Maybe a stick of cheese to hold the blood sugar. A piece of fruit and some veggies. But I know my immediate family. This was a full-blown Sunday meal.

For some people, personal safety requires a security system, guns, police, or the military. For my family, it is food.

The production of food (farming), the selling of food (grocers), and the consuming of food (often with health consequences) give us a fragile sense of security. Which, paradoxically, also creates great anxiety when anything messes with any of these variables.

This isn't normal. It's a reaction to something.

Marion Woodman, a Jungian analyst, points out that anorexics have an underlying death wish. They want to evaporate, go away. Those who overeat or are bulimics actually have a strong desire to live. They keep eating to connect with life, and want more, more, more, mindlessly stuffing themselves, filling the hole. Neither are healthy.

But, my grandmother loved food. Perhaps this was a legacy of her love.

This isn't any more morbid than Jesus saying, "Take, eat, this is my body. Take, drink, this is my blood.

Communion. A creative act of imagination, a mystery, that touches the heart. Or, just a basic act of living another day.

Food, swallowing and the breath

Today driving home from the hospital, I did NOT buy an ice cream cone.

The mental comment that my father-in-law had going in my head has been the one I've heard ever since I've known him. He'd say that he ate hamburgers, ice cream, or whatever he liked because he watched his own father not be able to eat once he got colon cancer. Later it would be his own wife he'd watch starve to death from the same cancer.

My father-in-law now has colon cancer himself and has been hospitalized for the past 2 1/2 weeks with no food, unless you count IV fluids and a nasal feeding tube with his "milkshake." The only thing by mouth he's had, has been the barium liquid for radiology tests.

Since the abdominal surgery to remove a tumor, he has been one very sick guy. First there was a surgery that he did not want, followed by a sluggish recovery, then sepsis less than a week after the surgery, with shingles cropping up after the infection. He's been in bed weakening for over three weeks.

Today was the first attempt to feed him "solid" food.

I went to the hospital after lunch not knowing that today they'd be trying to feed him. Apparently, he had choked when trying this first meal.

After a quick swallow study and a consult with a speech therapist (who not only work on speech but also swallowing), we learned that the study indicated that he could eat pureed foods fine. But liquids would slide into his lungs. No problem, give him thickened drinks.

The speech therapist left. The nurse said the family could feed him. She was too busy trying to give meds out to feed him. The speech therapist wouldn't be back until tomorrow to work with him.

My step-mother-in-law looked at me and suggested I feed him. I think she believes that this requires special training. But I also sense that the physical care of him is too emotional and difficult for her to do.

I know how she feels. I have been working in geriatrics for over 20 years, but when it is someone you love, the emotional side kicks in. I wind up feeling drained and overly sensitive after visits with him.

There is also the knowledge that he'd just choked an hour or so before, which left me feeling like I hoped to God he didn't choke on me either. What if I killed him?

All of this brought up bad memories from almost 30 years ago.

I was visiting my grandmother's uncle at a nursing home after he'd broken a hip. He was like a father to her.

My grandmother had the idea that when she hugged him last that his neck was stiff and that he was already dying on her. I'm not sure why she thought that, but I didn't think that it was right to leave him alone in the nursing home.

The next day, I stayed with him for the day. He probably was dying. There was a yeasty smell to his breath that I have never smelled before or since. His breath was labored; he rattled when he breathed. He was dying.

When I came back, an aide was feeding him. Why? And then, he inhaled a spoonful of food into his lungs. His eyes opened wider and he struggled. I said why were you feeding him? She said because she was told to. Then a nurse came in and told me to leave.

He died shortly afterwards. Exactly when, I don't know because I wasn't in the room.

I'd grown up on a farm and saw lots of animal deaths. I'd seen dead people in funeral homes laid out. I'd seen a dead old man on my 13th birthday laid out on Rt 15 after a tractor trailer had hit his car - only a little blood trickled out of the nose and ears of his lifeless body. There was no doubt that he was stone dead.

But, I hadn't seen the struggle of suffocation in humans until the aide fed my dying uncle's lungs.

Working in geriatrics. I've seen lots of elderly with impaired swallowing function inhale their drinks, food, saliva, medication, etc. It is a horrible way to live. It is such a struggle for them to exist with this agitation.

Residents in nursing homes hate to watch others gasp with their choking as they try to eat at their table. They lose their own appetite.

As I've been writing this, I keep trying to clear my throat. I imagine my throat constricting. I cough a little. Sinus drainage exaggerates all of this.

I no longer need to eat for my father-in-law since he is back to oral nutrition. But now I find myself wanting to breath without aggravation for him.

I'm not sure what the prayer is for him at this point. Maybe this is a good time to meditate on mindful breathing... and swallowing.

Peace on Earth

Mid-holiday season, the time between Christmas and New Years, I am enjoying the music, the bundling up to keep warm, the conversations with old and new friends, and the excuse to eat favorite foods.

Holiday music, the blues and funk have been playing in the house. My daughters have decided that cooking to soul music is more inspiring than traditional holiday music. A walk across the kitchen becomes a dance.

Actually, it isn't that simple.

I get the feeling that listening on Pandora Radio via the internet is more than a metaphor. The open box, it seems, is the conjouring room called a kitchen. The ingredients include past knowledge and all kinds of trouble that are the stuff of family politics. My daughters are now in their mid-twenties. They have taken over the kitchen for holiday meals.

Ideally, we would be doing a dance to encourage each other to do what they do best or perhaps express their deepest desire. This holiday cooking time moved beyond beginners luck of glorious meals produced uneventfully to this time where we had ovens that cooked unevenly, a turkey that wasn't going to serve enough as people were added to the guest list, and foods that we simply ran out of time to prepare.

During the last holiday meal preparation, there was a meltdown. Chaulk it up to hormones.

One of the kids had tried to tell me how to make roasted veggies. I basically told her to back off. She could make the dishes she was making her way. I was making mine my way. The son-in-law tried to intervene. I certainly wasn't dancing gracefully at that moment. Couldn't I just have acknowledged her ideas and moved a little kinder in the kitchen?... my kitchen?

That was part of the problem. When the girls cooked, they really worked well together. But I was the one who couldn't figure out how to share space. I had become used to cooking alone in this kitchen. When they were home, there was almost a glee in kicking mom out of the kitchen, mom's kitchen.

We moved a few years ago from a very tiny house to a more spacious home. When we cooked in the old house, we couldn't help but bump into each other as we moved around the tiny space. Now we had more space, a different space, in a different time.

These women have taken favorite recipes from their grandmothers and great-grandmothers and are making them their own to bring to the holiday table. There is such emotion in this cooking.

As the guest list grew and it became clear that one turkey would not be enough, I pulled out a beef to roast. Well, that screwed up the intricate, but unseen schedule someone was keeping in their mental calculations. Actually, I'm not sure who was figuring this out, but all hell was breaking loose.

Ovens were cranked up hotter, hands moved faster, recipes adjusted, creative cooking got more creative. Someone was trying to keep up with cleaning pots and pans, so that we could reuse them for other dishes. We were doing a dance and didn't know it.

Dinner was served a little later than planned. That's okay. There are family members who always come late anyway. Those who leave early stayed a little longer. Funny how this worked out.

Hospitality is a grace that my maternal side of the family understood. It isn't just the food, it is the awareness that everyone counts and is included. Truth be told, some of those dishes are awful, but are so packed with memories that they have to be included. This stuff defies logic. But each food or gift or conversation brings with it a connection to something larger than the face of the thing. I suppose it is love in all of its imperfect and messy glory.

Later in the night when everything was winding down, Pandora was switched off and traditional choral music was playing about the birth of Christ and the hope that comes with it. Somehow this music, too, motivates my family to find our groove in that most feminine of gifts: nourishment and hospitality.

As with our family holiday prayer: may this food be put to the use in the service of building God's Kingdom here on earth. Bless all who are here and especially those who aren't. Peace be with you. To which I would add, may love be with you in all of its imperfect and messy glory.

I wish all these things for you... and if you get a chance to eat Bean's angelic homemade mashed potatoes or Pumpkin's pies you are in for a treat. Their tag lines could be: No storebought instant foods used, or specializing in comfort foods. This proud momma can imagine a heavenly rest-stop/restaurant here on earth.