made perfect sense to me, but hearing the thunderous roar of laughter spewing forth from the adults as she immediately recounted the story, I was mortified. At the tender age of three, I made a decision to never make a mistake again—the shame was too great and I felt crushed.
I set out to be “the best little girl in the world”—to be perfect and do everything right. Inside I felt very alone—a feeling heightened by my father traveling a lot for business and my mother being emotionally unavailable. It wasn't long before I discovered that stuffing myself with food was a great way to take the edge off the emptiness inside.
When I was six, my brother was born, and the hoopla surrounding the birth of a male said to me that boys matter and girls don't. I felt negated for being “just a girl.” The hole inside me continued to grow, and I bolted through meals in an attempt to fill the void. I was losing the ability to feel physical hunger—I ate to feel full and to numb out. I ate large portions whenever possible. I ate with gusto, and I wanted to feel stuffed.
Although never diagnosed, I exhibited many of the symptoms of childhood depression. I had very little energy; many times on my walk home from school I had to push myself to take the next step and then the next. I felt depressed about my weight and disgrace around it. Life was not fun; it was an ordeal to be lived through. No, life was an ordeal to be smiled through. Smile, no matter what I am feeling. Smile, no matter what is happening. Smile, to keep my inner pain a secret.
As I grew older, I became more and more quiet and isolated. A voracious reader, I kept to myself most of the time with my nose in a book. In the presence of others, I did whatever I was expected to do—filling the role of the good student, the good helper, the good daughter, and the good sister. I put on my I am wonderful mask, wore a smile on my face, and suppressed my feelings. Even though I often acted like the hero of the family, I usually felt like the invisible lost child. I needed extra food to pull this off.
I first realized my dissatisfaction with my body during my preteen years. When I was seated, a roll of fat protruded around my belly. One day my father grabbed it and said in a teasing voice, “What's this?” I felt humiliated. I had something on my body that wasn't accepted, and I couldn't hide the fat. My body image issues had begun.
I knew I needed to lose weight, and the next morning I wrote in my diary: “Today I am starting my diet.” The following day I wrote: “Yesterday I had a chocolate-chip cookie. Today I am really starting my diet.” Then the next day I scribbled: “Yesterday I had some candy. Today I am really, really starting my diet!”
Each day I would pledge to start again. For me, in those days, dieting meant I wouldn't have any sweets, and it was a struggle to not eat sugar. Visiting a friend's house, I'd often sneak into the kitchen and surreptitiously wolf down cookies or chocolate chip-muffins. Or I found excuses to go to my next-door neighbor's house, where, when no one was looking, I'd head straight for the candy drawer, which was always filled with chocolate haystacks and other mouth-watering goodies.
Although the portions were substantial at our family meals, I always wanted more so I would feel satiated. When I'd ask for another helping, Mom or Dad might remark, “Didn't you have enough?” or, more emphatically, “You've had plenty!” The only way I could consume enough to feel full was to eat in secret, and early on I developed my talent for sneaking food to not feel so empty. For example, my mother would sometimes bring home a loaf of fresh, warm, Jewish rye bread, and I'd creep into the kitchen and snatch slices from the middle, pushing the ends closer together so it just looked like a smaller loaf. I'd gobble the bread down as fast as I could—without ever tasting it—so nobody would see me.
When I was ten, I entered a pancake-eating contest and easily won. And I could have kept on eating—I only stopped cramming in the pancakes because they had already named me the winner. I liked those eating contests. They were the only times I would allow others to see how much I could consume.
Somehow I fooled everyone about my eating behavior, and no one seemed to know the quantity I consumed. It was important for me to eat in secret because criticism shattered me. Jarring words cut into me like a scathing sword. I chose to be good and look good to avoid harsh judgments and disapproval. At one point, I even wished I had a tapeworm. I thought it would be the perfect solution—scarf down as much food as I wanted and let the tapeworm eat it so I wouldn't gain weight. I also considered swallowing Mexican jumping beans—maybe the larva inside each bean would consume my fat!
When I look back at early childhood photos, I don't see a grossly fat kid. Yes, sometimes a little chunky, but not obese. My parents, however, believed I needed to lose weight, and the diets began at age eleven. They took me to the family doctor, who put me on my first diet and gave me a shot once a week. I became stoic, rolled up my sleeve for the injection, and never complained. Although I kept my feelings submerged, I still felt them. I believed I was inferior and defective—land mines for compulsive overeaters like me. And, though I lost weight, I was never able to keep it off.
As a teen, I identified with the lyrics of a popular Platters song, “The Great Pretender”—pretending to do well but really feeling very alone. I saw myself as an impostor. Every day in seventh grade I'd walk home from school with classmates, and we'd always cut through the local department store. Meandering through the Juniors department, the other girls looked at the size 5 and 7 clothing. I feigned looking at the size 9s and 11s, as if I wore that size. Who was I fooling? I was squeezing myself into a size 15.
Yes, I pretended a lot. I pretended it didn't matter to me that my daddy was gone all week and I felt abandoned. I pretended I didn't care if no one gave me a compliment or if I wasn't asked out on a date. I got so used to pretending that I lost track of what was real and what was the world I invented or pretended to live in.
Since I had mastered the art of closet eating, I knew I was tricking others into believing I was constantly on a diet and ate only low-calorie food. When eating out with friends, I'd order a small meal and never anything fattening. But I had to eat something substantial beforehand in order to pull off this charade. If I had consumed solely what I allowed others to see me eating, I probably would have weighed 90 pounds!
But I didn't weigh 90 pounds, and I had a strong reaction to the numbers on the scale. If the scale read 125–130, my spirits were high and I loved life. When the scale read 150, I hated myself, verbally lambasted myself, and everything looked dark and bleak. It perplexed me how my weight fluctuated 25 pounds—it felt as if I'd get up one day and the numbers on the scale had mysteriously jumped way up.
As teenagers, my friends began dating, but I spent my Saturday nights babysitting—a job I loved. I was in compulsive-overeater heaven: unlimited use of the phone, my favorite TV shows, and snacks galore. I convinced myself it didn't matter that I didn't date; I had my babysitting job, so I was alone with my real love: the food!
I tried “diet pills,” which I found out later were speed. But instead of feeling wired, I felt extremely tired. Several of my friends loved these new pills and seemed to get skinnier by the minute. Once again I felt defective. Why did these pills work for others but not for me? What was wrong with me?
During a routine physical, I was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid. I heard this with great excitement and hope—thyroid medication was, I thought, the magic pill I had been looking for. Now the weight would fall off. No such luck—I took the thyroid meds, but the weight hung on.
I was continually on the lookout for the latest diet craze and was filled with high expectations when I discovered Metrecal—the first diet drink. Used as a meal replacement (except by my grandmother, who misunderstood and drank it with her meals and then wondered why she didn't lose weight!), I drank it for lunch each day. But I didn't achieve the much-desired weight loss. I tried fad diets and other diet pills. I chewed on AYDS (an appetite suppressant tasting so much like chocolate candy
