pain had returned, I was doubled over in pain and completely out of control with food. Even though I had always had ‘lack of discipline’ when it came to food, this was worse and it terrified me. I was forced to call a friend who just weeks before had told me she was getting help for being a food addict. She called herself a Compulsive Overeater. Because she was significantly heavier than me and said she couldn’t stop eating junk food, it never occurred to me that I might qualify for the same title. You see, I wasn’t obese -- I just needed to lose fifteen pounds. I never ate McDonalds or drank soda like she did. I loved healthy food; I just ate too much of it. It never occurred to me that I was a compulsive overeater even though, in high school, I would stay up all night eating organic healthy cereal while watching exercise videos, prom- ising myself I would stop eating and actually exercise but breaking that same promise night after night.
I felt like a failure and, since starving myself was out of the question, I was pretty sure I did not have an eating disorder. I filed my behavior under lazy, undisciplined and unable to hit that magic number of 110 pounds (what I weighed before I got “fat” at age twelve). So, after losing my mind post-master- cleanse, I called this friend and told her I think I have what you have. I can’t stop eating and I’m scared. That was the first step towards my recovery.
Facing my food addiction was hard. At first the awareness gave me relief. There was finally a name for this thing that I’d always had: a compulsive over-eater. It had a diagnosis: eating disorder.
When I excitedly shared this new diag- nosis with my closest friends (mostly black women), their response was dismissive. They told me I was being dramatic, emotional and just needed to reject our society’s Eurocentric beauty ideals. They couldn’t understand that my disease made it impossible for me to do this. Even when I had a girlfriend who thought I was sexy and beautiful, my disease kept me from internalizing it for myself. I wanted my friends to understand so badly the pain I felt when I looked at myself, when I tried to stop eating and couldn’t, that I went as far as bingeing in front of them to prove that I
had a problem. Of course, it didn’t work and I just sank deeper into the disease.
I started surrounding myself with people in recovery who understood what it was like at age eight to be obsessed with having a six-pack. They understood why at age fourteen I used to do back to back exercise videos after I came home from tennis lessons. They understood and could relate to my demoralization when I couldn’t stop bingeing late at night. My experiences with my mostly white recov- ery community made my feel like they understood me more than my family or my friends did. We shared the pain and shame of having family and friends who were confused and hurt by our disease. For the first time, I actually felt like I belonged somewhere.
I learned to stop involving people outside of my recovery community with my eating disorder. For the first three years I focused on getting better, I had a brief re-
finding a pot of gold. We shared our feel- ings about having what our community viewed as a ‘white girls disease” and the paradox of belonging to a community that is more accepting of our bodies, yet still drowning in self-loathing.
Recovery is an up and down process, never linear and never predictable. Today I feel free of the compulsion to overeat, but there are days when I’m scared or frustrated, when my eating becomes a little messy and I eat more than I need to. I love wearing dresses, short skirts and sleeveless tops, but there are still times when shopping for clothes makes me anxious and insecure. I exercise because I want to take care of my body (as opposed to losing weight) but I can feel insecure in a gym environment. My digestive system is still recovering from years of abuse and there is still a lot of navigating I have to do around several food items that I’m allergic to or intolerant of. I continue to work on not feeling awkward when I’m with friends at a restaurant and I have to ask for substitutions..
I loved healthy food; I just ate too much of it. It
never occurred to me that I was a
compulsive over eater
prieve from bingeing but was still using exercise to control my weight and purge what I was eating. This was unsustain- able and I eventually relapsed and went to a very dark place. I isolated myself, feeling so sick from eating I could barely move or sleep. Afraid to show my body to anyone, I fantasized about cutting my arms. I wanted to die because I felt so hopeless. Thankfully, my recovery com- munity encouraged me to get the help I needed and soon, I started to see other people of color in recovery. It was like
The difference is that I no longer want to cut or kill myself when this happens.
My relationship with food and my body is light-years beyond where it was. It’s amazing how much space has opened up in my life now that my time isn’t wrapped up in my food and body.
I’m
stretching myself in my filmmaking, I have an awesome crazy dog I love and care for, I’m in the healthiest relation- ship I’ve ever been in and I actually can see myself having a child. I’m eternally grateful for my food addiction because it’s allowed me to share my story with other people so that they know they’re not alone and that it is possible to find freedom from addiction.
Tchaiko Omawale has directed and produced several short films and music videos. This year she she makes her feature directorial debut with her film “Solace” inspired by her personal struggles with an eating disorder. You can see her work on
www.solacefilm.com and
www.tchaiko.com
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