This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous.  
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I'm Joanne, I'm an addictive eater.  

I've never shared my story online like this and it is, like, a little bit weird...it's been a  
busy day today so I actually haven't had a lot of time to think about it which is, which is good.
But I do feel a little bit off so...

God knows what's going to come out of my mouth tonight. I hope it makes sense;  
all I thought was 'well I just would  hopefully help somebody that's new'  
and I guess that's what helped me when  I came into a room full of people who  
all had a problem with food like me... I never knew that a program existed for anybody like me.  
I didn't think food was an addiction,  all I could say is that I knew I was  
pretty odd - that I had felt different to everybody different since I was a little girl.
My mum told me that she thought that my problem started when my sister, my younger sister,  
was bought home. Now I had two older sisters,  I was 18 months old when my sister was born.  
I went and stayed with an Auntie when she was in the hospital with  
the baby - when she came home I was different. I  don't think that's probably the case or probably would have been different anyway but I had my nose out of joint, and she said I was never the same after that, and although she had four children I demanded all of the attention.  
Nothing she could do pleased me, anything that she -whatever she did for me - it was the wrong thing to do. She put pants on me, I  wanted a dress. She put a dress on me,  
I wanted pants. It was, I think I made her life very, very difficult and as I grew up I'm  
pretty sure that I would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Things I did,  
you'd say I was just naughty, you know I was actually just naughty and maybe I did want  
attention. I don't know, I think I... it's just because I probably felt that I could  
not be loved enough and that went with me right through into my adult adulthood, that it didn't matter what anything, anybody did they could not love me the way that I needed to be loved. I went through primary school, high school y'know being very self-conscious, really body-conscious.  

Although I felt so odd inside, you know  that 'difference in that loneliness',  
my friends would never have known that, y'know  I had quite a big group of friends... probably  would have thought the kind of the cool kids in  the you know in the group and the high school, the  ones that think they're a bit tough and can do,  you know give a bit of cheek to the teachers and  you know not go to school sometimes and  smoke down the field or in the toilets or  you know one of those groups, at the high  school - actually, that Kay works there  
and I ended up working at -  and my kids all went there and you know it was, it was because I you know, I  never felt like I fitted in anywhere but all my friends never knew that, you know they would have thought that I was just you know, that was fun but, when I used to go home from school I'd either be, often I would be really, really angry and not know why or else I'd be really, really sad because I knew that I didn't fit in.  

So all of those feelings I put on, my dad was  there he was always working, and working late,  
but all of those feelings I put on my mum you know it was, I was difficult to live with.  
I didn't know how to be any different and as I got older and went through high school I think at  high school was when I first started having counseling... to try and find out what was wrong with me, and then as I got older you know,  even before I had children and then after I  had children, I was still searching and still going to counselling. All of that I thought was because I had a weight problem which,  when I look back at photos, I didn't really have a weight problem, I had a thinking problem. I would have a good day depending on what the scales said and whether or not I could fit my clothes.

I was very warped in my thinking, so there were times when I was a bit overweight and there was times when I was certainly underweight, but in my mind, I was always overweight so if I drew a picture of myself I always had a really big,  really big backside, really big hips. I'd walk  
down the shops and I would look in the window as I  walked past and I would be thinking ''oh my God",  you know I was thinking that my backside was going  "pffft, pffft, pfft" (makes swinging noises).

I always had a bag, always had a bag, that  I would wear on one side of my shoulder  
so that on the roadside there was a bag, so that people couldn't see  
these buttocks "pffft, pffft, pfft" (makes swinging noises). This isn't my mind, it's tiring,  
I'm tired, I'm thinking about it, then when I  came back down the street I'd have the bag on  
the other side so people couldn't see that, and then I would get home and get inside that house and think "Oh my God, I'm not, not going out,  I'm not walking down that street again like that" and you know it was every single minute of the day and every day that was what my life was like.

When I had children going to preschool, going to the school, having to walk them to appointments...  was just so hard because I'm, you know I'm paranoid. I hear people talk about, you know people that use drugs meth and smoke lots of pot and everything and that when they stop using they get this complete paranoia... I  had that paranoia 24/7. It was just in me and  I didn't know how not to be like that and it actually drove me, drove me mad.
I thought that I was just always going to be unhappy.  

You know I'd go home from being with friends,  been out for the night, couldn't get drunk enough,  couldn't get stoned enough to just feel normal  on a dance floor or a room and I used to go home  and I used to cry, 'I think there's something  really wrong with me, seriously wrong with me  and I didn't know what' and sometimes I would  go to, before I would go to...before I would go  to sleep I'd be there and I'd be thinking  "Tomorrow, well I'm going to be different  
and wake up and I'm going to feel really  good about myself I'm going to have really  
good self-esteem and I'm going to be nice to  people, I'm going to be nice to my kids" and,  
but the main thing was I was going to wake up and I was going to feel good about myself.  
I'd go to sleep feeling pretty sad but a little  bit hopeful and then I'd wake up the next morning  
or something would happen very early in the  morning and I would feel exactly the same,  
like I was a nobody that everybody was  looking, talking about me, you know the real  
psychiatric illness that would be diagnosed and that'd be its end.

I didn't know how to be any different because  that was just how, how I always was and then I  
started going to counseling and the lady there,  by that time I had you know four children,  
three children, I'd had three children, I  had two children and I was about to go into  
a rehab center which I didn't even know at the time was a psychiatric hospital....  
found out later quite a few years later it was a psychiatric hospital...  
and I went in there, Counsellor sent me there  because she said that I was a family member  
of an alcoholic and that was the reason that I thought and felt the way that I did.  
My father was an alcoholic, my mother was a  foodie and I blamed, I didn't blame my mum  
but I blamed my dad you know, I really did believe the Counsellor when I sat in many, many sessions blaming him for how I was, punching the pillow,  you know just really getting worked up and she sent me to Queen Mary because she told me that I would end up with screwed-up children and no husband if I didn't go and sort myself out as a family member.  
I did all of that and I still ended up with that same thing.

She didn't say that your children would be okay and you'd end up staying married  
with no screwed-up children. Well, I still went and I was - one of my children were two and I was pregnant with, which probably... I got out just with six weeks to go before I had that baby...  and went up there for six weeks and it was the hardest thing that I  
ever did. I cried all the way up there and I  cried in there, I cried when I sat in my room,  
I didn't want to go out and talk with anybody else. 

But when I was up there at that Queen Mary,  I was there with drug addicts and alcoholics and family members,  and I really identified for the first time in my whole life with the other addicts that were there. Everything that they were talking about, everything that they felt, everything that they - the sense of hopelessness that they had  - the loneliness, the self-hatred, the sense of isolation, everything that they talked about,  was everything that I had lived for years. I was there you know doing that family program and somebody there talked about  a food fellowship. 

She'd been in Queen Mary  for the second time, she was going to AA  
and she was my room buddy in the dorm  and she talked about this food fellowship  
and at that time you know, those really  strong feelings of you know, I'm pregnant,  
I'm sitting around table with four people  rotating each week, you go up to get your food,  
you sit down, you want to go up for seconds  and the whole time I'm thinking, "Oh my God,  
I am so fat, these people are looking at me thinking 'why is she eating when she is so fat?  
why is she going up for seconds?' which actually  I hardly ever did, 'why is she eating so much?'
In my warped thinking, I thought that everybody was thinking that about me and why I thought they they were thinking that I was so fat was because  I was not far off having a baby. To me that  I didn't think there was anything wrong with that thinking. I was excited - the only reason  I was excited about going up to that rehab was the thought that somebody was going to control my food and that I might actually lose weight. And again  I didn't think that was warped thinking losing weight when I was pregnant, I just wanted to lose weight because I thought it would make me happy.  

I was walking out of that hospital down the main street in Hamner after meals  
and at night by myself and I was getting a  newspaper and I was buying food and I was  
putting it inside the newspaper to get it back to the room so that I could eat it by myself.  
And I had a lot of guilt and shame about that.  I hated doing that, I didn't know why I did it  
but I couldn't not do it, and I was petrified that people were gonna find out that I was doing it and  I left there after six weeks getting up to doing my Step Four there and then having  
to share it while I was there, but not really understanding anything about that.  
All I understood was that I grew up in  alcoholic home - that was my problem,  
the other people there who were addicts and  alcoholics had this disease of addiction,  
yes I was weird and yes I related, but I didn't  think I had a substance, so I was kind of like  
frustrated and like still sitting on the outside  and not really being able to I absolutely know  
feel like I was home. So I came out of there and  
I had that next baby and I went to Al-Anon for probably around about a year  
and then I can remember just that self-hatred  you know, it never left you know, wanting to be  
you know...I was, I was proud of my babies  you know, proud of my children, loved them,  
was good with babies and I wanted to be able  to enjoy them... you know how you can really  
have that maternal, you know that bond, and you  love them and everything, that you have patience  and you can handle them crying and your sibling  rivalry, and you know you manage that, and  you're very patient and you can read to  them and you can handle all of that...well  
I wasn't doing that, I was so self-caught up in my self and as my  
you know, the younger ones you know  started to get to toddlers and everything,  
I was yelling at them and I was swearing at them  and at times I'd throw things and I'd get in these  fits of anger and I'd hate, I just would hate  that about myself and pray like anything not  
to do that and do it again the next day. 

Now it wasn't like that every single day, but there's  times that I've looked back here and I was like that and I didn't know how not to be like that and I still felt like you know, I was sitting there at Al-Anon, people there were talking about,  yup, they were talking about that, saying the same personality as what I had, but they were also talking about their partners who were behaving really poorly in the home. Yeah, I was behaving really poorly in the home, but it was more than that. Like I just felt like there was something more. 

And I can remember just looking in the mirror and just feeling that self-hatred,  overweight, psoriasis covering my body, tired and exhausted from having a baby, not managing you know in the family home and I remember the girl talking to me about the food fellowship and what she had done. And I looked up the, I  looked it up in the phone book and rang the phone number and two girls came and saw me, two young women came and saw me and they started talking about what they found in this fellowship. They weren't  
consumed with getting on and off the scales. They weren't eating from a craving  
like they were free. You know, they weren't angry all the time, they weren't full of self-hatred.  
I could see that they were free and when they  talked about what life was like for them,  
I started moving toward like that sense of hope. 

You know I kind of had hope when I went into the rehab and you know hope a little bit more, hope when I went to Al-Anon that things were going to get better. I was going to be able to be the person that I wanted to be and then when I talked to those two women I got a little bit more hope, and then when I came to a meeting and people started talking, I just knew you know, like it just consumed me even talking about it now, I can feel it within myself that sense of relief and oh my God people absolutely know what it is like to struggle with this disease every second of the day, every single day and not know how to get out of it,  because no amount of counselling,  no amount of anger management, no amount of what do you call it, you know that positive self-talk and pinning things on my mirror and trying to tell myself how much I love myself,  none of that worked for somebody like me.  It might work for others but it doesn't work  for me; somebody that's got this disease and that what the only thing I need to do is completely get out of myself and how how do you do that?  Like how do you just decide one day or you know sit with counsellors and get out of yourself. You know I know that the whole time  when I was sitting with counselors it was about me thinking about how hard it had been for me,  you know what my father had been like, what my household had been like, but actually  I was in a household that wasn't okay and  I needed to be thinking and trying to find  
how to get out of that and it was by removing the "poor mes" and actually  
allowing a Higher Power to do for me what I  can't do for myself. 

I've been reading about the you know, our opening up our channels chakras you know, and how they can be closed and how from...you know it gives some really good  examples and one of the examples is about,  you know those feelings that you get when you  feel joyous and free and happy when you fall in love with somebody. You have all these feelings  and you feel really great and you know last for a long time until they say something...that  you don't like. And then it's like start to shut down, you don't say anything, say something else - you shut down a little bit more,  and all by choice without thinking you know, we're closing those channels.

And it talks about another example of how you know you can think that you've just got absolutely no energy, you're feeling down, life's really hard and you don't want to get up and you don't want to go to work because somebody's kind of criticized something that you've done so  you don't want your job and you're going to leave your job... and you know all of a sudden you know something really positive comes up! And you get really praised in your job and you think 'great,  it's the greatest job, greatest job I've had or you know that person that you've really had all  these feelings about, you know apologizes and comes to you and say "you know, I was really wrong, really wrong with what I've done, I  know that what I said..." and all of a sudden you open up again and you're feeling all good again.  And you know, I know that there's resentment  and you know talks in the book about you  know it being a choice and how we can either,  you know choose to be open and how you've got to  really work at that but it is a choice... and once  you start feeling those feelings of joy and hope  that you want to have those feelings more and more  and I remember when you know before I came to this  fellowship, that I was such a jealous person and  my ex-husband used to say to me "No you can't,  you can't love anybody else if you don't love  yourself" ...used to really annoy me because for  one, I thought how the hell does a man know that  and then the other thing was I was thinking 'how  the hell do you know why you're telling me that?'  

and I was having this conversation with my oldest son a couple of days ago actually and talked to him about the same things what I felt and the reason that I didn't know what my ex-husband was talking about was because I had never experienced that feeling of being happy and comfortable and loving myself. I didn't know, I didn't know what that felt like and when he was saying that I  had no clue what he meant because I had never felt like that and then when I came into the fellowship and started to get freed up from myself, in my own thinking and that obsession to eat was removed I started to... those feelings of that self-hatred started to fall away and for the first time I  started to actually be comfortable with myself and actually I don't mean love myself as from the outside but actually love myself on the inside and not have all that self-hatred and that was the only time that I... that was at that point that I realised what my ex-husband was meaning and until then I just didn't have a  clue. 

So it's you know it's taken quite a while  and this fellowship, to for all those feelings to  me to start understanding those feelings you know,  I ate for the first two years or two years at  least it would have been when I came into the  fellowship and I just, I knew that I had a problem  with food and then I couldn't stop eating, but all  the knowledge in the world and in my head did not  get me to a place where I was able to stop eating  and still I didn't know that it was....you know a  Higher Power that was going to stop me from eating  and remove that obsession, I still thought it was  me and that actually I could do it and you know  it took more eating, it took a lot more eating,  and a lot more of being beaten and I can remember  sitting in meetings and having to say that I'd  eaten again and then the shame around having  to say that, and thinking that I was never going  to get this program was actually really scary  and I'd leave the meeting and I'd feel really sad  and I couldn't get home from a meeting without  eating. 

You know I'd go into McDonald's and  I'd buy three flavors of ice cream sundaes and  
sit down the road from home in Kaiapoi and I'd eat them all and I'd go home and think you know think that Wayne wouldn't know, that I had you know food all around my mouth and then I'd make the school lunches and I'd eat half the baking and it was after a meeting, after you know four meetings a  week like that - didn't matter that I went to four meetings a week - and it didn't matter that I was trying to do everything that I heard others doing, but still didn't stop me eating.

And at that point, the obsession still hadn't been removed from me and I knew that this  
fellowship was the only thing that was going to help me, that the people in the fellowship were,  they were my, they were the ones that were going to help me  
with their message. And I kept on coming because  I knew there was nothing else and then finally, finally one day, I had the want to not eat more than the want to eat,  
and you know that obsession was removed that day. And I haven't had that back. And that was when my youngest one who is 22 and 1/2 was six weeks old. So you know it's a wee while.  
And you know they just don't know me as a mother who was drinking or eating. They've never actually seen me eating fish and chips with ice creams and all the stuff that I used to love but they still seen you know, this crazy woman with a crazy head. And sometimes it still rears it's head, but they always do, they do come and they talk to me and they ask me advice and they ask me you know about their kids and ring me and happy to talk to me and you know we have some really good times.

And tomorrow I've got my youngest  grandson's first birthday  
and it will be an opportunity to really work  this program and pause, without saying anything  
and not react to anything, because sometimes  I find it hard - excuse me - when I am around  
my family. I've got two sons that  have this disease and two that don't,  
and it's the oldest son who is very, very  sick with this disease and is on the bender  
well every week, has just lost another  job, is just about homeless again but still  
it is not bad enough. And of course, he's not  invited to the birthday party tomorrow and I  
don't even know if he knows about it, and  you know I find those sorts of things hard  
because family is like really precious to me and  every time when they're together you know,  
I take photos and I take photos because I just  you know I have that thought in my mind that  
one day he's actually not going to be there, so I  take photos and I know in the back in my mind,  
I take photos because I feel like one day they're not all going to be there to take photos.  
I just know that the only thing that I can  do is keep doing what I'm doing and there  
is nothing else that I can do. I can't talk him  into anything, I can't make him see this program  
and that what he can have, and that it doesn't have to be a struggle. He knows it's here but  
he doesn't want it so definitely hoping  that it's going to be a good day tomorrow,  
and hoping that I can show that I am different so it's really good to be here and thank you all.