Interview - K. Miller

Healing through the community support of group meetings, the twelve-steps, therapy and treatment centers.

K. Miller:

• How did you know you had an eating disorder?

When I was younger I was anorexic but as I got older, it turned into drug use, bulimia and over- eating.  I am 33 years old now and have been in recovery for about 5 years. My bottom line abstinence is that I don’t throw up no matter what and I’m accountable for my food. I haven’t thrown up in over 4 years and I call my sponsor when I’m struggling.

• Do you know how it all began?

There was some childhood abuse and a moment in high school that a boy made a comment about the way I looked.  I started dieting. Growing up in southern California and the media played a big factor in the pressure to be thin.

• Did you have a rock bottom?

I had a few of those. With the bulimia, I was throwing up a few times a day. I was ready to kill myself it was so bad. I knew if I didn’t get well from the bulimia, I was going to go back to using drugs.

• Was your family supportive when you needed help?

They knew a little bit about the abuse, but not the full extent. The first time I went to my parents about my eating disorder, they threatened to put me in treatment.  They did the best they could and put me in therapy. I have an older sister and younger brother, and they helped support me through my struggle as well.

• When did you discover support groups?

When I was 28, I was in rehab for my drug addiction.  I went to a twelve-step program for that and eventually found out there were meetings using the steps for eating disorders too.  The meetings are different but the same.  It worked for me and got the support I needed for my struggles.

• What would you say to someone who is scared to go to a support group?

Try 6 meetings before you decide to not go anymore. Don’t quit before the miracle happens. You’re gonna here something you never heard before and it will click.

• Do you think a sponsor is necessary?

Absolutely.  A sponsor is what I needed to talk things through. My sponsor was encouraging and helped me work the steps.  It was freeing.

• In terms of the twelve-steps, whom do you look towards as your higher power?

I wrote what I wanted in a best friend and that is who my higher power is.

Interview - Jill T.

Healing through the community support of group meetings, the twelve-steps, therapy and treatment centers.

Jill T:

• How did you know you had an eating disorder?

I was a professional dancer my whole childhood. When I was 18, I moved to New York and that’s when it really began. I was told to watch my weight. I decided to start to diet and lose a couple of pounds and one thing led to another and I stopped eating and started exercising obsessively. I did begin to lose weight and was praised for that, which really fed into my disorder. 

It took me a year and a half to lose 40lbs. The school had told me when I was creeping lower and lower that I could stop, but at the same time, they said only to gain 1 or 2 pounds. I knew I was sick, but wasn’t ready to admit it. They told me that if I got to a certain weight, they would send me home.  It became more of a goal to see how far I could go.  When I went too far, they sent me home.  I was angry but at the same time, I was relieved.
 
I sought treatment and finally found a program where I learned the tools to manage my disease. I am a yoga teacher now and it is my recovery program.

• How did your family respond?

They were very concerned and worried. My mom had noticed a year into my disorder. She had approached me about it, but I always had an excuse or reason to push it aside so I didn’t have to deal with it. When I came home though, it was pretty obvious that I was sick.  It was hard to hide.  My kidneys were failing and I was resistant to any kind of help.   I thought I could get better on my own but it was impossible.

• How do you stay consistent on your path of recovery?

Even with yoga I sometimes find conflict. I use to be really competitive but at some point you just find a place of peace in the practice of it.  I struggle the most in my life when I’m not practicing.  Yoga allows me to be comfortable in my skin.
 

• How did the in-patient treatment process work for you?

I went to a psychiatric hospital in New Orleans. I was strictly anorexic. It was a very unhealthy environment. I ate my way out of the hospital, because I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t do any of the work while I was there. When I left, I relapsed.  I went to a therapist but I wasn’t ready to recover.  I got depressed and came to the decision that no one else can make the decision to get better but me.   I told my parents I’m checking myself into treatment and I’ll come home when I’m recovered.  I found a lot of accountability in treatment from group therapy to classes.  It was intense and all day long. I surrendered to the fact that I needed to be there.

• Do you ever feel like you had a ‘rock-bottom’?

I had a couple of them. One of my roommates tried to commit suicide and that was an eye opening experience. Some of my friends had heart attacks. I just knew that wasn’t in my plan or God’s plan.  I had to decide to get better and make the commitment to my recovery and myself.
 

• What were the group meetings like?

Scary. I was closed off for the first month. I don’t really remember a lot of it. I remember being resistant, but meeting people week after week who were recovered, made me think, maybe I could do it.  I was hopeful but didn’t think it was possible.  Everyone was very supportive so that made convinced me.
 

• In twelve-step programs there is talk of ‘God’ and a higher power.  What are your thoughts on that?  

I’m a Christian, so it didn’t make me uncomfortable. I knew God had a plan for me. I just didn’t know what it was. I felt he was preparing me. 
 

• How important are support groups in the recovery process?

I think it’s crucial. It’s a love hate relationship, ‘cause you don’t really want to go, but you know you should. It’s nice to go to a place where others understand what you’re going through.
 

• How important is having a sponsor? 

It’s incredibly important. It’s important to find someone that you trust and can open up to. 
 

• Do you still go to meetings?

I haven’t gone for several years now.  I feel really grounded in my recovery.  When I started to teaching yoga, it replaced that for me. I knew it was time to ease my way out once I got comfortable with teaching and doing yoga. I knew the resources were close if I needed them again.
 

• Was there any step in the twelve-step program that resonated with you the most?

I think different ones at different times, but definitely surrendering to God and saying the serenity prayer when I need it.
 

• Were you fearful about coming out and sharing your experience with an eating disorder?   

Most people are very supportive. Once I let go, I was more open to sharing, because my disorder didn’t define me. I wasn’t ashamed to share where I came from. I still struggle. When I get stressed out, the first thing I turn to is food and my body. People aren’t as hard as we are on ourselves.
 

• What tools would you like to share for someone who may be struggling?

Try going to a meeting and see what its about. You’ll never know unless you try. That slogan was a big part to my recovery.

Interview - Barbara G.

Healing through the community support of group meetings, the twelve-steps, therapy and treatment centers.  
 
Barbara G:

• Describe the history of your eating disorder:

It started with family appearance and the way I looked. When I got my (drivers) license, it gave me permission and freedom to go binge and purge. When I got to college, I didn't have my parents looking after me so it got worse. After I got married and had kids, I gained a lot of weight so I started binging and purging again. My father passed away from cancer and my mother and I are estranged. She was very cruel. Nothing I did was ever good enough for her. After I got breast cancer I lost a ton of weight. After the cancer I began normal eating and the weight started coming back on. My mother said I should stay on chemo to stay thin. Any time anything happened whether it was stress, feelings...food was how I dealt with the emotions and escaped it all.  A twelve-step program helped me to turn it all over to a higher power.

• Are you going to forgive yourself and your mother?

That's exactly what I've had to do. I have tried so hard to make her (my mother) love me. Through this program I've learned that it’s not me that has the problem, it's her. My mother is cruel and that's not how mothers are supposed to act and treat their children. I just need to release it and not let it bother me. I never would have gotten to this point without the program, the steps and my daughters.

• When did you know you had a problem?

I always tried to keep my eating disorder as a secret. I was really put together on the outside. My daughter was the one who said she really worried about me and she found a twelve-step meeting that I started attending. It’s not about me anymore and I want to set a good example for my daughters.

• Did your daughter catch you acting out in your disordered behavior?

She did and I was completely mortified and embarrassed. I was pissed off that someone had found out and that I might need to stop. Looking back now, I'm happy she found out because now I am healthy. It was a good thing but it's still hard.

• What was your first meeting like?

My daughter insisted on taking me because she didn't trust me to go on my own. It was weird, because the roles were reversing and she was taking the parental role and I was the child. I went and didn't know what to expect. The people were very friendly but I was still skeptical. There was a lot of talk about God, which scared me.  I have never felt the kind of love from my mom, like I felt in those meeting, in those rooms. It was the first time I felt truly loved and accepted. It felt weird that I would find love from strangers but it worked for me.  I’ve relapsed before but each time, I was able to get over it quickly, because I was involved in the 12-step program. I have a really good sponsor and she has me look at things differently.

• What are the tools that you use that gives you that new perspective?

I go to 3 meetings a week. I make phone calls, do a lot of service and write. I lost all hope and stopped caring but found community in the steps and knowing I’m not the only one with these feelings. 

• How do you find freedom in the group setting?

Well, there’s freedom in admitting I was powerless over my eating disorder. I gave that control up and made the very big commitment to make the calls, reach out, read the literature.  It keeps me from going back into behavior that is destructive. 

• What are the tools you're getting from a twelve-step program?

In the twelve-step program I connect with people who are struggling with the same thing I do. We learn about our character defects and turning over our disease to a higher power. We face the behaviors we have that have harmed others.  My sponsor was committed to my recovery and that inspired me.

• How important is it to have a sponsor?

It’s very important. Part of the illness is very secretive and isolating. If you have a sponsor that you're accountable to, if you have someone to answer to than you're commitment will be a lot stronger.

• Is there a step that resonates most for you?

The first step was really the ahh ha moment. In step one I learned that I didn't decide to have this disease any more than a diabetic wanted to have diabetes.

• What would you tell someone who is struggling with an eating disorder?

I would tell them and encourage them to reach out, find a meeting, because I wish I had found them earlier. I would tell them to get help now and life will be better with that help.

• There is a lot of talk in twelve-step programs about ‘God’ and a higher power.  What would you say to someone struggling with those concepts? 

I would recommend that they have an open-mind. Twelve-step groups are not a cult or catholic school.  ‘God’ doesn’t have to be church or a white robe.  My higher power is every person in the room struggling with the same thing I am and working the program.  

Interview - Eve E.

Healing through the community support of group meetings, the twelve-steps, therapy and treatment centers.

Eve E:

• What is your eating disorder and when did it begin? 

My eating disorder started when I was 18. I ate and ate. I remember being conscious of it. My mom had cancer and my dad was off in the war. I turned to food.  Food was my drug of choice.  I started going to a twelve-step meeting and that was helpful.  The group support made me want to become a therapist. I studied eating disorders and addiction and became an eating therapist specializing in eating disorders.

• How was your experience healing in a twelve-step group?

I knew I had to turn to my disease over to a higher power. However, I did understand that one needs to live on reality's terms and not there own terms.  For me, it was take what you like and can from meetings and leave. It’s always humbling.

• What is your higher power?

My higher power is yoga. I came into my body doing yoga. When I came down into my feet and feel grounded, it felt wonderful.

• Was there any step that resonated with you the most?

The third step, because it made me let go of all these fears I had around food.

• What would you tell someone who is scared to go to a meeting and needs help?

I would say get a friend to agree to go with you. Get someone who is supportive to cheer you on.

• Why are the twelve steps important for recovery?

You feel like you're not alone.  Part of the problem is feeling like you're all by yourself and you're alone in this disease.

• How important is it to have a sponsor?

If you get enough phone numbers at meetings, you can call a couple of those people a week and turn to them for the support you need.

Interview - Hannah H.

Healing through the community support of group meetings, the twelve-steps, therapy and treatment centers.

Hannah H:

• What type of eating disorder do you have and when did you realize you had a problem?

I don't think I was conscious of it starting. I remember calling my mom and telling her I wasn't happy. I told her didn't know how to eat.

• How did you get help with your eating disorder?  What was your first twelve step meeting like?

I went to an in-patient center and met people who I connected with.  We had 12-step meetings and I liked it because everybody there gets it. I thought my first meeting was going to be different. When the counselor mentioned a higher power, I got it.

• Did you have a rock-bottom?

When my therapist told me I had to go into treatment and that's when I knew it was bad.

• What is your higher power?

For me it was nature when I first started. That's how I know I'm not in control. Your higher power doesn't have to be a being, just the idea there is something else is out there we can look too.  I go hiking in nature and I feel very peaceful and whole.

• Was there any step that stuck out to you the most?

I don't remember which step it was but when they mentioned the first step and said it was about control, I thought oh no, I'm totally in control. It wasn't until we talked about letting go of that control that it hit me, "I have to let it go." Letting go of the anger and the people who abused me was the beginning and I really started to understand the whole twelve-step process.

• What would you tell someone about getting help or going to a twelve-step program?

I've told people that you don't feel alone. Going to a group really helps, because people are real and they get what you're talking about. You start to feel comfortable.

• Do you still go to meetings?

I don't go to meetings anymore, but I do go for individual counseling. I facilitate groups and find that preparing for those groups is my therapy. Just because I'm facilitating, doesn't put me above anyone, because I still get it and it keeps me accountable.

I consider myself recovered and I'm grateful to be on the other side. I'm 28 and I was diagnosed at 18.

Who We Are

Fight Eating Disorders (FED) is an independent national humanitarian organization that provides professional services to those who are suffering from eating disorders and are unable to afford medical (out or inpatient) support. 

FED's decision to assist those in need are based solely on the candidates location and accessibility of local therapists, nutritionists, doctors and support groups/centers that are available for each individual in that particular location.  

Please e-mail us at comingoutoftherefrigerator@gmail.com to share your anonymous story of experience, strength and hope so that you may help another.  Or, click the paypal link to your right to make a tax-deductible donation to our organization. All monies go directly to scholarships for men and women suffering from eating disorders.

Not Alone - D.G. (Los Angeles)

My name is David and I’m a recovering compulsive overeater and bulimic.

One of the first memories I have of childhood was when my father, this hulking, intimidating man, grabbed my overweight sister by the chin, shoved her against the wall and started calling her a fat cunt. I was about three or four years old at the time, a cute little boy with long, golden hair. Always trying to be the referee and make things okay, I got in between my father and sister and started screaming at my father. “Dad, you’re hurting her!” My father grabbed my shirt and pushed me up against the wall. I turned to my mom, who was standing by her bedroom in the hallway, and begged her, pleaded with her, to help us. “Mom, please do something!” She looked at me with sad eyes and went into her bedroom and closed the door.

I know today that my parents were just using the tools they were given by their dysfunctional parents. I can look back at the past today with loving eyes and a compassionate heart. My parents did the best they could.

We are all given basic instincts. Instincts for sex. Instincts for security. Instincts to be a member of society. My basic instinct for security was not met and therefore I went to something external to make me feel safe, to make me feel protected, to make me feel like I was not alone.

I went to the food.

My parents got divorced when I was seven and as much as my mom wanted to talk to me about my pain, we didn’t know how to communicate. My father would follow my bus home from school and I remember getting off the bus and looking at him in his car, and feeling this overwhelming fear that he was going to take me and abuse me, as well as this deep emotional fear that my mom wasn’t going to protect me. I feared physical pain and I feared abandonment. Two things today I still battle with. I would run down my driveway every single day and race into the kitchen, open a box of cookies, dump a handful into a cold glass of milk and chug it down. Then I’d pour more cookies into more milk and chug it down. And then some more. And then some more after that.

Food became my best friend. Food became my mom and my dad. Food became my God. It was always there for me when I got home from school. It protected me. It made me feel safe. It never abandoned me. Thank God the food was there when it was. If not for the food, I’d be dead today. I’m sure of it.

In fact, I was obsessed with suicide from a young age. I remember being five years old and looking down from my Grandpa’s balcony in Florida and telling myself that if I jumped, all my pain would go away. To be honest, the one thing that kept me from jumping was that I didn’t think anyone would show up at my funeral. Even though I was not in the food then, I was already showing signs of my disease. I was so selfish and self-centered that I cared what people would think about me even if I were dead. What five year old thinks like that?

I quickly became the fat kid in school. I was awkward and fat and I didn’t speak much. Some called me mute boy. But the fatter I got, the meaner the names got. One year I was Chunk. For a few years I was Pudgy. One year I came to school after summer break and my classmates started calling me Blue. I didn’t know what that meant but a few months later, I’d walk into class and people would sing the Baby Beluga song. They were calling me Beluga. I still didn’t know what a Beluga was, but I knew it had something to do with my weight. I walked to the library one day after school and asked the librarian about Belugas. She handed me a book on animals and I remember sitting in the children’s section of the library and opening the book and reading that Belugas got up to over 3,000 pounds. I closed the book and was devastated. These people were equating me with an animal that got up to 3,000 pounds. So I went home and I stuffed my face with the food.

I would go home from school and I would eat over the shame that people were calling me fat. I would eat because I had no friends. I would eat because all my friends had boyfriends or girlfriends and I was too fat to see my own penis in the shower. I would eat because food was the only thing that made me feel not alone. I would eat because I wanted to die. Then I would go upstairs to my room, do some homework, sneak back downstairs into the kitchen and eat over the shame about eating over the shame. Then I’d go upstairs to watch some television and sneak back down in the middle of the night and eat over the loneliness. This was a cycle that went on for years.

My disease took a turn when I was twelve or thirteen and I heard my older sister throwing up in her bedroom one night. She started losing weight fast and I’d hear her throwing up her food all the time. Although I never confronted her about this, I felt like it was our little secret. I knew why she was doing it. I had what she had, too. The more my sister lost weight, the more I wanted what she had. I went into her room one day when she was at school and went through her drawers. I found her diet pills and it was like I found the golden ticket.

They say that this is a progressive disease, like alcoholism, and I can definitely attest to that. What started as one diet pill that day in my sister’s bedroom quickly escalated to something deeper, darker and more dangerous than anything I could ever imagine.

By the time I was fifteen years old, I was taking ten diet pills a day. I lost all the weight and transferred schools to a prestigious prep school. On the outside, I had it all together. I was handsome and smart, but on the inside I was miserable. In my head I was still the same fat kid that hated himself. I was a three sport athlete, and I’d wake up, take some diet pills, starve myself all day, take more diet pills, then go to sports practice, go home, eat some carrots for dinner and then go to the gym. I was terrified of gaining weight so I stopped eating, even though I was probably exercising three hours a day. But what goes up must come down and all my starve cycles eventually led to binges. If I starved for a day, or a week, or a few weeks, there always came the time where I would go into the kitchen and go through a whole carton of ice cream, and then a whole jar of peanut butter, and then two boxes of cereal- because there always came the time that I needed to feel like I wasn’t alone.

I ended up going to four colleges in four years. The fear of abandonment overwhelmed me so I pushed people away before they could push me away. I couldn’t be intimate with other people because I couldn’t be intimate with myself. I was so scared of rejection that I couldn’t take my shirt off in front of other people. When I was a senior in college, I was living in New York City and I was quickly hitting bottom. I had no friends. My family didn’t really know me. I had no belief in anything other than me. My life was all about the food. If I wasn’t eating it, I was obsessing about how I was going to get it, or I was punishing myself and getting rid of it. I stopped going to class. I’d wake up and hit every Whole Foods in Manhattan, I’d start at the Lower East Side and just go from subway to subway to subway, bingeing my way through every Whole Foods stop. After I’d binge my way through every Whole Foods, I’d do a double or a triple Bikram Yoga class, or I’d take the subway back downtown to my 24-hour gym and work out from about 11 PM to three or four in the morning. I’d get back on the subway and take the train home after these long workouts and I’d just look around the subway and see that everybody was happy, everybody was out being social, with their girlfriends or their boyfriends, and here I was spending every single day obsessing about the food and exercise. I started going days without talking to people. I’d turn my phone off or just not respond to anyone’s calls or texts. I was having a nervous breakdown because I was living in my mind so much.

A few months later I decided I was going to kill myself. But first I had to have one more binge. I was at my mom’s house on Long Island, bingeing my way through the house like a ravaged animal. I mean, I was like a scientist, I had things in the oven, things in the microwave, I was eating out of the trash, out of the freezer, off the floor. Wherever there was food, I was eating it. I binged my way into my mom’s pantry in the hallway, and as I’m eating her leftover Halloween candy, I come across a book about a 12-step program. The miracle is not that I came across this book, there had been many members of my family in 12-step programs, the miracle was that suicidal, in my binge, I went into my bedroom, closed the door and read the book from front to back.

I went to my sister’s apartment the next month and I got honest for the first time in my life. I told her I was a compulsive overeater and a bulimic, and that I couldn’t stop eating or purging and I wanted to die. She had no idea. She printed out a meeting schedule for me and told me that I had to start going. She was my Eskimo. She saved my life.

I went to my first 12-step meeting in a small church on the Upper West Side. The room felt gigantic. I came to the meeting late and I left early because I was so scared of people, but I heard these strangers talking honestly about what I had been feeling for so long. They were expressing my sadness. For the first time in years, I had hope.

It took me almost eight months to open my mouth in the rooms. I was so scared of rejection and I didn’t trust what would come out of my mouth, but eventually one day “something” told me that I had to raise my hand and ask for a sponsor. I know today that that something was God. A woman came up to me after the meeting and told me she would sponsor me. She was twice my age and was completely different than someone I would have picked, but “something” told me to say yes. 

The first week I started working the steps, I got abstinent. I have not binged or purged since, nor have I had flour or sugar. If this is not a miracle, I do not know what is.

I always thought that I had a food problem. If only I could eat like a normal person then everything would be okay, I thought. Eventually I realized that my problem is not the food. Yes, I am a compulsive overeater. I am powerless over food. When I put flour or sugar inside my body, they are like my alcohol and I can’t stop eating them. But food was just a symptom to my problem. My problem is that I don’t know how to run my life. When I run my life like I think it’s supposed to be run, my life becomes unmanageable.

My life is unmanageable because I have a mind that tells me lies. I have a mind that tells me that I am not good enough. I have a mind that tells me I’m fat, that I’m ugly, that I’m never going to get the job I want, or the girl I want, or the life I want. I have a mind that tells me that I am going to be alone for the rest of my life. I have a mind that makes my life so uncomfortable and unmanageable, that I turn to the food because I need some peace and quiet from my thoughts. My actions are sequels to my thoughts, and if I don’t have a mind that tells me to binge, or purge, or starve, then I’m not going to do that.

So I have to get a new mind. By working the 12 steps, I get to re-wire my mind, so that when life gets unmanageable, when something happens that I didn’t expect, I don’t automatically go to the food or try to punish myself by exercising for hours on end. When life gets unmanageable today, I try to connect with the universe through prayer, through meditation, through yoga, or through helping other people. By changing my mind I get to change my thoughts, and by changing my thoughts my whole reality changes.

Every part of my life has gotten better since getting recovery from my eating disorder. My relationship with my family is amazing. I have great friends. I am about to finish graduate school. But most importantly, I have freedom today. The freedom from my mind and from my disease is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I will always have this eating disorder, but I have learned to live with it. I have learned to have compassion for it. It’s a sick friend who just wants to know that it’s not alone. I can relate to that. Although the thoughts still come once in awhile to act out with food or exercise, I don’t act on those thoughts. I send them love and let them pass through.

After three years, I recently returned to that meeting on the Upper West Side to share my experience, strength and hope. A woman came up to me after my qualification and told me she remembered me from three years ago. She said that while she remembers me, everything about me has changed.  

I never thought that I could get recovery from my eating disorder. For anyone still struggling with compulsive overeating or bulimia or anorexia, I want to tell you that you do not have to live like this anymore. You are not alone. You never have to be alone again.