The Glutton for Punishment

Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of Gluttony: "Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire... leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists." (2, 148, ad 1)

The 12 Sausage biscuits were two a day for six days. However, that was really only the tip of the iceberg. I have been eating without check for the last two weeks or so.  Perhaps part of it is the realization that I am still KA-Mai.  That once again the proverbial wool has been lifted from my eyes, and I see myself as the punch line to some joke.  At the end of the days this is just my own lack of self-confidence and my irrational way of dealing with things I don’t understand, and don’t want to happen.  So, I throw my tantrums.  I stop talking, I start writing. I avoid.  I ignore.  Rinse and repeat.  I see myself doing this and I hate myself for it.  I see the moods swing from high to low and I fail to see how to stop them.  I literally live in every moment of my life and I let those emotions radiate off of me. I see the hate, the rage, and the anger I spew in my writing.  I see and feel the darkness descend over me and I hate it.  Then after acting like the a jerk, I start the cycle all over but only this time I do it to myself.  This is the untold story, I guess of how I perpetually beat myself up over and over again about all my weaknesses.  How instead saying you know you acted like a big stupid jerk move on, I linger on it.  I turn it over in my head.  Over and over, over and over and I wonder why I act the way I do.  Then… I eat.  I try to forget, but I never really do. I try to let go, but I never really can. I turn it over in my mind all those feelings; being wronged; being left out; being ignored; being not needed; being whatever.  Then… I eat.  See rinse, repeat.  So, since starting come out of my angry fog, sometime on Wednesday, I think my meals have gone something like this: McDonald’s for breakfast, pizza for lunch, pizza for dinner, candy bars, tacos, pizza, salad, soup, pizza, more candy bars, bag of caramel corn, etc… the point is I eat, I eat unchecked. I lie to my roommate about having points left so I can eat more.  I have eaten a ton this week.  It was capped yesterday as follows: 2 sausage biscuits for breakfast.  Lunch was around 3:45 or so and my roommate doesn’t know I did this because she was out running, I had a big mac, two large fries, then we ordered dinner around 6:30 and I and 12 boneless wings and four sliders.  I was so uncomfortable yesterday night and evening, literally my sides and stomach hurt.  I had sharp pains all through the evening and when I finally lay to sleep, I thought I was going to stop breathing. 

                This morning my stomach still hurt. I went to M’s again, b/c I was too lazy to make my own coffee, and even though I was not hungry, not even a little bit, I found myself asking if they still had breakfast.  I was not hungry.  My stomach hurt. I didn’t want any food.  So, when they told me know, I was partially relieved because it meant I didn’t have to eat, then I ordered two cheeseburgers at 11 a.m. with my coffee, what the fuck!  That is wrong on so many levels I can’t even explain it.  I said to myself as she started to repeat the order to me, what are you doing?  Why are you doing this?  Your stomach hurts, you hurt!  Why are you getting fucking cheeseburgers?  You don’t want them.  Then a thought hit me like a lightning bolt.  What if I am eating to punish myself?  It felt so right.  What if I am eating to punish myself?  My gods, it made sense.  How many times had I eaten when I wasn’t hungry because I felt compelled to do so?  How many? I don’t know, I have lost count, last night and trying again this a.m. is just one of many in a long string of offensives.   

                I am starting to believe I am fat for a reason.  Actually, I am starting to believe I am fat for several reasons.  I also know how many people out there are just like eat the right thing, count calories, eat less, and keep working out.  I know it’s simple.  If it is so fucking simple, then why do I have the discipline to do two triathlons in two days yet I can’t stop eating.  The truth is I can’t stop eating.  You want to know why because you have to eat to sustain life.  See the problem?  Stop breathing.  Stop your heart from beating.  Just stop.  You can’t.  So, I am a man who has partaking in 12 tri’s, 9 half marathons, and countless other endurance events.  I swam over 80,000 meters in 92 days. I have a college degree. I have CPA, although expired. I have a full time job, which regardless of what some people think, I am pretty fucking good at it.   I actually know how to do it.  I own my own house.  So what gives?  Why can you do all that, but you can’t simply eat less calories than you spend. 

                I think it is because I am fat for a reason or in my case because nothing in my life is ever simple reasons.  I hear you out there again thinking it.  Just stop eating fat ass.  Look, if you really think that this is just that simple.  Do me a favor.  Close the window you are reading this in and thanks but no thanks.  It’s because you aren’t entitled to your opinion, it’s just as I have always said I am going to do this my way.  As a day that is going to break my heart January 31 draws ever closer, I realize a few things.  I have a lot of growing up to do.  I am not going to meet my goals that I set forth and I will reach out to Stanford and start the process of gastric bypass.  However, in the time between now and the time they wheel me into the operating room, I am going to figure out why I don’t like myself, and why I am willing to accept less than the life I deserve. 

                So, what if I am eating to punish myself?  What if I am eating out of control because I feel so much guilt for the way I have been acting?  Perhaps it is because I feel bad about my low self-esteem. 

Interesting that I get a huge case of writers block as I am working on this, all the sudden my mind went completely blank.  It’s like I don’t want to finish because I am afraid of what it means to finish.  What happens when you open this wound up?  It’s not one you can just let fester.  You are too far past that now.  If this wound festers anymore it will kill me.  Perhaps, I am starting to uncover the root causes of my issues. I have been punishing myself for a long time.  I have done so in the form of becoming morbidly obese and eating. 

I really started gaining weight, I mean I really, really started to become at the end of 1997.  I will always remember 1997 not only as the year I study abroad and saw lots of Europe, but also the year I lost my mind.  It broke.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know how.   However, I think my issues probably started before then, after I have spoken briefly about my first panic attack.  I will say two things about the spring and summer of 1997 I become more obsessed than at any other point in my life, and I become more depressed.  It was the first time in my life I went through a major depressive episode, add in the obsessive brain that I have and you had a recipe for disaster. 

I had no idea what was going on at the time.  I had no idea I was depressed.  I saw a doctor in Terre Haute.  He basically told me all my problems stemmed from being fat.  If I stopped eating and take care of myself that it would be all better.  He gave me a prayer to say it over and again.  It didn’t help.  So now I was fat, depressed, and obsessive.  That when the bad thoughts started. My life was literally falling apart.  I would work.  I would come home.  I would drink.  I thought drinking would help because it was the only time I didn’t think about everything going wrong.  The problem with drinking was the next day when I got up I would get more anxious than the day before.  When I went back to IU for my senior year I was a wreck.  I was literally terrified all day long, or depressed, or obsessing. 

I was at a football game it was IU’s home opener.  It was a night game.  I had a few beers at the tailgate.  I was there because I had hoped it would help me get better.  It was the only IU football game I went to when I was at school there.  I remember sitting in the stands and I made a decision that day staring into the sun that I could not continue to live life this way.  I made a decision that night I would go and get help, real help, or figure something else out.  I don’t know what that meant.  I just know I meant it. 

I got help.  I got better.  Life seemed better.  However, I have gained weight.  I gained and gained.  I always felt bad for one losing my mind in Europe, and two being depressed.  Part of the reason I moved to California was to make up for the failure in Europe. 

Then let’s take my non-stop immaturity, mood swings, jealousy and rage on top of the depression and obsessing and failure in being able to hold my life together.   The feeling bad for how I act.  Perhaps my eating is a direct result of my feeling bad for all the above. 

So perhaps maybe then I do eat to punish myself for short comings?  Perhaps I eat because I feel that I need to be punished for not believing in myself.  Or not having the strength to stop myself from eating. 

It’s interesting and contradictory at that same time. Yesterday I was telling Rachel something about my dream about being abandoned and I was like perhaps I eat because I am afraid of not being noticed.  Then she said it’s almost as if I eat so that I can’t do that stuff I love.  As I get bigger and bigger, I can do less of the things that I love.  So I can’t be included.  Thinking about this started to make me think perhaps this is what I do.  I eat more to get fatter and the fatter I get the less I can go out and do. 

I don’t really know if any of this makes sense.  Perhaps it does.  Perhaps not.  I am not really sure. 

I continue to dig.  I continue to question everything.  I do want to get better.  I do want to make things right in my mind and body.  So, I will continue to turn everything over. I will continue to be honest.  I will open my book more and more and try to figure out what we need to do to get better.