“Worthlessness and shame is something I’m used to.” – Layne
My best buds and I gathered together to eat, fellowship, and watch the second episode of Addicted to Food, now our Tuesday night ritual. What I’m sure is to become my usual attempt, I tried to relax my mind so that I could watch the show with an objective perspective. Again, this was difficult because Jenna, my LCDC friend, had invited a close work colleague over for the event. Let the analytical summations begin! I kept the remote close and trigger finger ready. Papa John’s had just arrived, a large meat lovers, a spinach alfredo and a small pepperoni for the chil’ren settled us in. Please, know that I have thought long and hard about the appropriateness of sharing what Ieat while watching a show about eating disorders. These are my thoughts on the matter… I ate pizza while watching a show about food addictions and was wishing the whole time someone had brought brownies and ice cream as well. Did I feel guilty? Yes. Should I feel guilty? No. Should I admit this in a blog hosted by a treatment center that focuses on addiction related eating disorders? Yes. Why? Because it is the truth. If I accomplish anything with this blog, I want it to be that I was honest with myself and to the many that are following. Strangely, I feel accountable to you, as if we are all connected by a common likeness and both desperate for an absolute resolution. I promise whole heartedly that you are not alone. The house lights dimmed, then curtain was up and I watched in horror as the eight were stripped of the illusion of SELF and asked to face the destruction of their addiction.
The last time I stood naked in front of a full body mirror was at my grandmothers house, she had one of those bathrooms where the entire wall was a mirror. There was no hiding from yourself in that room. I was in my early 20’s then and my body was rock’in, I didn’t mind. I’d like to think I still looked like that… but I don’t. So, when Tennie asked the eight to stand naked in front of a mirror, and see what their addictions had done to their bodies, I thought “OH SH!T.” Pardon my French. One by one they went into a small room took off their clothes and put a brown sack over their heads. The point of the bag is to separate the face from the body, I understood that. But a brown bag? I shuddered remembering the locker room jokes about brown bagging girls. “Dude, she’s a two bagger!” Erupting in laughter the boys would issue out the number of brown bags it would take to have sex with the fat and ugly girls at school. Were they asked to wear the brown bag to further assist in their humiliation? Tennie, insisted to the group that the exercise was not about humiliation, but about facing the truth. To stand naked in front of each other would have been humiliating. What walked away from that mirror was shame not humiliation. I caught myself thinking, “This is easy for the skinny ones”. Really? Is it? Jenna said it best, “This is about dealing with your authentic self. We’re all different in the mirror than we are in real life.” If that is true, than who is more honest you or the mirror?
My name is Brock Cravy and I’m addicted to me.
