“Emily, the police are here, and Daniel is dead.”
It was like any other day until I heard my husband’s voice on the other end of the phone telling me those chilling words.
That day in 2012, our twenty-one-year-old son had died by suicide.
Once the initial shock wore off, I sank into a suffocating depression. It also ignited a latent binge eating disorder.
Experiencing the symptoms of complicated grief caused me to realize how much I had suffered from bouts of depression and binge eating for much of my life, not just post-tragedy. The family trauma, naturally, took it to a whole new level, but it had been percolating underneath the surface since childhood. Like Robin Williams, I could easily mask my inner angst with a cheery disposition.
My first recollection of the blues and bingeing occurred during the time that my parents were remodeling their old farmhouse in rural Northeast Indiana. I was in sixth grade. I clearly remember getting off the bus, entering the house. Large sheets of black plastic closed off every room and window except a small space, big enough for a table and chairs. It was a major renovation of their kitchen and dining room, and it became a beautiful Better Homes and Garden project afterward. Walls were knocked out and windows were added to open up space and add natural light, and new cupboards, countertops, light fixtures, and appliances were installed. But the process was dark and suffocating for a kid.
There was no place to go; nothing to do in the house. It was like entering a dark cave for days on end. Looking back, the darkness, boredom, and loneliness inside the house stirred a gloomy depression and addiction that had been lurking within me. I clearly remember eating an entire package of Oreo cookies in one sitting after school one day.
By that time in my life, my sweet tooth was highly developed. Processed baby formula in infancy was little more than artificial junk food laced with corn syrup that later gave way to sugar-sweetened processed cereals and homemade baked goods.
My mother excelled in the culinary arts, and her way of expressing love was through cooking and baking. As a result, she was one of the best pastry chefs around: apple cake and apple crisp, rhubarb crunch, German chocolate cake, butterscotch cake, angel food cake, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, multiple birthday cakes throughout each year, coffee cake, strawberry shortcake, lemon bars, banana nut bread, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls, iced Christmas cookies, cheesecake with cherry topping, chocolate fudge, and homemade jams. Her pies with their flaky crusts were renowned: blueberry, cherry, apple, rhubarb, strawberry, pumpkin, and pecan with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream a la mode. Why, she could turn a plain ol’ zucchini into a confectionary work of art.
She also sweetened everything with sugar: potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs, pickled eggs, beets, baked ham, yams, chili, sloppy Joes, peaches, strawberries, stewed apples, even sliced tomatoes. There was also a bowl of sugar on the table to sweeten breakfast cereal each morning. Sugar was a mainstay seasoning in her kitchen.
On top of all that sugar continuously pulsating through my veins, I collectively drank gallons of milk, orange juice, sweetened lemonade, Kool-Aid, and Tang each week, and consumed an excessive amount of Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter candies throughout the year.
Since there were always plenty of baked goods and sweets lying around, including quarts of ice cream and boxes of Popsicles, Fudgsicles, and Hostess Twinkies in the freezer, I binged regularly. The seeds of a food addiction were planted, and no one seemed to notice or care.
It goes without saying that I became “pleasingly plump” as a result, so I was put on a calorie-restrictive diet in first grade. I was sent to school with a Thermos of chopped lettuce, hard-boiled egg slices, diced ham, and Catalina salad dressing poured over it; plus, half a grapefruit. (By lunchtime, the contents of that Thermos were a lukewarm, soggy mess.) I was also weighed daily, and my weight was recorded on a chart. I got a plus sign if I lost weight, but a “goose egg” if I gained.
As one might expect, the diet didn’t work. I didn’t lose one pound. Instead, my six-year-old psyche gained an undue pressure to be thin and developed a preoccupation with weight and appearances—and guilt. Additionally, I also developed an abnormal aversion to scales. I especially dreaded them at school when the nurse would weigh everyone for report cards in front of snickering classmates.
Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to anyone, the constant barrage of sugar poisoning on my developing brain, combined with a lack of vital nutrients, was altering the very chemistry and health of it. It didn’t stand a chance. The deadly combination was putting my brain at risk and was significantly damaging my body on the cellular level as well...one bite at a time.2, 3
The worst part about being overweight in childhood was not the poor health and lethargy per se; nor was it wearing the homemade and unflattering “tent dresses” because normal clothes in the Sears catalogue were out of the question; nor was it needing to put corn starch between my chubby thighs to prevent painful chafing; or even being the last one picked for gym class teams. The worst part was enduring ongoing verbal assaults: Moose, Fatso, Fatty, Porky, “Here, sooey, sooey, sooey.... Here, sooey, sooey, sooey”—the call for pigs at feeding time. One day, I was warned that livestock trucks were coming to take me to the slaughterhouse.
For whatever unfortunate reason, I made the seventh-grade cheerleading squad. I was an anomaly out on the gym floor: the plus-size teen in pigtails wearing a short, homemade, form-fitting uniform that exposed pudgy legs and rolls of fat. The cruelty of the shouts from the bleachers, especially from the opposing team’s fans, cut me to the core. The searing pain and humiliation were unbearable at times.
Teachers, recess aides, parents, coaches, bystanders...someone should have intervened to prevent the assaults; however, back in the ’60s and ’70s, emotional and verbal abuse was acceptable and allowed. Combined with the nonstop sugar overload on my developing brain, all of it was the perfect petri dish for depression and addiction to incubate simultaneously. ”Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a lie. A big fat lie.
Many research studies have linked physical and sexual abuse to lasting effects on the brain, but emotional abuse has been relatively overlooked. However, Martin Teicher, director of the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at McLean Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, along with three colleagues—Jacqueline Samson, Ann Polcari, and Cynthia McGreenery—did a comparative study of the impact of childhood verbal abuse. They found that “verbal abuse had as great an effect as physical and extra-familial sexual abuse.” Teicher even concluded, “Verbal abuse may have more lasting consequences than other forms of abuse, because it’s often more continuous.”4
There was no escape from being overweight in childhood. That Oreo binge in sixth grade was the beginning of a depression-triggered eating disorder.
Bingeing morphed into a panicky desperation to be thin by the time I was in eighth grade in 1975. It was imperative for me to be normal, likable, and to fit into a pair of jeans by high school. It was not merely a desire. It was survival. It was the only way out of the verbal abuse, the discrimination, and the isolation. I severely restricted calories and ate only an orange for lunch at school every day and started running for the first time in my life.
It worked. The pounds melted off, and I entered high school at normal weight. All abuse stopped, and I actually became popular. I made the “pom pom squad” and performed during halftime at home basketball games. I ran the mile in track and won first place in most meets. I had cute clothes to wear and a date for each prom. I was inducted into the National Honor Society and even won the Miss Congeniality Award in the school’s Junior Miss Pageant.
However, in the spring of my senior year, I came home from school one day to learn my mom had made arrangements with a doctor for me to be hospitalized for “tests.” An eye doctor had called her earlier in the day. He was concerned that I might have diabetes because a recent eye exam had revealed a significant change in my vision.
Mom had just gotten off the phone from the hospital as I walked in the door. They had a bed ready and would be waiting for my arrival. Being the caring mother that she was, she complied with the professionals’ recommendations. She instructed me to pack a change of clothes and a toothbrush.
I thought perhaps I was going for an overnight stay.
I had no clue I would be spending many nights there.
I was admitted that afternoon to the fifth floor, the geriatric unit of the hospital. I was never told the reason why I was admitted to that particular floor.
My elderly roommate suffered from diabetes complications. We had nothing in common. In fact, I had nothing in common with anyone on that floor. I didn’t even have to wear a hospital gown like everyone else.
I was an active seventeen-year-old missing track practice. It snowballed into missing the entire track season—not to mention senior-year festivities.
Smartphones, iPads, and social networking sites were nonexistent. The isolation suffocated me. I had nothing to do except lie on a sterile bed and wait for more testing.
My room was located at the end of a hallway. Across from it was a metal door to a dimly lit stairwell that no one used. At night, when my roommate was asleep and I knew the nurses wouldn’t be checking on me, I would sneak out and run up and down several flights of stairs for more than an hour. The vigorous workout was a part of my mental and emotional survival. It enabled me to release my pent-up anger and counteract the boredom.
The meals delivered to the geriatric floor were less than appetizing: a slab of softened meat or scoop of macaroni and cheese, a slice of white bread, an overcooked vegetable, applesauce or stewed fruit. And the food service workers didn’t care when they came to pick up my barely touched tray of leftovers.
In addition to daily urine and blood tests, another test clearly stands out in my mind: my first gynecological exam.
A doctor and his female assistant led me down a dark, abandoned hallway on that geriatric floor. Surplus gurneys lined both sides of it. We stopped at an empty room with an exam table in it.
The doctor instructed me to remove all my clothes and to lie down on the table. He and his assistant repositioned my body and put my feet into metal stirrups.
There was no such thing as searching the internet for information back then. I had no idea what lay ahead.
Neither the doctor nor his assistant explained anything to me. Most likely it was just a rote procedure to them—one of thousands.
As the doctor spread my legs apart, I tensed up. The cold, stainless steel speculum penetrated painfully. In that moment I realized I had no choice but to consent to the unknown.
They both told me to relax—which was impossible—so the assistant held my hips in place while the doctor performed the procedure.
Afterward, I was told to put my clothes back on. The assistant escorted me back to my room in silence.
The worst part of the hospitalization was the day of discharge. I had lost a significant amount of weight since the day I was admitted. The attending physician told me to take all my clothes off and stand in front of my parents. He proceeded to show them every part of my naked and emaciated body. He didn’t even possess the decency to drape a sheet over me.
Then he pointed to my breasts and called them “infantile.” He told my parents that I would never be able to have children. He spoke to them as if I weren’t in the room.
I had no place to hide. I couldn’t even cover my private parts with my arms and hands due to the visual examination. The exposure was humiliating as I stood there on display.
The many tests revealed that I did not have diabetes. Instead, the doctor sent me home with a diagnosis of a low thyroid level and anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized by weight loss or lack of appropriate weight gain. Back in the late ’70s, anorexia was not a relatively well-known affliction like it is today. He instructed my mom to follow up with an internist for my thyroid condition and to make me eat more food—which opened the door for major food battles when I returned home. The strife created ongoing tension, which intensified my loss of appetite.
Unfortunately, I was too weak to be part of the track team—a devastating loss to me.
My chronic self-deprivation of nutrients and calories, combined with my low body weight and mounting inner turmoil, eventually triggered depression. The lack of fat on my body also decreased my capabilities to keep warm, concentrate, and use good judgment.
My periods stopped, my ribs and shoulder blades protruded, I had lost muscle mass in my upper arms and thighs, and my body grew some white, soft downy hair to insulate itself.
I was a mess.
Today, we know much more about the brain, and we recognize it can become injured and/or sick, as with every other organ of the body. But in the late ’70s, mental illness had great stigma and shame attached to it. My parents swept the eating disorder diagnosis under the rug and never mentioned it again—even though my emaciated condition was obvious.
Instead, that summer after graduation, I was discreetly sent to live with an older brother and his wife in Wisconsin. At their home, the food battles were nonexistent, and I was able to relax and eat meals in peace. As a result, I gained just enough weight to attend Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana that upcoming fall of 1979; otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the physical stamina to walk to classes on such a large campus.
Sadly, the pendulum swung back to binge eating. No one knew I was struggling with depression and addiction. I could easily mask my inner turmoil and angst with a gregarious smile and keep the weight off with diet and exercise. Once more, I was popular and usually had a date every weekend.
In the midst of this active eating disorder my freshman year at Purdue, I met a junior named Kurt.
He lived with forty guys in a house named Fairway that was part of the cooperative housing system on campus, and I lived with nearly thirty girls in a house named Twin Pines. It was customary for the male co-op houses to invite the female co-op houses to social activities called “functions.” And it was impolite not to show up. Everyone was expected to participate.
Fairway had asked Twin Pines to a roller skating function. I skated with several of the guys that night, but Kurt was the only one who offered to take me home afterward. And I accepted.
He was unlike any guy I had ever met before. He was polite, and he respected me enough not to force a kiss on me when we arrived back at my house. He simply stated that he had a nice time and would like to see me again. He also added that he would be praying for me.
His kindness endeared my heart to him that night.
We dated the remainder of that academic year. For the summer, he drove to Colorado to work on a dude ranch. Those three months of physical separation drew us even closer, as we exchanged love letters.
When Kurt arrived back to campus after his cowboy adventure, it was obvious to everyone that we were now a couple.
He asked me to marry him soon after Christmas break that year.
I hesitated for a bit, primarily because I was only a sophomore, but also because I knew I had unresolved issues with food.
I confessed to Kurt that I had a “food problem,” but he shrugged it off by reassuring me, “Everyone eats an extra piece of cake now and then.”
Being in denial of the severity of the problem myself, I wholeheartedly agreed with him. Everyone does eat an extra piece of cake now and then...no big deal.
I was just nineteen and my parents had only met Kurt two times. But with their blessing, he proposed to me—and I accepted.
We planned the wedding for the summer after my sophomore year.
I had met his dad one time, and I met his mom two days before the wedding. She had driven her red, sporty MG convertible all the way from California.
(Years later, I learned that my parents didn’t think I was ready for such a commitment, but they didn’t want to interfere with our plans.)
I had remained slender the entire year of dating and during our engagement, but shortly before the wedding, Kurt commented that I needed to lose a few pounds.
My mind immediately tumbled right back into the pit of unrealistic expectations and pressures to be thin, which was like throwing a lit match into a container of gasoline. I should have postponed the wedding, but love had pulled the shades down on my vision.
I didn’t call off the wedding. Instead, on a hot August day in 1981 we exchanged vows in an unairconditioned country church that I had attended throughout my childhood. We honeymooned for several days in Northern Michigan before moving into a scorching cinder block apartment in married student housing at Purdue.
Due to lack of income, I worked at a drugstore near campus while Kurt finished his final semester of undergrad studies. Suddenly, my active social life came to a screeching halt as I managed a mundane, full-time job, grocery shopping, preparing meals and clean-up, thank you notes for the many wedding gifts, and mounting piles of dirty laundry. I had been an athlete in high school; the domestic arts were not my forte. I was totally unprepared for the responsibilities of married life, so I turned to food in order to cope.
As a result, I gained weight. My clothes no longer fit. The minimum wage I received barely covered our basic necessities. We couldn’t even afford curtains let alone new clothes. Thankfully, my uniform at the drugstore was an oversized smock that hid the extra pounds. At home, I wore old stretchy sweatpants and t-shirts. However, anxiety consumed me when I ran into friends on campus. The self-imposed shame of the weight gain created an unhealthy obsession to lose it…but I just kept binge eating and gaining instead.
Kurt and I were both very young, and the eating disorder was way more than either of us could understand or handle on our own.
Kurt became verbally abusive in those early years of marriage—an unhealthy behavior he had learned in childhood. He called me such names as Fatso, Frumpola, Pudge, and Slob. My eating disorder escalated as the weight gain and name-calling spiraled out of control.
To escape the ongoing torment and emotional pain, I continued to numb myself with food. For example, I would pour half a box of Grape Nuts into a large bowl. Then I would pour milk over the cereal, just enough to cover it, followed by spoonfuls of sugar. Within minutes of eating it, I would begin to feel drowsy, and then I would fall asleep and not wake up for a couple of hours.
These ongoing bingeing episodes induced “food comas” that enabled me to psychologically escape the undesirable life I felt trapped in at the time and anesthetize the wounds of domestic abuse—not fully realizing that the emotional eating was also contributing to my inner strife and turmoil.
Gradually, babies came along. So much for the doctor’s proclamation to my parents when I was seventeen that I would never have children—I ended up having five children by age thirty-seven! The food struggles got so bad that I eventually mustered up enough courage to reach out and confide with an older woman. She gathered a few women around me to pray. I was told that I must have trafficked in witchcraft and sorcery since childhood. I was so confused and embarrassed afterward.
Prayer services and church-related activities that I attended—whether large corporate gatherings or in-home Bible studies—served doughnuts, cookies, and the like. Gluttony not only prevailed in these spiritual settings, but it was promoted, and it perpetuated my addiction. The sessions added an additional layer of confusion and complication to my downfall.
I tried every Bible verse and diet imaginable to cast out the supposed demons within, but to no avail. I was trapped in a besetting sin, yet I saw no way out of the misery. I even attempted a forty-day fast amidst cooking for and raising five children and managing the busy household.
On the thirty-third day of drinking only water, I went grocery shopping and nearly passed out in the middle of the store. I suddenly became dizzy as I gorged on the sights and smells of food. I had to sit and call Kurt to come to get me, because I was too weak to finish shopping and make the short drive home. Out of sheer frustration, coupled with being famished, I abruptly ended the fast and succumbed to binge eating all over again. It started with eating buttered popcorn, several apples, a banana, a few slices of whole wheat bread, and lettuce with shredded cheese poured over it—on an empty and shrunken stomach. Afterward, the pain was unbearable, but that didn’t deter me from devouring more food.
Despair set in, and I felt hopeless. I eventually gained more than a hundred “goose eggs.” By my early 40s, I had developed heart disease, hypertension, and prediabetes, which increased the anguish and despondency.
Looking back, I needed proper psychiatric, medical, and spiritual care, but we were too naïve back then to pursue those routes. In fact, not one physician or spiritual mentor during those years of noticeable and significant weight gains ever asked if I might be suffering from an eating disorder. Nevertheless, I am now eternally grateful that I was never drugged by a medical community, or exorcised by a religious community. I was graciously spared both the adverse side effects of some psychoactive meds and potential spiritual abuse.
After desperately praying and seeking a way out of my inner turmoil, my cries for help were heard, and I was graciously delivered. God led me to a path of healing for depression, addiction, and the resulting eating disorder; and it didn’t include expensive hospitalizations, a plethora of toxic drugs, or spiritual condemnation and shame.
I was led to marriage and family therapist Carl Sovine, Ph.D., who skillfully helped me with many of life’s issues, including my identity and self-worth—as God sees me—and he gave Kurt and me some practical tools to heal and restore our floundering marriage.
Number one, Kurt had to stop the name-calling immediately, which instantly defused the destructive cycle of damaging triggers. Number two, Dr. Sovine worked with him on loving me unconditionally, no matter what size I was at any given time. (And thankfully, Kurt was teachable and has loved me unconditionally ever since.) And third, he taught us healthy communication skills that were severely lacking in our relationship.
For example, Kurt and I had developed a terrible habit of yelling at each other when we felt misunderstood by the other person. We were unable to hear what the other had to say. This only escalated the frustrations.
Dr. Sovine taught us to sit on two chairs that were positioned back to back.
Age 17; 104 pounds (5’8”)
Age 47; 238 pounds (5’8”)
This prevented us from seeing each other’s body language. (One can silently scream just by using the right body language!)
Then we had to set a timer for five minutes. We each had a five-minute turn to talk without interruption from the other person. Afterward, we could choose to add additional five-minute time allotments—as long as we each got an equal number of turns to talk. This exercise trained us to really listen to what the other person had to say, without interruption.
We were then able to work on tangible resolutions to disagreements. This simple trick prevented yelling matches that accomplished nothing except to build more walls of miscommunication. Learning to communicate properly put an end to the ongoing tension and strife.
Then I providentially stumbled across Joel Fuhrman, M.D., a board-certified family physician who specializes in nutritional medicine. He is an internationally recognized expert on nutrition and natural healing for eradicating disease, including depression and addiction. In the following chapters, I will explain in further detail how his nutritional information has radically changed my life.
Through both healers, I have found a path to freedom and wholeness.
Now, I consistently eat high-nutrient foods, use proper supplements, exercise, meditate on Scriptures and pray, minimize stress, seek counseling when needed, and make sound sleep a top priority to continue to eliminate depression and addiction.
I have also learned the hard way that when I don’t make the healing process a top priority and neglect self-care, or when I indulge in compromises, or allow exceptions, the apathy and carelessness can cause me to relapse into disease and poor health. Most everyone just thinks I’m perpetually on a diet to keep weight off. However, my motivation goes much deeper than a number on a scale.
Due to the rollercoaster ride to hell and back this past decade—which included multiple medical and pharmaceutical errors and the tragic death of a child—I have also experienced enough personal trauma and distress to last a lifetime. Post-traumatic stress can also change the brain and alter its function; therefore, I am gradually healing from that horrific ordeal as well.
I am a firm believer that eating disorders are merely the symptoms of underlying conditions, such as malnutrition and food poisoning, depression and addiction, childhood adversity and abuse, learning disabilities, poor body image, low self-esteem, early exposure to dieting, and post-traumatic stress. There is way too much science out there nowadays proving it to believe otherwise.
Proponents of eating in moderation, and critics of abstinence, believe that eating for health is too strict; they feel exceptions can be made for social get-togethers, eating out, special occasions, birthday celebrations, holidays, bereavement—and I get it.
I truly do.
But entanglements and besetments don’t work that way. Once addicted to a destructive substance or habit—one bite, one smoke, one injection, one drink, one snort—you can set the chronic disease back in motion. You have to completely abstain from a destructive entanglement.
Furthermore, I completely understand the biblical examples of fellowship: “breaking bread together” in both the Old and New Testaments. But back then, food was not highly processed and addictive. Modern-day foods are completely abnormal and disease-promoting and contribute to far too many afflictions.
I don’t follow Dr. Fuhrman’s instructions merely because I want to fit into a pair of skinny jeans for the next class reunion. I follow them because they eradicate depression and food addiction. They put an end to myriad other illnesses too: heart disease, hypertension, migraines, diabetes, and cancer, to name just a few. But depression and addiction are the ones that take me out.
On holidays and all social occasions out, when others curiously ask, “What are you eating?” I graciously answer, “I’m eating foods that heal my body.” Period. I know full well that they have absolutely no clue what I am talking about. Nevertheless, that’s perfectly fine with me. I follow this path of healing without apology, shame, or others’ understanding or approval of it. (During the year I lost a hundred pounds, an acquaintance tried to pry my mouth open to stuff a chocolate éclair into it against my will. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced similar encounters where others have tried to sabotage my journey to health and wellness.)
I never chose depression and addiction; and I certainly never chose an eating disorder or post-traumatic stress. But each day, I choose healing and freedom from all of them.
I refuse to become a victim or wear any affliction as my badge of identity.
On the contrary, I am a victorious overcomer.
I contend daily for optimal health and well-being.
Incredible health, including mental health and performance, is way too precious to me to choose otherwise.