Stuffing It:
A Recipe for Disaster
It was during my third season filming Hoarders®. I was asked to fly to a bustling Midwestern town to work with a woman who hoards toys (for kids who’ve long grown up), clothes (that no longer fit), and more than a dozen goats, several dogs, a bunch of chickens and roosters, a few cats, and a couple of birds. The woman, Maybelline, lives on a lovely manicured street and owns a large parcel of land, which, because of an old zoning law, allows for farm animals. Nearby suburban neighbors don’t approve of Maybelline’s hoard and don’t like the look of her property. They complain of a dilapidated home with holes, overgrown brush, mishmash fencing, and farm animals roaming. Neighbors grumble at being interrupted by roosters announcing the day before the manufactured alarm clocks do. The neighbors roll their eyes when they have to swerve their cars around another loud and boisterous breakaway goat, and they resent the hoard of unstartable cars, immoveable boats, campers with broken windows, and wheel-less motorcycles that cover the front and back yards. Maybelline loves her goats even though they have chewed through the exterior siding and insulation of the house, through the interior walls, and into her back bedroom.
When I arrived on location with the show’s therapist, Dr. Zasio, I met Maybelline and three of her goats in that bedroom; as I approached her, I gave Maybelline my usual hug and I could sense her warmth and willingness. I was reminded of the days when my dad, the town banker, was a guardian for some folks in my hometown of Richland Center, Wisconsin. He would take me with him on Saturday mornings and I had the chance to meet many of his clients—some of whom exhibited hoarding behavior. Holding my hand, my dad taught me as a seven-year-old to be very polite, keep any hurtful remarks to myself, and be interested in what they were saying. Today, every time I visit a client with hoarding problems, I feel my dad is with me. I asked Maybelline about her hoarding, focusing on some important questions: Are you a perfectionist? Does the “stuff” remind you of happier times? Have you experienced anxiety or depression in your lifetime?
This time, although I was talking with Maybelline, I began having an internal dialogue with my 200-pound self: “Dorothy, are you a perfectionist?” “Heck, yeah! I was a gymnast for years, striving for a perfect 10—no mistakes!” “Dorothy, is there any anxiety or depression you don’t want to talk about?” “I don’t want to admit it, but yes. My sister was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and I need to help her with her mortgage. My mentally challenged cousin has just come to live with us; I’ve moved in with my mom, sister, and cousin to help with the bills and the caregiving. I am working around the clock. I am depressed and anxious, and I am eating nonstop to cope.”
While my exterior self remained kind, loving, and professional, for the first time in my life, I was experiencing a shift in my own authentic, true self. As I was asking questions of Maybelline, I found myself answering them right along with her. In the midst of my internal verbal volley, I heard Maybelline again, talking about her need to cope—how she hoarded things because it brought her comfort. Was I hearing her story about hoarding or my story about overeating? As she explained that the toys and the clothes reminded her of happier times, I floated back to my own thoughts: Yes, I’m attached to ice cream because it reminds me of my father. When he was alive we would go for ice cream in the evenings, and it was such a happy time for me. My cousin and I used to buy penny candy and play for hours at a time. I yearned for those carefree days.
Stop! I don’t believe this! I thought. I excused myself from Maybelline’s presence and ran out in tears to the television production tent out front. I rarely cry on the set, but during my conversation with Maybelline, I realized that I was a hoarder, too. While I wasn’t hoarding things, I was hoarding food—sugar, flour, and excess quantities of junk food on my body! In that moment, I saw that I was no different from Maybelline. She was buying, collecting, and hoarding stuff to fill a void, lessen anxiety, and reconnect with happier times in life—and so was I. I had developed this habit over the years to soothe myself, and it was identical to the behavior of my hoarding clients.
Maybelline and I sat down and designed new goals and dreams for her. She agreed to fix her camper and replace hoarding with traveling and adventure. We mended the goat-chewed holes in her house, and we substituted trash, soiled clothes, and old food and electronics lying about the house with artwork depicting mountains and eagles. We brought in soft blankets and rugs in outdoorsy colors and placed pine-scented candles throughout her home, reinforcing her dream of camping in the remote forests of North America. We also encouraged Maybelline to apologize to her neighbors, show them how we were dismantling the auto-parts division in her front yard, and let them know she intended to build proper fencing for the animals.
As I found with Maybelline and my own transformation, letting go of our “stuff” is often an emotional task as well as a physical one. But we can get there if we face it head-on.
Just as I excavate people from their homes and help them learn new habits, you can excavate the clutter around you and within you and learn new, healthier habits, too. But first you need to understand that some of your issues about food may be more about emotional cravings than physical ones.
The Disappearing Husband
Five, 5:30, 6:00 pm. He’s not showing up. I’ve got family visiting from out of town and my husband has left us all waiting. We promised to meet at the house and head out to a Moroccan restaurant for dinner. He’s usually on time. What’s the matter with him? How could he let me down? How inconsiderate! He’s embarrassing me! The least he could do is call!
Six-thirty, 7:00, 7:30 pm. Maybe something is wrong. I’ll cancel the dinner reservations and we’ll order in. But really, should I be worried? I dialed his cell phone for the seventeenth time in just a couple of hours’ time.
Eight, 8:30, 9:00 pm. What do you say to family members who are looking at you funny when your husband doesn’t come home when he’s supposed to? My embarrassment had hit its height, but concern and worry started overtaking it. More calls to his cell phone. A call to his boss. Nothing.
Nine-thirty, 10:00, 10:30 pm. I turned to my sister Chris and niece, Morgen, and asked if they thought I should call the police or hospitals to see if something serious had happened to Bob. Despite our ups and downs, he always called—didn’t he? Well, no. He didn’t always call, but I ignored those times; they weren’t as extreme as this. He had never done this to me when guests were involved. I called the hospitals and highway safety; no reports to their knowledge. I needed to inquire with the police directly.
Eleven, 11:30 pm, 12:00 midnight. I nervously got dressed and made my way to the police department to file a missing person’s report. Not having done such a thing in my life, I didn’t realize that it was too soon to do so. You mean seven hours of “no contact” didn’t automatically make you a missing person? I was not able to file a report, so being my anxious self, I asked the officer on duty a slew of questions: Could he check the system for possible car accidents? Did he have a way to access hospital reports? Could he pull up my husband’s car license plate number and track him? Tired of me and my questions, the officer had one question for me.
“Do you think your husband might be having a relationship with another woman?” he asked.
Well, put me in a boxing ring with gloves and a mouth guard and watch me fall to the floor in a total knockout! What? I’m shaking my head like a wet dog with water flying off my face as it goes from side to side! Huh?
“Well, no,” I answered, embarrassed and ashamed. The officer could see he had made his point, and he offered a conciliatory “Why don’t you just head home and try to get some sleep? I’m sure you’ll hear from him. Hang in there.”
I drove home in a fog, walked into the house where family members were still gathered in support of my missing-husband dilemma, and the phone rang. It was 1:30 am. It was Bob. The first words were, “Dor, I only have a one-minute call. You need to find the best divorce attorney you can and divorce me, and could you call my brother and let him know I’m in jail for six felony counts? I need his help.” I barely got another sentence in before asking the location of the jail where Bob was being held, then the phone went dead. I’ve only seen those scenarios in the movies, but now I understood that when you only get a minute to make a collect call, they aren’t kidding. In that minute, the life I knew collapsed around me, and in the days afterward, my mind started searching for clues about my sixteen-year relationship with Bob. I knew I needed to face up to all the stuff I had ignored, pretended about, and lied about—to myself and others. I was in an unhealthy marriage and I needed to come clean. It would be years before I could admit my part not just in my marriage to Bob but about my entire life.
Some people hide behind booze. Some people gamble to overcompensate for feelings of inferiority. Others shop endlessly to deaden the pain. Some of us stuff our faces to avoid facing the truth. That was me. I spent a lifetime eating sugar, flour, and drive-through fast food to avoid experiencing feelings and situations that were uncomfortable.
Does this ever happen to you? Do you remember a time (or two) when you just didn’t want to face it? Maybe a report that was due? Perhaps telling your favorite aunt that you couldn’t attend her anniversary party? Letting your spouse know you got a speeding ticket? We avoid situations all the time. Some of us use food as the fallback answer—the answer to feeling alone, celebrating a reward, drowning out bad news of a job loss or a family tragedy. We stop using food as fuel for our bodies and begin using it as a drug, a process that often starts in childhood.
A Six-Year-Old Sugar Addict
When I think about my own addiction to sugar and flour, I first look to my parents to find the answers. My father was vastly overweight, jolly, and affectionate. My mother, on the other hand, was (in my child eyes) underweight, serious, and strict.
At the time I didn’t understand my mother’s very traumatic childhood. I look at her sweet childhood photos and can’t believe that she was called “Fatso” by her own grandmother. My mother was tiny, and still is, yet was berated by her grandmother. It wasn’t until later in my life that I understood why my mother pressed so hard for me to stay slim, lose weight, be active, and not eat so much. I’m sure she didn’t want me to suffer the pain and humiliation she experienced from her own family. My mom’s very frightening experience of living through World War II in Berlin, Germany, was a breeding ground for anxiety and fear for her.
Her family’s home in Berlin was destroyed by bombing. My grandmother took my mother and the four other children by the hands and white-knuckled their escape over a swinging, temporary bridge. They jumped on crowded trains and walked great distances in extreme weather and war conditions to a tent camp for safety.
My mother knows hunger. She lived in a tent city for months and ate turnips and dandelion salad daily that had been foraged from the grasslands beyond the camp and made in a broken cooking pot over a makeshift, upside-down wrought-iron “grill” pulled from the street gutters. Later, when the Americans flew over Europe, they performed airdrops of food to the starving people below. Bags of sugar and flour flew down magically from the air, and for the first time in what seemed to be an eternity to my mother, she dug her hand straight into a bag of sugar and ate it.
I had never experienced hunger, yet I had that same way of behaving toward sugar and flour as my mother did when she dug her hand straight into the bags of sugar decades ago. I have, as my mother did, a ferocious drive to consume all things sweet. Perhaps in my childhood years, my mother allowed me to indulge in these goodies so that I would feel the comfort she didn’t have as a child. To be honest, whether she let me have them or not, I found a way to get my hands on the contraband—no matter what.
The Doughnut Shop
I had a special sugar bond with my dad. Every Saturday I would wake up and get dressed immediately. By 6:30 am, I had already watched my fill of Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner cartoons, and was prepared to hit the road with my dad. He had a lot of work responsibilities, even on the weekends. I accompanied him on his morning routines: the first stop was our local country club where my father managed the books. He had special keys to get into the club before it was open, and while he collected all the receipts and reports from the week gone by, I would settle in at the bar and pretend I had some customers. I would serve Coke or 7-Up and mix it up with a maraschino cherry. The customer was actually me, and one maraschino cherry always led me to consume the entire jar of cherries. I loved that place and all the sugar that came with it.
The next stop with Dad was to a local nursing home where he would check on a client. My father was appointed as trustee for aging folks who didn’t have family in our hometown. We would stop in and Dad’s client would typically offer me a freshly baked cookie from her vintage owl cookie jar. Our morning continued with another stop to the local feed mill to visit my uncle Jerry, one of Wisconsin’s top-producing dairy farmers, then on to the newsstand to get a Saturday morning paper for Dad and penny candy for me, and finally to the local doughnut shop.
Each and every Saturday, I could have whatever I wanted at the bakery. Imagine, nose pressed to the glass counter, asking, “Can I have that one?” Yes. “Can I get that one?” Yes. I ordered to my heart’s content, and so did Dad. When we were done gleefully selecting our sugar prizes, I was reminded that we best take a few things home for the rest of the family. To me, this was an afterthought. I wondered if our baker could package up my doughnuts separately so that I wouldn’t have to share. Didn’t want any mix-ups or confusion about what was mine. When it came to desserts and baked goods, I would carry this thinking around with me for the rest of my life.
Looking back, these memories were indeed sweet (to my taste buds and in my mind’s eye), but as an adult, this memory also brings with it a very jolting realization: my father, a severe diabetic, was my sugar buddy. At that time I was too young to understand that what my father was doing was like committing involuntary suicide. You can’t eat sugar like we did and manage your life with diabetes. If I had only known. If only he had taken care of himself in a healthier way. For him, it is a shame he died at the young age of fifty-seven. For me it was a shame I learned that no matter how sick you are, you don’t need to take care of yourself. Sugar and flour took my dad to his grave—and I learned that was okay.
Taking an Advance on My Allowance to Buy Sugar
I remember getting an allowance from my father and taking my money and my very confident little self to town every Saturday—sometimes walking and sometimes with my bike—to buy two things at the local dime store in my hometown: a new Barbie doll outfit and a boatload of candy.
Each Saturday I found I was spending more money than I had, and it didn’t seem to matter. There I was, standing in line, suffering anxiously with my carefully selected wax lips, candy cigarettes (Pall Mall), Slo Pokes, and jawbreakers, knowing I didn’t have enough money to pay for them. If I were lucky and my ever-prepared sister Pat was with me, I would ask her yet again if I could borrow the money “just this one time”—again—or I would muster up the gumption to ask the dime store cashier to loan me the money until I could pay her back.
Many Saturdays, this same cashier would listen to my heartfelt dilemma—very serious in nature—as I would promise to run home and bring the money back within the hour. Was I such a pest that I wore people down? Did I have a flair with convincing others? Was I just plain ol’ manipulative? No matter what, I would leave the dime store, consuming candy like there was no tomorrow, and then run all the way home—to ask my sweet dad for an advance on next week’s allowance.
My First Organizing Obsession—or Was It Hoarding?
Eating and organizing candy was my favorite covert pastime. And the most revered of holidays, Halloween, could never appear on the calendar fast enough. Before trick-or-treating, I set up an efficient assembly line in my bedroom where I would group, count, and then eat my candy. Costumes were not the important part of Halloween; it was the candy. While other kids were busily discussing and planning their artistic disguises for this devilish October night, I was assessing the neighborhood strategically to gain access to the best and most abundant candy givers. After a night of trick-or-treating, I knew to the last mini candy bar where I stashed my contraband to hide from my mother. My sister, who knew I always had a candy factory set up, always demanded her cut of the action. It was like handing over hush money to keep the goods secret.
What was worse? The need to organize or the need to hide candy like a squirrel burying its nuts in the snow? My father was thrilled at my capability to organize my stuff; he could see in me the next banker in the family. Who knew that sugar consumption and organizing would come to me at such an early age? No wonder the correlation has become so evidently clear for me and many of the clients with whom I work.
When I think about organizing my stuff during my childhood, I needed to do it for three reasons:
- It made my mother happy.
- It came naturally to me.
- It helped me gain control of my environment and my fears.
Wrestlers, Buses, and Cheerleaders—Oh, My!
At the age of six, I distinctly remember one of my first frightening events. I was a miniature cheerleader on the high school cheerleading squad, and on the weekends I would go with the big girls and my older sister Chris on the school bus to a basketball game or wrestling match. The state wrestling tournament was happening in the far-off and very big city of Madison, Wisconsin (not that far, really, and not that big then). In my pint-size pleated skirt and oversized pom-poms, I cheered all day for our champion wrestlers. Later that night, we were instructed to board our bus home. With the “big girl” cheerleaders guiding me, we made it to the bus and settled in for the trip home.
I kept looking for my sister Chris and was very worried that the bus driver would leave without her. More high school teenagers boarded the bus, but Chris was nowhere in sight. My forty-five-pound self was shivering in fear—the bus driver and school chaperones were making “last call.” I was in total fear and panic, and I burst out and ran down the bus aisle to announce, “We can’t go—my sister isn’t here. Please, please don’t go without her!”
Through my tears, I was reassured that my sister was there and had boarded the other bus home. I needed to see this for myself, so the bus driver brought my sister over to my bus to prove that she was safe. The big-girl cheerleaders came to my rescue, and soon after, my feelings were soothed with an ice cream cone at the local A&W, where our bus stopped on the way home. Translation: Have fear? Eat food. I’ve been doing it that way all my life.
“I’ll Make You Something Special”
During those years, even though I yearned to eat junk food, I could count on my mother to always prepare a very healthy meal for me and the entire family. Before the war raged in Berlin, my grandmother would always make what her children wanted at mealtime. String-bean stew, Hungarian goulash, and potato pancakes were just a few of her specialties. If Grandma Lucy was preparing a delectable dinner and my mom didn’t like it, Grandma would prepare something else: cheese blintzes or a pancake—something quick and sweet. Mother loved her mother’s cooking; it made her feel special.
Just as history repeats itself, if I didn’t like what my mother was making for dinner, she would make me a special meal as well. The whole family was being served spaghetti and meat sauce and Dorothy didn’t like it? Pass the buttered noodles for me, please, and keep the veggies on the other side of the table. I got to eat what I wanted, and I grew up believing that I was special. Problem is, I didn’t just believe that concerning the food. I believed I should have special privileges all the time! Somehow, I created the idea that I was the exception to every rule.
If others had to stand in line for something, I would angle to find a way to move to the front of the line. If all the kids had finals in college, I would speak to the dean of the college to get a special test date to accommodate my schedule. If everyone at the office was expected to work overtime during tax season, I solicited my boss to see things my way as to why I shouldn’t have to. If I could take all those incidents back, I would. But I can’t. This personal exclusivity stayed with me until I came to terms with my food addiction. Lots of apologies and a great big humble pill was the only way to solve this one.
The Only Way to Shut Her Up Is to Quarantine Her
One thing hit me fair and square and taught me that I couldn’t always have my way. When I was thirteen years old, I was diagnosed with acute bacterial spinal meningitis. I was hospitalized and quarantined for a month, and my friends, family, and schoolmates all took penicillin to avoid catching this contagious bacterium. My parents nervously watched my white blood count and visited me daily. While I definitely remember the painful spinal taps, hourly blood tests, and days of sheer hospital boredom, the biggest memory was the gifts that people brought me.
Everyone back then knew my favorite candy bar was Forever Yours, a 1.76-ounce bar of dark chocolate on the outside with a mix of caramel and nougat on the inside. I received more than sixty of these get-well candy-bar gifts. I ate all of them, and though I was told I would never be able to be athletically active again, I was. That’s all this developing teen needed to learn, and it was sort of like what I learned with Dad and his diabetes: when you’re sick and hospitalized, you reward yourself with chocolate!
As I made my physical comeback, I continued to reward myself with chocolate, and new on the food scene were entire packages of cookies accompanied by cold Wisconsin milk. My brother, Edd, who had recently returned from Vietnam, was trying to reclaim his own life postwar.
He kept to himself and listened to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Jethro Tull by the hour with the aid of his oversized and clear-sounding earphones. Edd noticed me, however. While my parents were at work—Dad at the bank and Mom at the adorable town flower shop—Edd commented on how amazed he was that I slammed down another package of cookies, and he didn’t even get one. He was sort of making a joke of it, yet it stands out strongly in my memory today. What was I doing? Home after school, eat a package of Chips Ahoy, and sit down for an elegant meal prepared by Mom. It didn’t end there. My father discovered Ho Ho wrappers in the glove box in the car, and my mother picked up even more candy wrappers in my room. The observation and confiscation were not limited to my own family. My hometown had nearly 5,000 people in it, and I swear each and every resident was watching what I ate. In high school I was a celebrated varsity gymnast, and if a town local saw me at the drugstore having a malt at the counter with the other kids, my parents knew about it before I could say “Boo.” I was gaining weight and something had to give! But what?
I Can’t Be Fat—I’m an Athlete
The scales still tipped in my favor. I was a champion gymnast in the making and worked out between three and four hours a day. Youth had its benefits: I could eat all the sugar, candy, ice cream, and junk I wanted and still maintain a sporty physique. Though my mother spent hours coaching me on good health or negotiating with me to lose weight in exchange for a new back-to-school wardrobe, I ignored her.
Throughout high school, I lived and loved my life. I attended dances with boys, was voted into the prom court, vacationed with my best friend and her parents or mine, participated in the student council, and won state championships in track and gymnastics. I even became Miss Richland County—tiara, sash, parades, floats—such fame and fortune (as I saw it). I was basking in the popularity, and I was receiving the attention I so desperately required.
Stop the Bus—That’s My Dad on the Side of the Road
Despite my letterman’s jacket, the awards, medals, and all the accolades my hometown locals bestowed upon me, I had fear. I worried that if I was too good of a gymnast, my teammates wouldn’t like me. I worried that my high school boyfriend might find someone better. I worried that I interpreted my homework assignments differently than everyone else. I was afraid of not being on time, getting lost while driving in a big city, and dropping the baton in our 400-meter relay race. You name it, I worried about it. I worried most about my father’s failing health. Just as when I was a six-year-old cheerleader and thought the bus was leaving my older sister behind, I had a strangely similar experience with my dad.
I share this story to reinforce how much fear I carried as a child—and still do today, except I have a way to manage it. It was a very cold and blizzardy night, and my coaches and our gymnastics team were on the school bus heading back from a gymnastics meet in Spring Green, only thirty-five minutes from home. My dad drove separately in his bad-ass gold Cadillac to watch me. He, too, was on his way home.
My parents attended nearly every meet, game, match, concert, and event I was in; they gave their lives to support me. What was there possibly to be afraid of? And why eat over it? Well, you can ask that same question of someone who hoards too much stuff or someone who drinks to escape the pain. For me, it’s fear, doubt, and insecurity. Because my father was a very sick man—he looked seventy-five when he was a mere fifty-five years old—I carried a foreboding feeling around me with much of the time. I checked on him many nights as he sat in his rocking chair unable to sleep. I would try to make him laugh as he held his head in his hands in exhaustion at the kitchen table after work each day. I would walk slowly when we were together so as not to embarrass my father because he could not walk fast anymore. When I would compete, I would watch and wait for him to arrive safely before I could settle myself and perform. With all this in the background, as we drove along the dark and snow-drifted highway, our bus passed my dad’s Cadillac—broken down, with flashers blinking at the side of the road. My dad! Another moment of fear was frozen in time for me. I ran to the bus driver and yelled, “Stop the bus! Please! My dad is stuck on the side of the road.”
By this time my dad was a very frail man, and true to form, I was in a panic about him. Thankfully, the driver stopped the bus, turned it around, and went back to pick up my dad. As Dad slowly boarded the bus loaded with giddy gymnasts screaming, “Hi, Mr. Breininger,” my dad took a seat at the front on the bus. Safe. Warm. Relieved. We both sat quietly arm in arm the rest of the ride home. We shared a cookie I had packed in my gym bag. My fear was not gone, but my dad was here for now. I don’t think I ever shared these very private fears with anyone in my family—not even my friends. Cookie or no cookie, I think I knew that my father’s eating lifestyle would be the death of him, and it never occurred that it could happen to me too.
Trapped in the Dorm and Covered in Parking Tickets
When high school ended, so did my father’s life and my quest for gymnastics or any other kind of stardom. Though I was offered a gymnastics scholarship to the Air Force Academy, I chose to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a college that’s not easy to get into. With a gymnastics walk-on scholarship and letters of recommendation that would blow the most cynical minds, I was accepted—and only sixty miles away from home. I convinced myself that all the stars in the universe, no matter how infinite, pointed in my direction. But after I arrived, the stars flamed out, littered around my feet.
While most middle-aged men enjoyed the prime of their lives, Dad left this world both physically and mentally drained at age fifty-seven. While his golf swing was powerful, his eating and drinking for a man with severe diabetes were equally as such. Would my dad’s death be a wake-up call for me? Nope. Instead, I continued to emulate his charm and kindness with the community, while stuffing myself with the only numbing agent I could count on: food.
I could have saved years of agony as an adult if—beginning in college, if not before—I would have used the word no. No to the wrong relationships, no to stupid mistakes, no to jobs that were offered to me but weren’t for me, no to the people who took advantage of my good nature. For all intents and purposes, the word no was like a four-letter word banned in our household. My dad could soothe and calm the nastiest customers at the bank where he worked. A gentleman to a fault, he only wanted to please. But that same overly kind, calming exterior led to his binge eating and diabetes. Little did he realize that by saying no, he could have extended his life and created genuine happiness. But now one of his surviving daughters also found that people pleasing was an instant claim to fame—yet for years a devastating circular pattern of food bingeing accompanied the people-pleasing behavior.
UW–Madison is a testing ground for some of the smartest and most competitive students in the world. An education here would have meant graduate school at any Ivy League school. What an American success story . . . a small-town girl propels herself into gymnastics, then attends a world-renowned university only to add another cream-of-the-crop institution to a stunning résumé! Only that’s not what happened. After my dad died, I could not face school, let alone my own life. I left after two years and cycled through bouts of depression with the help of my favorite companion. (Do I need to even say what it is?)
Before making the decision to leave, I entered the deepest, darkest, and loneliest periods of my life. I was living in a jock dorm on campus and couldn’t get a grip on my father’s death. I didn’t understand anything about death or grieving, and I found myself turning to food for comfort. Worse yet, I stopped going to class, broke up with my high school sweetheart, and began to miss gymnastics practice. I lived in the dark—drapes closed by day, isolated, and eating excessive amounts of dorm food and junk food. Tons of food and no exercise is a certain prescription for weight gain and depression.
The more you eat, the more you eat—and the less you do, the less you do. It was bad. I was now the proud owner of my dad’s gold Cadillac, which was permanently parked in the street behind my dorm—collecting parking ticket after parking ticket on the windshield. I didn’t care. I was drifting and didn’t know how to ask for help. The only help I summoned came in the form of a pint from the freezer section.
It wasn’t long before my grade reports caught up with me, the numbers on my bathroom scale soared to new heights, my ATM card ran out of cash, my coach called me into her office, and my car was booted and fined. That’s what college looked like for me.
Shortly thereafter, I quit school, quit gymnastics, and stopped dating altogether. I was aimless and felt lost. I applied to be a flight attendant, I interviewed for sales jobs, and then did what most people do when the going gets tough: became a cashier at McDonald’s. And really, what better place for a gal with a food addiction than the Golden Arches? Easy access to burgers, fries, ice cream, and cookies.
Pass Me the Steno Book, Sir
Somehow, my sister Pat sensed my despair. She suggested it would be good for me to attend a secretarial school in Boston. In the early 1980s, this particular private school—Katharine Gibbs—was known for its Marine-like precision, turning out executive secretaries to top-flight companies. I made the move and graduated at the top of my class within a year. I requested interviews with Donald Trump and Jack Welch (then CEO of General Electric), as well as would-be governors and presidential hopefuls.
Plump and professional, I donned my mandatory panty hose and stiff business suits (accessorized by blouses with bowties) to showcase my super shorthand skills, typing speeds of 100-plus words per minute, my magical ability to file alphabetically while standing upside down, and my ability to master the intricacies of introducing international delegations to my high-powered bosses-to-be.
My tour at Katie Gibbs Secretarial School gave me a sense of adulthood, and I quickly became known as the intense secretary everyone wanted to hire. Within months I was working for a self-made multimillionaire in the printing business and later for the dean of the College of Business at Northeastern University. But my thirst was not quenched with work. I started eating again and dieting again—up and down the scale I went.
The Mysterious Older Man
Enter the “older man.” At age twenty-one, I was living and working in Manhattan, and through my job I met a man who was eighteen years my senior. He was handsome enough, seemed worldly, sought my untapped opinions, and acted my age (later I learned that was the problem). Our courtship was a thrill. Though I was completely overweight, Bob courted me like I was a slim Heidi Klum. Elegant meals out, dancing until the wee hours, fancy hotels, basketball games at Madison Square Garden, skiing at swanky mountain resorts. In fact, Bob ran a hotel in New England and flew me up from New York City regularly to see him. What a jet-setter! Considering myself a smart person, and not wanting to get caught in any weird workplace romance situation, I used my position to access Bob’s personnel file. The file said he had been married.
Later, I questioned him about his marital status. “Bob, I want to be sure you are divorced. You are divorced, aren’t you?” He answered yes. Hallelujah. What a relief! We were free to date. It was a year later when I learned Bob was indeed twice divorced, but that he had left out an important detail: he was still married to someone else. Food to the rescue!
The good news is that I got out of the relationship with Bob immediately. The bad news is that he ended his relationship and begged me to take him back—and I did. Months later, when Bob’s divorce was finalized, we moved in together and eventually married. At this point, I began fighting bitterly with my mother. Months would pass without our speaking to each other, and moments of laughter and softness were rare. Blame-filled conversations, followed by defensive letters via snail mail, followed by muddled hearsay among family members created two decades of pain for my mom and me. She really didn’t like or trust Bob (wonder why?), and her approach was a bit off the mark in terms of delicacy. Worse yet, the few times I did see my mom—once or twice a year—didn’t give us enough mother/daughter time to talk about the obvious issues in a compassionate way.
Always seeking my mother’s approval, yet rarely honoring or respecting her, we always fell into a vicious cycle and painful discussion about my weight. It was all she seemed to bring up. “How did you get so big? What are you doing? Are you unhappy? What’s going on with you?” So many invasive questions. But looking back, she was right on all counts. Mom could see my situation and I could not—and would not—want to hear a word. I was combative and volatile. I raised my voice often in my own defense, hell-bent to show my mom a thing or two. You know how? I ate more. So there! En garde—take that!
I was unforgiving to my mom and to myself. Could my mother have refined her approach to one of compassion toward me? Absolutely. Could I have just once agreed with her and affirmed that maybe she was right? Without a doubt. In order to figure out my life and finally reduce my weight, I had to come to terms with my own relationships—not only with Bob but, more importantly, with my mother.
Back then, I just didn’t have the maturity or desire to learn why my mom and I couldn’t get along. Certainly she had my best interests at heart, but she was suffering from her own traumatic past, and neither of us had the capacity to sit with each other’s pain and problems. Did it really take me forty years to understand how great my mom is? Yes, and I’ll share how I did it later.
The Extra-Large TV Persona
My final chapter in “living life large” came as a result of my appearance on television. I was regularly appearing and seeing myself on the Dr. Phil show as a life coach; on QVC with sellout segments for Cherished Memories (an interview book created by my business partners, Debby Bitticks and Lynn Benson; more on this later); on the Today show, the Bonnie Hunt show, The View, and Nightline; and on the PBS pledge show for another one of our company’s products, Our Life’s Essential Information. It was hard enough to watch myself on the taped segments of these shows, but the PBS show was set to re-air and re-air and re-air. Never before did I love the quality of the product so much and detest how I looked delivering the information. Night after night, I would flip the channel and cringe at how large I had become.
I also saw myself living life large on Hoarders. It was airing most Monday nights with millions of viewers, and when I was watching myself work with people who hoarded too much stuff, I suffered with my own underlying truth: I was hoarding, too—on my hips, tummy, in my neck (what sleep apnea? what snoring?), everywhere.
Though I had begun gaining insight about myself over the years while filming Hoarders, it finally dawned on me like the startled “surprise” that horses exhibit at the racetrack when they are released from the gates: I needed to do something for myself—not for anyone else, but just for me.
If I wanted to really step into my powerful self and help others, and have them know they could count on me not just for what I said but for what I did, I needed to change. I researched sugar addiction, which led me to study food addiction—and then I finally jumped in with no turning back. My life has never been, nor will it ever be, the same. Seventy-five pounds lighter for me meant a healthy dating relationship, a solid community around me, being nice to my mom, apologizing quickly when I was wrong, being on time, returning phone calls, climbing stairs without wheezing, sleeping solidly through the night, increased business, more money in my bank account, and more time to enjoy my life.
I stopped stuffing my face and started facing my stuff, one area of life at a time. In the following chapters you will read about my “befores and afters,” learn some of the information I used to make the change, and see how I saw correlated clutter and hoarding to weight loss—and you’ll get a few tips to start off in the right direction, too.
I tell you my life story as my way of demonstrating to you that I have truly experienced every chapter of this book—whether finances or failures, the state of being overwhelmed (with emotions or situations), or lack of self-esteem. I have without a doubt stuffed my face to avoid facing my stuff. The coming chapters are meant to give you a leg up, a quicker path, or an enlightened approach to facing down the stuff you’ve been avoiding. Once you tackle the first area of life that is plugging the dam, the rest will release for you. Whether it’s too much clutter, too many pounds, overworking, or drinking in excess, the following chapters will assist you in fighting for your health, family, and life.