Recurring hernia rupture, toothaches, life

I have three types of hernias--umbilical, incisional and epigastrica. The first two have ruptured. I'm hoping the third won't.


Things that a post op gastric bypass patient SHOULD NEVER DO: a) Eat any flour products of any kind. You WILL stretch your pouch. And if you have a lap band, ask yourself how many times do have to have that thing tightened; b) eat more than the recommended amounts of food that your surgeon and primary care physician advises for you. This is for the same reason listed in a); c)In fact, you should do everything your doctors tell you to do as if your butt's on fire and you're about to turn to cinders if you don't follow instructions; d) DO NOT, EVER IN THIS LIFE OR ANY OTHER, EAT GOMASIO AFTER ANY FORM OF WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY!

Why am I saying this? Well, first of all, many people don't know what gomasio is. Here's a formal definition from About.com's Macrobiotic Cooking section: Gomasio is sesame salt. It is made of toasted sesame seeds and sea salt, and is rich in calcium and iron. Sounds good and healthy, right? Something that a recovering food addict should have as a healthier alternative to salt, right? Yep. It is healthier, unless you have had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, which means that little pouch your surgeon made out of your stomach cannot process sesame seeds. In fact, sesame seeds tears very nasty holes in that little pouch, which is what happened to me last week. The funny thing is, the same thing happened to me around this time last year, too. It was for a different reason, but once you have an abdominal wall hernia, it's REALLY easy to have one of those holes open up in another spot. And that's what happened to me, which is what I realized as I lay in my hospital bed.

First of all, I had been breaking my abstinence, which means quite simply that I had been eating things that were NOT part of my food plan, AND I was eating amounts of food that were larger than what I had committed to my sponsor. So let's add up all the elements here--eating bread (a definite no-no for someone who's had weight loss surgery), pasta, cheese, cookies, trail mix, cashews, almonds, crackers, bagels, peanut butter, peanut butter-filled preztels, croissants...if I could have possibly lived on bread alone, I would have. Bread and cheese. That's all I wanted, all day long. I'm sure eating that stuff opened the hernia even more than the gomasio.

Here's Wikipedia's explanation of a hernia:

By far the most common hernias develop in the abdomen, when a weakness in the abdominal wall evolves into a localized hole, or "defect", through which adipose tissue, or abdominal organs covered with peritoneum, may protrude. Another common hernia involves the spinal discs and causes sciatica.

Hernias may or may not present either with pain at the site, a visible or palpable lump, or in some cases by more vague symptoms resulting from pressure on an organ which has become "stuck" in the hernia, sometimes leading to organ dysfunction. Fatty tissue usually enters a hernia first, but it may be followed by or accompanied by an organ.

Most of the time, hernias develop when pressure in the compartment of the residing organ is increased, and the boundary is weak or weakened.

* Weakening of containing membranes or muscles is usually congenital (which explains part of the tendency of hernias to run in families), and increases with age (for example, degeneration of the annulus fibrosus of the intervertebral disc), but it may be on the basis of other illnesses, such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or Marfan syndrome, stretching of muscles during pregnancy, losing weight in obese people, etc., or because of scars from previous surgery. (Angela's note: I had the last two conditions.)

Thank God I stayed away from doing a lot of sweets. I did some, but that dumping thing that happens to post op gastric bypass patients puts a damper on a "good" time. The splitting headaches, cold sweats, shaking, feeling faint--no thanks. Sweets, as weird as it seems considering my eating history, were things that I ate in moderation. (Hey, I said it's weird!) So,I did not go buck wild with the sweet stuff. Why not, you ask? Sensible question, considering that I was already messing myself up my weakened abdominal wall with all that pouch-swelling bread; why not go all the way? Why not spend a day at the Cheesecake Factory, or at Freeport Bakery, where they make some of Sacramento's most sumptuous pies, cookies, cakes and tarts? I have no logical answer for that one, except that in the deep recesses of my food addicted-brain, I acknowledged that what I was doing wasn't very wise, and that I was already risking another hernia rupture. The very nasty complications from eating too much sugar would have put me in my final resting place. I narrowly avoided it this time. God must have a plan for me, but I know I can't keep doing this to myself.

Now, here's the low down and dirty deal--I have been obese since age 9, morbidly obese since age 25. I'm now 51. All those years of dieting and gaining weight over and over again has stretched my abdominal wall to breaking point, or as my surgeon told me, "it has been severely compromised." I created the first hernia the night I had binged beyond human capacity, which I described here in an earlier blog.


So that umbilical cord hernia was sewn up; I went home and within months, forgot about it. Forgot that once the abdominal wall, that precious muscle tissue that keeps essential organs like the intestines, the colon, the bladder, becomes toilet paper thin after years of abusing food, there is a high risk of having another weak spot will break open. When that happens, those precious organs are displaced and sometimes burble out of that little hole in the wall. That event is known in medical circles as organ incarceration, or as I wrote in last years blog, "jailed guts". Last year, it was part of my large intestine that tried to escape through the hernia opening. This year it was a section of my colon. That was not good. Not good at all.

My surgeon, the calm, cool and collected Dr. Mortensen, informed me during our pre-op talk (actually, she did a lot more talking than I did because I was just a whisper away from shrieking in pain) that they would do some exploratory procedures first with two laproscopic cameras. If I wasn't hurting so badly, I would have geeked out and said, "Cool! Go for it!" Even now, I really think the idea of having tiny cameras inside of me taking pictures of my innards is pretty awesome.(Yes, I know I'm weird.)

"If we go in and find infection(in or around your colon), we may have to surgically remove part of it," she told me.

I didn't react to that at the time because the morphine was just beginning to kick in. But what I didn't realize was I could have been wheeled out of the operating room equipped with a brand-spanking new colostomy bag attached to me. Now, that right there is not cool. Exposing the world to the product of my elimination system is a very unflattering look, even for a fashion dud like me.

Luckily, that didn't happen. I was fitted with a synthetic mesh to keep the hernia from opening again, sewed and stapled up. I do have a drain attached at the incision site, though. That will be removed this Thursday at my follow-up appointment with the calm, cool and collected Dr. Mortensen. I have a third hernia, located much higher than the other two. It hasn't opened up yet, but the good doctor is obviously concerned that it might. We will talk about this when we meet again.

A week prior to this surgical event, I had a massive toothache. Turned out to be a very deep gum infection. I'm in need of a root canal, scheduled for May 4, 2009. And the wreckage of my addictive eating past just keeps piling up.

My problem is that I have underestimated the power of the dark side. Being a food addict means that if I'm not 100% diligent about working my recovery program, I will die way before I'm supposed to. Slow suicide, plain and simple. And I'm not ready to go, not like that. So I'm abstinent, today. And I have been since the surgery. Have I learned my lesson? I can't say. Look at what's happened to me in the course of a year. If nothing else, I've learned it doesn't matter that I very much dislike the way my food in this program tastes. I just have to endure it for one meal at a time so I can live one more day, and pray at night that I can wake up in the morning and do what I need to do to remain alive another day. That's what it is for me right now. And I refuse to think about it any other way. I'm not happy, joyous and free yet. But I'm alive, and still able to raise a little hell while I'm in this realm of existence. For today, that's enough.

Breaking real bad...

Flour products and fat. That's what kills abstinence for me. Forget cake, ice cream, cookies...I'll eat 'em, but I CRAVE bread and cheese. In almost any form.

Detox sucks butt. Seriously. I got into a really, really bad space that more than likely began months ago: "So what if the protein isn't EXACTLY 4.0 ounces? It's not like I'm going to gain any weight if it's 4.05!" "Dammit, I don't feel like making outreach calls right now. I wanna read my book (or watch a movie)! I'll make six calls tomorrow!" "I'm too tired to read the Big Book! I've read it about 100 times already!"

Not EVEN a slippery slope. Try fast-moving mudslide down the mountain that ends with a big dirty mess at the bottom. That's what breaking my abstinence has been like for me. And denial? Angela bright and cheery: "No, I'm o.k.! Everything's fine!" I slid down that muddy mountain hand in hand with Ms. Major Denial. I'm puddling deep in the Valley in the Shadow of Death. That's what breaking my abstinence means to me right now.

There is a rather worrisome snag in doing this life-saving program--I hate the food, meaning, the food I have to eat for recovery. It's healthy, nutritious and all that, but it's not very tasty. ESPECIALLY breakfast--plain yogurt, plain oatmeal (and I do mean PLAIN, as in no milk, butter, natural or artificial sugar)and a serving of fruit. Of course, I only like the fruit. The rest is tortuously disgusting. But apparently, a low bottom, gutter level food addict like me has to learn to eat for nutrition only. Taste has nothing to do with it. If it tastes good, I'll want to eat more. And more. And more. So I grimly tolerate the stuff. I used to put artificial sweetener on the yogurt and oatmeal, but I can't do that anymore. It just leads me back to my addictive eating. So right now, I loathe breakfast. And it used to be my favorite meal of the day.

This is where I am right now. I have to be honest because pretending to be Ms. Mary Sunshine about the food just got me into lying about what I was really eating, and a seriously dangerous break in abstinence. With that in mind, I end this post by saying this to get out what I am truly feeling right now:

IT SUCKS!!! IT SUCKS;IT SUCKS; IT SUCKS!!!!!

A Family in need of serious intervention

Philip Chawner, 53, and his 57-year-old wife Audrey weigh 24st. Their daughter Emma, 19, weighs 17st, while her older sister Samantha, 21, weighs 18st.

(Angela's note: A stone equals 1.40 pounds; two stones are 2.80 pounds, and so on. So Philip and Audrey apparently weigh 336 pounds each. Emma weighs 238 pounds, and Samantha weighs 294 pounds. That's 1,162 pounds all together. That's a whole lotta "chips" going down right there!)

Family who are 'too fat to work' say £22,000 worth of benefits is not enough

A family of four with a combined weight of 83 stone say they are "too fat to work" and need more than the £22,000 (31,955.17 in US dollars, whoa, the British pound is pounding the mess out of the dollar!)they currently receive in benefits.
The Chawners, haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

The family claim to spend £50 ($72.6322 US) a week on food and consume 3,000 calories each a day. The recommended maximum intake is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.

"We have cereal for breakfast, bacon butties for lunch and microwave pies with mashed potato or chips for dinner," Mrs Chawner told Closer magazine.

"All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive. We're fat because it's in our genes. Our whole family is overweight," she added.

Each week, Mr and Mrs Chawner, who have been married for 23 years, receive £177 in income support and incapacity benefit. Mrs Chawner is paid an extra £330-a-month disability allowance for epilepsy and asthma, both a result of being overweight.

Mr Chawner gets £71 a month after developing Type 2 diabetes because of his size. He was on a waiting list for a gastric band last year, but a heart condition made the operation unsuitable. Their daughter Samantha receives £84 in Jobseekers' Allowance each fortnight while Emma, who is training to be a hairdresser, gets £58 every two weeks under a hardship fund for low-income students.

Emma, said: "I'm a student and don't have time to exercise" she said "We all want to lose weight to stop the abuse we get in the street, but we don't know how."

I've never read a story that screamed "FOOD ADDICTS IN NEED OF INTERVENTION, TREATMENT AND RECOVERY!" more than this one. It makes me sad. Yes, I was once too obese to work. I had all kinds of medical issues related to my weight. And most, but not all, have cleared up since losing 200 pounds. My other medical problems are caused by permanent damage done to my body through morbid obesity, which in itself is caused by being addicted to eating.

About three months ago, I was diagnosed with something called diffuse arthritis, which is a not-so-common form of degenerative arthritis. Calcium has built up along both sides of my lower vertebrae, and bone spurs have developed on my spine. There's no cure, and surgery is too risky. I just have to live with it. But even living with pain for the rest of my life is not going to stop me from being a productive member of this society.

My intention is to recover from food addiction, get a weight that is healthy for me (don't know what that is yet, and I don't worry about it), and become an increasingly productive member of society. I do not expect the government to continuously pay me for being sick. Right now, I do have a lot of medical risks that do interfere with my ability to work. But I look at this as temporary. I can't and won't become dependent of disability for a living. I'm grateful that I have worked enough to pay into the system, thank you God, and that my basic needs are being met right now.

But the issue is food addiction, as I see it. Obviously, the parents have passed on their eating habits to their daughters. Is there an "Intervention" type show over on the BBC like there is on A&E channel here? Can anyone get this family into some kind of treatment program so they can have productive, fulfilling lives? It's obvious that they are suffering from a problem that is far beyond their ability to control. Addiction of any type is serious, especially when the substance is food. We all have to eat, and in the Western world, food is literally everywhere--on television, the Internet, magazines, billboards, neon signs. Don't believe it? If you are a boomer, finish this sentence: "You deserve a ___ ___." Or, "Have it___ ___." I don't know what the current fast food ads are like because I refuse to watch them. Yes, I'm not neutral to them yet. So I have to protect my recovery by keeping the T.V. off and clicking away from food ads on the Internet.

So when food is so prevalent that we can literally collect pennies to get a 99 cents fix at Mickey D.'s (short of McDonald's, for those of you outside of the U.S.), people have an open highway leading to food addiction. That addiction "ON" switch can be easily triggered in the brain, and it will run amok very, very quickly. Question: How many of you have ever bought bags of sweets from Dollar Tree or the 99 Cents store and felt elated because you got ALL that "good stuff" for cheap? If you are a food addict (and you don't have to be obese or even overweight to be one), you probably felt like you had found a leprechaun's gold pot at the end of the rainbow. That is, until you devoured all of the shopping bags of candy, cookies and other stuff by the end of the night and you have a splitting sugar hangover and horrendous upset stomach. But that's ok, right? It sure tasted good, didn't it? You can't WAIT to go back and buy some more! Addiction, my friend, addiction!

The Chawner family may just have a genetic predisposition for obesity. My family does too, at least the women do. But it's not hopeless, and just like the Chawners (if they ever come to believe it), I'm not helpless. There is recovery for food addiction and its outward symptom, morbid obesity. I pray that they find it, soon.

Minnie in Concert (Full Version)

This doesn't have anything to do with morbid obesity, food addiction or anything else that I usually talk about, but I just had to take a walk "Back Down Memory Lane", which was caused by a QTiptheAbstract's post on Twitter. Minnie, Minnie, Minnie...the only singer I ever cried for when I heard that she had passed. I'm ultra-sensitive right now, at least by my standards. But such an incredible talent! A purely heaven-sent voice!

Take him back?? Rianna's CRAZY!!!

I've been resisting writing about this Rianna/Chris Brown situation for many reasons, mainly because of where I am in my recovery from food addiction. I don't need a reason to eat; my food-addicted brain seizes upon every single nanosecond that I don't connect to God and use the tools of recovery to pound me with cravings. I'm not exaggerating; this is what life is like for me right now.

Food numbs me. I don't feel emotions very much when I'm stuffed with my favorite comfort foods, like fresh baked bread smothered with butter. What I get from food is a warm, soothing, euphoric sensation like being safely bundled up in a soft, thick quilt. Absolutely nothing bothers me. Unfortunately, that feeling is only temporary. And I usually find myself having to eat more in order to get that level of comfort going again. This desperate need for comfort has led me to eat so much that I have binged to the point of extreme physical pain, and/or passed on my couch. There's not much difference between what I do with food, and what an alcoholic or drug addict does with their substances of choice. Same behavior, different drugs.

What does this have to do with the Rianna/Chris Brown situation? For me, a lot. At one point in my life, I was just like Rianna, sans the fame. I was an abused woman. Food kept the film clips of that period of my life running on a screen in the back room of my mind.

I don't like to re-visit those memories. I won't say that I've buried them, but I don't live in them everyday. Ideally, I would very much like to forget that it ever happened. But it did. And as uncomfortable as it makes me feel right now, the Rianna/Chris Brown situation keeps reminding me that I have literally escaped with my life.

However, I am also a writer, and one who has always felt the need to pass along information that might be of some importance to the reader. I don't just write solely for "artistic expression" or an ego-centric need to see myself in print, although I won't deny that my massive ego gets involved a lot more than I care to admit. But I am (at least) aware that a writer has a responsibility to the reading public by providing needed information and thereby being of service to others. This is not altruism; it is recognizing what should be done (kind of like smelling a baby's dirty diaper and changing it, regardless of the voluminous amount of stinkiness) and fulfilling it to the best of one's ability. Despite my personal discomfort and unwillingness to explore feelings that have lay dormant for almost three decades, I strongly feel that I should live up to that responsibility. And remain abstinent while doing it, even though every thought in my brain is screaming, you pompous, self-gratifying bitch! What do you think you're doing? You can't tell people about that dark hellhole you used to live in! You just want sympathy, you big wuss! (sigh) I can do this. I can do this.


So, with your permission, I want you to take a journey back in time with me. The year is 1981, and the date is Independence Day, aka the Fourth of July. You, the reader, have become me, circa 1981. You are a twenty three year old African American woman, married to an unemployed artist/musician who is also bi-polar(untreated)and addicted to marijuana, cocaine, and serial relationships with women. You feel he is brilliant, talented, uniquely thoughtful and articulate, and you want the rest of the world to know about his prodigious artistic talents. But he doesn't necessarily want the same for himself, and sabotages every effort you make to bring out vast store of artistry within him. You don't understand this, and you keep trying.

There are many problems with this relationship. One, you have given birth to a gorgeous baby girl almost three months earlier, and your husband seems completely unaware of the responsibility involved in raising a child. He still behaves as if he were single--partying, doing drugs and sleeping with LOTS of other women. This causes an enormous amount of friction in the relationship. Your communication is fraught with accusations, anger and resentment. Your nerves are in state of constant upheaval, and you anxious about the future for you and your newborn girl. Should you leave him permanently? You are already back at home with your parents because your husband refuses to exert much effort toward finding a job and supporting you and the baby.

"I'm no punk for the white man," he tells you. "I can't have no punk-ass ordering me around like a slave. I'll go back to jail before I do that."

He often makes that threat because he knows it bothers you. You don't want him to be :just another black man incarcerated" statistic. He can do so MUCH BETTER than that, if he would only TRY!

The anger and resentment toward has been escalating prodigiously since your daughter's birth on May 15th. You keep trying to come up with solutions to the problem, which you earnestly pitch to your husband on a daily basis. He adamantly refuses your help with a vehemence that you cannot understand. Doesn't he know that you are only trying to get your little family back together by offering a plan to jump start his career in art and music so that he would be happy with his work AND provide a living for you, him and the baby? Why doesn't he understand this and cooperate? It's so maddeningly frustrating!

After two months of increasingly furious arguments, you declare a cease-fire for the Fourth of July. He says he wants you and the baby to accompany him to a barbecue with his family, which consists of his mother (who has been emotionally estranged from him since his birth), and his two sisters. You sense the volatility of the situation, but you consent to go anyway. They pick you up from your parents' house, which fills you with guilt because it also their 24th wedding anniversary. You choose your husband over your parents, who have been supporting you during this tumultuous period. On top of that, you can practically take a bite out of the cake-like animosity between your husband and his mother, which has been thinly frosted over with civility. This is not going to be a very good holiday. But you are going to make the best of it.

He asks to hold the baby because as he says, "doesn't get to see his little girl very much", implying that you and your parents prevent him from seeing his daughter. This sets your teeth on edge. You don't exert much effort to come see her, you say to yourself. You're too busy getting high and f***ing around with other women. But you say nothing, and pass your daughter to her father, who is sitting in the front seat next to his mother. She is driving, and taking everyone to her friend's house for food and fireworks. Other than the initial courteous greeting, she doesn't say much to you.

Soon, your husband begins the usual litany of complaints about your "Southern, country-ass, think-they-better-than-everyone-else parents" who make it difficult for him to "come see his baby". That's it. You've had enough of this nonsense.

"Maybe if you took care of business and got a decent job, you wouldn't have to deal with my parents' attitudes," you inform him.

(continued below)

Take him back?? Rianna's CRAZY!!! (pt. 2)

He whirls around, his caramel-colored face turning red and his nostrils flaring like a rabid mustang.

"What? A job ain't gonna change your siditty (slang for conceited) assed parents, especially your mama! Your mama ain't nothin' but a stuck-up, country-fried, siddity BITCH!"

He punctuates the last statement by roughly shoving his index finger into your sternum. You see nothing but red, and the entire world falls away, still and quiet, waiting to see what you will do. You snatch his finger away from your chest and bend it backwards. Then you take the can of soda you have been drinking, and smash it violently against the side of his face. There, you say to yourself as you watch the fizzling drops "Tahiti Punch" drip off his cheek, and his natal-spawned, mother-love-deprived primal rage building into a mushroom cloud. Take that, you piss-colored, low-life bastard! No one talks about my mama like that!

He roars in pain and indignity, and orders his mother to pull the car over. She mutely obeys. He hands your daughter to his mother, then turns around. Suddenly, you realize that you are no longer looking at your husband. You are staring in horror at grotesquely twisted face of a monster.

Time becomes meaningless as you watch in complete disbelief as his fist pounds into your face. You hear the smack of each blow, and it sounds like a thick steak being slapped against a kitchen counter top. This isn't happening. It can't be happening. You are a good person, a good woman. Why is doing this? Desperately, you try to return the punches, but he has leaned way over the car seat, and he has the higher ground, the advantage. You can do nothing but land a glancing hit, which doesn't seem to do anything but enrage the animal who has replaced your husband. The barrage of punches land steadily, methodically, and you become dully aware of blood flooding down your nose and out of your mouth. Your arms no longer longer have the strength to raise your hands anymore, and there is no response to the mental command, fight back. FIGHT BACK! But the pounding continues relentlessly.

The world drains away slowly. Your eyes have become tiny slits which offer nothing but hazy, out of focus vision. Somehow you are aware of screams and cries, presumably from your husbands' sisters and your daughter. But you're not sure. All you know is the fists have suddenly stopped tenderizing your face, and you are marinating in your own blood. You can't move. Time has stopped.

You cry out for your daughter, but the animal sound coming from your throat is unrecognizable. You are trying to say, give me my daughter! Give her to me! You want to take her and run away, get away from these primordial ooze-like creatures. They can't be human. Real human beings wouldn't allow such an atrocity to happen to another person. You have to get your daughter and run away from these mutated life forms.

You don't know where you are, and how you got there. All you know is that you are in an unfamiliar place, someone's bedroom. You have no idea what happened to the mutants who brought you to this place, and you don't know the people who have bandaged you and placed cold wash clothes on your face. All you want is to get your daughter and to go home.

During the weeks that follow, you attempt to make sense of what seems to be a totally illogical situation. Somehow, your parents found out where you were, and they came. They saw what was done to your face, and dissolved into tears. You've never seen your father cry before. It was terrible. They immediately called the police, and suddenly, the dozen people or more who apparently lived in the place where you were disappeared. After the police report was made, your parents took you to the emergency room. X-rays of your face were made. The technician called in the doctor of radiology to examine the pictures. The doctor was enraged.

"Who did this to you?" Righteous indignation caused him to sputter out his words as he pointed to breaks in your face that showed up on the x-rays. "Whoever did this to you needs to be put UNDER the jail!"

You are ashamed. How could you admit that you were dumb enough to marry a man who would punch you so hard that he came within centimeters close to shattering the right temporal bone, which would have killed you? He did manage, however, to break your zygomatic, or cheek bone. The entire right side of your face looked like a deflated balloon.

"You're lucky to be alive. We have to do surgery to repair your cheek. Someone will schedule the appointment."

He stormed out in disgust, leaving you alone in the exam with your below-dirt sense of self. One-celled organisms probably felt better about themselves than you did.

Little did you know right then that your self esteem would plunge even lower. Everyone seemed to know what you should do, yet you had no grasp of which path led to your way out of this mess.

"LEAVE HIM!"

Your family and friends made the decision seem so easy. But then what? Stay with your parents? That just didn't feel right. The aching despair that overwhelmed you every night was already unbearable. Stay with him? Well...he cried so much as he told you how horrible he felt about himself. He thought about suicide because everyone would be so much better off if he were dead. That was alarming. You couldn't have that on your conscience. After all...he was your baby's daddy! With a lot of marriage counseling, you could make it work! He would feel better about himself, get a job, and everything would work out JUST FINE! You just needed to be alone with him to talk it over, make the counseling appointments and get your little family back together.

So that's what you did. And you stayed for six more years, even though the promised counseling appointments never happened. He didn't beat you up anymore. Your father and brother went after him with loaded deer-hunting shotguns after the cheek bone incident, so he didn't try that again. But he stole all the household money for drugs and his extra-marital affairs. And he lied, lied, lied. Constant upset in your home, continuous drama. And it didn't end until the day he pulled out a huge Bowie knife and tried to stab you. You fought back with a closet pole. The police called it a draw, although they gave you a slight lead in the cards. He was the one who went away in the squad car. And you were the one who finally filed the papers.

I wrote this in response to all the questions that people seem to be talking about concerning Rianna's decision to get back together with Chris Brown. I am not condoning her choice, in fact, I suspect that nothing good will come from it. I have personal experience with this. But what I wanted to do is give the reader an inside view of what goes on in the mind of an abused woman. Of course she needs extensive help through counseling. And so did I. That is my point--the solution (LEAVE HIM!) always looks easy when viewed from the outside, but it's not so clear when you are right in the middle of it. All we can do is pray that Rianna finds her way to some form of recovery from this issue. I wouldn't want to read that her boyfriend has roughed up (or worse) that beautiful young lady again.

"I have a boyfriend who just got out of prison..."

(This is another re-post, written on 11/07/2007. I had been in recovery from food addiction for almost three weeks, and it was hellish. I was shaking uncontrollably, nauseous, vomiting, shivering with cold, clammy hands and feet, the inside of my mouth was blistered with cold sores and I was quite literally dazed and confused all the time. The severity of my withdrawal from flour and sugar was pretty nasty. I should have been in a treatment center, at least that's what a recovering meth addict told me. He went through that kind of withdrawal while detoxing in a hospital. Well, I was actually working at the time. But my mood and behavior was pretty monstrous. I wound up having to leave that job a few months later because I developed some pretty life-threatening complications as the result of all those years of piling highly refined, toxic sugar and flour into my body. Garbage in, garbage out. My body has been through a shredder. But I'll post more about that later.

Oh yeah, I make a reference to a "Dark Angel" character in this blog. She's basically my "evil twin" cartoon character that I occasionally bring out of the loathsome depths of my imagination. I wrote an earlier blog where I resurrected her, but I deleted it. It seems a bit silly now. But at that time, "Dark Angel" expressed what I was afraid to tell the world--that it sucked, and even worse, *I* sucked. I was in a whopper of a mood in those days. And it's entirely possible that I could go back into that soul-draining bottomless pit again. One day at a time, I don't want to go there again.)


No, I don't. I'm actually quoting my co-workers. It's a slow day, and we're hanging out talking about what to say to obnoxious guys. I never thought about saying "I have a boyfriend who just got out of prison," or "My husband was just dishonorably discharged from the Army for assaulting his commanding officer." I just roll my eyes and walk away. No words needed, as far as I'm concerned. I get that cold, nasty BWC (black woman crazy) attitude sometimes. It began in high school, and every once and a while, that sista-with-attitude behavior resurfaces. Inappropriate behavior for a Baha'i, and I'm glad I don't have many opportunities to show that side of my personality. I'm consciously trying to be a gentle, loving, considerate person these days, and it ain't easy to change old habits. Especially when the changing is taking place at the same time I'm living without sugar, flour and excess portions of food. The way I've been feeling lately, it wouldn't be a good idea to test my patience. There's nothing holding down my inner brat these days.



Other people have an "inner child". I have an inner brat, and she's been acting up lately. It's funny what happens when a person gets clean and sober off flour, sugar and excess portions. Yes, the program is working. That's the good part. In fact, that's the miraculous part because I have been abstinent in spite of the fact that: a) my parents are rapidly declining into dementia, and the process is very frightening; b) I'm having emotional reactions to life that I've never experienced before. c) I have no experience in how to deal with aforementioned emotional reactions to life since my only coping mechanism has been to eat some of my addictive foods.
d) I'm averaging one emotional meltdown a week in which I have a panic/anxiety attack or I become unbelievably afraid of people and/or leaving my house.

Apparently, this is normal for any food addict who is "coming down" off the addictive foods. It's not fun, but it's also instructive. This process has revealed to me how much I rely on food to make life manageable. This past summer, I got through my math class by chewing numerous pieces of sugar-free mints. It wasn't chocolate or Cinnabon's giant cinnamon rolls (oh God, deliver me from food fantasy), but that isn't the point. It's not "just" about calories. It's about engaging in addictive eating, which will eventually lead my addict brain to rationalize eating the chocolate or cinnamon roll. Other people do just fine with making sugarfree or low calorie substitutions. I have a friend who calls herself an emotional eater, and she is able to keep her weight under control by making those kinds of healthy substitutions. Not me. I turn into a sugarfree-eating junkie.

What I have isn't cured by going on a diet and making substitutions. I have to learn to rely on God instead of food to deal with life. When I'm anxious, scared, lonely, bored, tired, angry, impatient or just plain fed up with everything, I have to remember to leave the food alone and call on God for help. Unfortunately, asking God for help isn't my first choice very often. That's why I've decided to work a 12 step program that specifically helps food addicts like me. I need to be constantly reminded of how to deal with life on life's terms without stuffing myself. To paraphrase Earl, an addict and alcoholic who has a similar story to mine but with different substances, I can't be walking around unattended. Left to my own thoughts and machinations, I'll eat. And eat. And eat.

So this is what I do: I wake up at 5:30 am. (I'm not a morning person at all; it takes me at least a half hour to remember that I am a human being.) I say morning prayers, call my sponsor at 6:10 to tell her what I'm going to eat for the day (I don't get much of a choice; it's protein, vegetables and fruit in which the portions are strictly weighed and measured, and I have to write down my food the night before I call my sponsor); I have a half hour of "quiet time" in which I read the required meditation for the day and try the best I can to meditate without going back to sleep. I don't always accomplish this, however. After that, I rush to eat my yogurt with fruit (plain, with no sugar) and oatmeal (also no sugar), grab the food that I have packed the night before, then hurry to make the bus and train without succumbing to the panic that seems to overtake me every morning.

The rest of the day is work, prayer, phone calls, lunch, prayer, phone calls, work, prayers, dinner, go home, more phone calls or meetings, more prayers. Or very desperate pleading to God for His Divine Assistance and Intervention when chocolate or a loaf of French bread seems like a good idea. Oh, yeah. I attend three meetings a week plus make at least three phone calls every day to other members of my program besides my sponsor. By the time I get home at night, I'm exhausted. Luckily, I have a friend who helps me immensely by keeping me laughing. Without the laughter, I would probably snatch the car keys from my father and drive myself to the nearest mental health facility. That's not an exaggeration. I seriously considered making that trip this past Saturday. Even though I felt absolutely insane, I didn't eat. That's the good news.

No Dark Angel, Liz. :) I can feel her lurking around, waiting for the precise moment to strike. She made a slight comeback twice, but she's no match for God. I've had two instructive slips (and one of them let me know that I can't play around with eating sugar-laden food any more unless I want to be horribly sick), but I'm still with the program. Prayers for steadfastness are definitely welcome. I might give the Dark One some room on this blog, but that's it. She doesn't need to have much more than that from me. I've paid my dues to her with morbid obesity and two near-death experiences. That's quite enough.

Ya Baha'ul'Abha'!

God is sufficient unto me. He verily is the All-Sufficing. In Him, let the trusting trust.

Short and sweet

I read this story today on MSN about a woman who called 911 THREE times because her local McFat place ran out of chicken McNuggets. I just shook my head. When you do insane stuff like that, you know you have a serious food addiction. I never did that because I had a minuscule thread of dignity left in me. I couldn't get caught out on front street like that. Not when I could go to Smart&Final or Costco, buy one of those humongous bags of breaded chicken nuggets and bake them until they were all nice and toasty. Then I could eat without anyone seeing me devouring a whole pound of saturated fat and cholesterol-laden nuggets smothered in barbecue sauce. And I bought a pint of coleslaw just to have some veggies and make it "full meal deal", topped off with either cookies and milk or Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Hey, no need to bring the police into it when you can get your own food fix. Confessions of a food addict. It's a miracle that I topped out at 400 instead of 500 or 600 pounds. Thank God Almighty I don't have to live like that anymore.

I'm only one bite away from being as crazy about food as that woman. I don't take my recovery for granted. Food addiction KILLS people.

Woman has 911 meltdown over McNuggets
Fla. police say she called emergency number 3 times after store runs out

updated 6:19 p.m. PT, Tues., March. 3, 2009

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - Authorities say a Florida woman called 911 three times after McDonald's employees told her they were out of Chicken McNuggets.

A police report says 27-year-old Fort Pierce resident Latreasa L. Goodman told authorities she paid for a 10-piece last week but was later informed the restaurant had run out.

She says she was refused a refund and told all sales were final. A cashier told police she offered Goodman a larger portion of different food for the same price, but Goodman became irate.

"This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn’t have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don’t want one," Goodman told police, according to The Stuart News. "This is an emergency."

Police say Goodman was cited on a misuse of 911 charge. A current phone listing for Goodman couldn't be found.

A McDonald's spokesman says Goodman should have been given a refund, and she's being sent a gift card for a free meal.

Angela's post script: Latreasa didn't need a gift card. That's like giving a crack addict free rocks because you know she'll buy more. That woman needs help, not more of that garbage that is turning her body and brain into a gelatinous mess.

Mom and me

I published this on October 12, 2007. My parents had come back to California after living in from Moss Point, Mississippi for only two years. They had to come back; my mom was extremely ill, and my dad was in denial about the extent of her illness. Somehow, my sister and daughter convinced both of them to come back out West so we could keep an eye on both of them. People in Moss Point were knocking on my parents' door and asking for money. Not borrow, or work for it. Just ask, or rather demand. Hurricane Katrina made desperation a permanent home for some folks. We had to get my parents out of there.

The problem was, Mom and Dad had sold the house our family had lived in since 1973, and they didn't have anywhere to live right away. So they moved in with me. At the time, I was living in a two bedroom, one bath duplex. It definitely wasn't big enough, but it was all we could do for them at the time. Of course, a lot of old, unresolved issues came up for me. I was struggling mightily with my food addiction, and I had re-gained 85 pounds. And, I didn't know how to deal with my parents without resorting to what I had always done--put a lot of food in my mouth to make me numb. It worked, of course. It always did. The problem was, the numbing effect always wore off, and I had to eat more and more to REMAIN numb.

This post is a recounting of one interaction that was indicative of the type of relationship I had with my mother. She's gone now, and although that makes me sad, I realize now that I had a part in the emotional roller coaster that was typical of our conversations. Mom was not "the bad cop" trying to manipulate my emotions all the time. She was just doing her, being who she was. And I was stuck in being a five year old kid who didn't know how to cope with her mother as an adult. So I kept eating. It's sad, really sad. Luckily, she got to see me losing weight and getting recovery before she died. Our communication did improve because I became a lot less fearful and quietly angry about the past. For that, I am humbled, grateful and relieved that God for granted that grace to my mother and me.

In part, we're afraid to face the fact that daughters with eating disorders are carrying their mother's disowned pain and anger. Mothers have a powerful effect on their daughters' lives because girls watch their moms' every move. No matter how much mother's try to cover up their pain, they still serve as models for womanhood, and their daughters have a keen and vigilant eye. Too often the mother-daughter wound is based on unconscious enmeshment, a blending of boundaries, a failure to see where you begin and your mother ends. This failure creates self-destructive behavior that is played out on the plate.
Preface to Women and Food Obsession: Fat and Furious by Judi Hollis, Ph.D.

I was getting ready to leave for work one morning when my mother lifted her head off her pillow and pushed herself up from the pull-out bed in my living room where she spends most of her time when she isn't in the hospital. She looked at me with her eyes shining with an inexplicable mixture of pride and pleasure that seemed incongruous with the fact that she is very ill and never going to get better. Like mother, like daughter. Always unbelievable contradictions.

"Angie, come here a moment, honey."

My stomach lurched because I knew she was going to tell me something that I didn't really want to hear, especially since I was trying to get out of the door to catch a bus. But I'm an obedient daughter. I went over to her bedside and held her hand. She grasped my hand with both of hers, looked up at me and cleared her throat.

"Did you know that I now weigh 122 pounds? I'm the same weight that I was back in high school!"

Whoa...is she kidding? I stared at her. My mother is pretty much a collection of bones with loose skin hanging off them. Her eyes have shrunk back into her head, and they have an out-of-focus look to them. The doctor's had to cut off her right leg because she has diabetes and developed an infection there. There's a stint in her heart, the latest in the long line of procedures she's had since her eight bypass surgeries and a debilitating stroke back in the early 90s. She cannot feed, bathe, or dress herself. And she is incontinent. Yet, she is thrilled that she back down to the weight that she carried while she was still a teenager. But at what cost to your health, Mom? I wanted to ask her that, but I couldn't. The mother-daughter enmeshment rules forbids that level of honesty, especially about weight. I was horrified, though. Does she actually believe that it's good to lose 150 pounds through chronic illness? I shuddered, told my mother to have a good day, and hurried off to work. Thank God for the Learning Resource Center.

Mothers suffer a great unhealed woundedness because the myths surrounding being a wife and mother promised them things that didn't come true. And then they've had to stand by and watch their hopes for their own daughters end in glaring disappointment.

My mother took me to see a doctor about my weight issues when were living in the Philippine Islands. She never said this out loud, but I believe she was embarrassed that I weighed 135 pounds, which would be fine if I was a 25 year old woman. But I was nine years old, and I stood five feet four inches at the time. I was upset that she would humiliate me by sending me to see a military doctor about my weight Not only that, I was suspicious of her motives. I had come to believe that my mother's actions concerning my body had more to do with her than me. Of course, I couldn't say that. I would have been slapped for "getting smart" with her.

The doctor, an Air Force captain, handed me a ditto sheet that had a copy of the weight loss diet that was given to overweight draftees during the Vietnam War. I felt a lump gather in my throat as I stared at it. One hard-boiled egg. One slice of dry toast. Eight ounces of grapefruit juice. Tea or coffee, no milk or sugar. Lunch was a tomato slice with a scoop of cottage cheese. Dinner was a broiled hamburger patty, three ounces, with carrot sticks. I would to lose weight on that diet, that was certain. I could almost hear Mom's brain calculating how she would make me stick to the diet. My plan, however, was to undermine my mother's well-meaning weight loss goals for me, and failing that, commit hari-kari.

"Don't worry, Doctor, I'll make sure she follows this diet," Mom assured the captain.

I went from despair to rage in a nanosecond. I'm not doing this. She can forget that. My mother followed me like a bloodhound whenever I walked into the kitchen. There was no escaping her. She was more upset by my weight gain than I was, and she wasn't the one being called "Aunt Jemima" at school.

We've been doing this dance nearly all of my life. Even now, she seems to be hoping to "inspire" me to lose more weight through her "example". When I was in high school, she told me that I would never get a boy interested in me unless I took off the pounds, and bought me a membership in Weight Watchers to "help me out". She helped me to be offended by her concern. I would walk out of the door, climb into my 1970 Ambassador and take off for Wendy's with my friends. What's a boyfriend compared to a double cheeseburger, large fries and a large chocolate "Thick and Frosty?

"You're starting to look good, Angie," she told me a few days ago. "Just keep up your diet, honey. Don't worry. You'll get there."

I winced and escaped into the safety of my bedroom before I could say something to my very sick mother that I would later regret. I turned on my computer and started playing Funkadelic. Best cure for the mommy blues. Don't get me wrong; I don't blame my mother for being concerned about my health, if that's what it really is. But it's never been that simple. I'm a reflection of HER, and as she has told me over and over again, I represent her whenever I'm out in public. If I'm fat, she's failed in her duty as a mother. It doesn't matter that I'm now nearly 50 years old. I'm still her daughter.

Unresolved issues in the mother-daughter relationship does not mean that your mother is bad, or that you are bad. It means that the innate dynamics of this relationship create profound tension around eating. The only way to address disordered eating is to fearlessly examine your relationship with your mother.

It ain't easy, Dr. Hollis. But I'm doing it. One day at a time.

Heart Attack Grill

I came across this article while "digging" around on digg.com . It was the "Quadruple Bypass Burgers" that caught my eye, and then it started...euphoric recall. It is the downfall of many an addict, but for a food addict, the memory of orgasmic meals of the past can bring on a longing that can be overwhelmingly masochist, yet so seductive. Where is the best burger in Sacramento? Jim Denny's, downtown on 12th Street...yes, I remember.... (Angela slaps herself.) O.K., I'm over it!

But then I saw what else they sell--cigarettes (They allow people to light up while others are trying to enjoy their meals?); French fries cooked in lard and little girlies in you-know-this-is-only-a-fantasy nurse suits? I hope they are trained in CPR because the patrons will need after the food and the cigarettes! Instant death by burger and fries!

I guess I really am recovering. This article has definitely become grossly disgusting to me. But it's interesting to realize that once upon a time, the food would have appealed to me. Now all I can do shudder. I'm only including one of the nursey-girly pictures. You'll have to dig through digg.com to see the rest.

The World’s Greatest Restaurant

Forget about places like The French Laundry and Jean Georges, Chandler, Arizona’s Heart Attack Grill may be the best eatery in the U.S.

Tired of all the attention being paid to nutritional information and trans fats nowadays? Then you need to head out to the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona. This hospital-themed burger joint has a menu featuring French fries cooked in pure lard, cigarettes and Quadruple Bypass Burgers, which packs over two pounds of meat and 8,000 calories. If you can finish one of these gargantuan sandwiches, you get escorted back to your car in a wheelchair by one of the Grill’s sexy nurses. That’s right. In place of traditional waitresses, the restaurant employs hot women in naughty nurse outfits. Check out the Heart Attack Grill’s Website for more info and check out some pics below.