This is going to be a long one...

I have been thinking about doing this post for a long time. In a lot of ways I don't want to write it. I don't want to admit the struggles I am having. I don't want to be judged. And I don't want my challenges to be minimized. However, writing things down really helps me, and maybe it can help someone else too.

I have an eating disorder. Not the ones you typically think of like anorexia or bulimia, but one that less people want to admit to. I am a food addict.

Now before you roll your eyes or start laughing, let me try to explain some of what goes on behind the scenes. I think about food all the time. Sometimes I feel like I can't stop eating, even though I want to. I eat in secret and sometimes isolate myself so that I can eat. I eat to escape from my emotions, whether they be stress, frustration, anger and sometimes even joy. It affects my relationships, especially with my immediate family because when I binge I am in a fog for a few days. And then comes the remorse and guilt.

I've done a lot of research lately to help me understand what is going on. And I have all the symptoms. It has been good for me to just stand up and admit that I have a problem. It has also been frustrating to try and talk about how I am feeling with other people because they look at me like I am crazy. Because I am not considered overweight, it's almost like people think I am making it up. I wish I was. Because I try to lead a healthy lifestyle I often feel like a hypocrite. I can tell my kids that they can't have 10 pieces of chocolate, but then easily hide in the corner and do it myself. I can train and run a half marathon but then sabotage myself as soon as the run is over. It is no way to live...I am in constant conflict with myself.

I've seriously considered joining some sort of support group, but feel apprehensive about it. For now, I have been trying to tap into some spiritual help, because after all, a lot of the conflict comes because I feel out of sync with Deity. You think it's hard to try and talk to your husband with a food hangover? A conversation with God is ten times harder. When I am in the thick of things, I am in no way ready to meditate, contemplate or receive divine direction. And that affects everything.

While working in the basement, I've been listening to BYU speeches, particularly talks given by Elder Holland. I listened to one given way back in 1989 that really spoke to me. Here is the link to the full talk if you are interested. The parts that really inspired me were these:

The path to a complete Christian education passes through the Garden of Gethsemane, and we will learn there if we haven't learned it before that our Father will have no other gods before him--even (or especially) if that would-be god is our self. I assume you are all far enough along in life to be learning that great discipline already. It will be required of each of us to kneel when we may not want to kneel, to bow when we may not want to bow, to confess when we may not want to confess--perhaps a confession born of painful experience that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways, saith the Lord (see Isaiah 55:8).

I think that is why Jacob says to be learned--or, we would presume, to be any other worthy thing--is good if one hearkens unto the counsels of God. But education, or public service, or social responsibility, or professional accomplishment of any kind is in vain if we cannot, in those crucial moments of pivotal personal history, submit ourselves to God even when all our hopes and fears may tempt us otherwise. We must be willing to place all that we have--not just our possessions (they may be the easiest things of all to give up), but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity--we must place it all on the altar' of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away.

I believe what I am describing here is the scriptural definition of a saint, one who will "yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit," and "through the atonement of Christ . . . becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).

I need to be willing to place physical appetites on that personal alter. The fact that it is food doesn't really matter. It could be pornography, alcohol, drugs, video games, whatever. It's the fact that I let my physical self rule over my spiritual self. And that's why it's so important to me to overcome it.

Elder Holland says that it's not popular in our culture to be submissive, even to God. But I am learning that it feels good to want to be humble, to want to be under the watchful care of a loving Father. That submission to His will always be the best possible thing for us. It allows us become our very best selves which is why we are here, is it not?

So, I won't be hiding anymore and I won't be offended if you ask me how things are going with this. In fact, I would gladly accept it. I need the support and I need the accountability. It's going to be a journey making this weak thing into something strong...