A Mental Illness Merry-go-round

Her relentless struggle with weight and mental illness finally ended with the love and compassion of Be Totally Free!

I am 52 years old. I have been a compulsive eater for most of my life. I always thought I only had one problem: I was overweight. I knew that if I could just lose the weight, my life would be perfect. I had a constant battle between dieting down to goal weight and immediately gaining back 20 to 50 pounds. Since the age of 14, I tried diet pills, well-know weight-loss programs, fad diets, exercise, fasting, and therapy. I even spent two months in an eating disorder unit in 1986. Every method I tried helped me to lose the weight, but I always gained it back. I just couldn’t understand why I could not stay thin, when I wanted to be thin more than anything else in the world.

What I did not know at the time was that I was using food as a coping mechanism to deal with life and all of my problems. In 1978, I joined a 12-step program for people with food addictions and learned that I was a compulsive overeater. I was taught that no amount of will power would help me to overcome the obsession for food unless I was willing to uncover and work on the underlying emotions that were causing me to eat. I discovered that I used food as a drug to numb the pain and chaos I had created in my life through self-destructive habits.

I left and re-joined this 12-step program many times over the next 25 years. At the time, I thought I was doing every thing I could to use the steps and tools of the program to overcome my compulsive eating. I received the gift of abstinence from compulsive eating for approximately 5 years; however, I continued to live in fear. I also neglected to enlarge my spiritual life. I continued running my life just as I always had, trying to arrange people, places, and things to suit my immature wants and needs. The result was that I ended up switching compulsions.

I turned to compulsive exercising for 17 years to keep the weight off. I also spent large amounts of money on foolish “toys” that I felt I just had to have. I also blew thousands of dollars on frivolous, impulsive business investments under the delusion that they would improve my life. I fell into debt numerous times and had to declare bankruptcy twice in my life because my expenses far exceeded my income. I also became a workaholic in order to focus my attention away from all the chaos I created and to give the illusion to the world that I was a competent, high-functioning individual. I entertained myself by becoming involved in unhealthy, co-dependent relationships with men. What I failed to realize was that I was still trying to run away from what I perceived to be a failed, miserable life. The day finally came when my emotions were so painful that I picked up the food once again and when I did, I couldn’t stop eating.

I drifted away from my 12-step program, feeling that it had let me down and never really worked for me. What I now realize is that I was not willing to take a hard, long look at the defective ways I was living my life, and that I was trying to work the program on sheer will power alone. On a superficial level, I knew that belief in a Power greater than myself was the key to overcoming the food and life problem, but I didn’t have a clue how to practically use the principles of the program my life.

Although I tried with all the strength and fortitude I could muster to better myself, things went from bad to worse. I lost my marriage, got fired from several jobs in succession, and my closest friends didn’t want anything to do with me because I was such an angry, hateful person. I could no longer afford my apartment because I had lost my job; therefore I had to move home with my parents. I came into two small financial windfalls in my life (one in 1989 and the other in 2004), and I went through the money in a matter of months. My entire life was always in chaos and I was always “living on the edge”.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, and anti-psychotic medications. I was hospitalized 12 times, from December of 1986 to January of 2006.

In 1995 I joined another 12-step program for people with emotional problems, but once again, I could not apply the principles of the program to my life; therefore, any recovery I experienced was superficial and fleeting. Although the 12-step programs did not help my particular case, I am grateful that they were stepping-stones to the miracle that I finally found.

Late one night when I my compulsive eating was at its worst and I was completely at the mercy of all of my compulsions, phobias, mania, depression, anxiety, anger, and suicidal thoughts, I came across the Be Totally Free Website. I read the story of a man who for 29 years has overcome compulsive eating and lost over 100 pounds, has overcome alcoholism, was able to quit a 2-pack a day smoking habit, and was able to let go of all of his phobias, panic attacks, and depression. I immediately filled out the evaluation, and just a few short days later, I began working with this loving man towards my recovery.

My first meeting with Roy and the people that were successfully working the Be Totally Free program had such a powerful impact on me that my desire to compulsively eat vanished immediately. I stopped taking psychiatric medications and painkillers, and most of my self-destructive habits disappeared. I was able to release all of these substances and behaviors, not through any will power of my own but rather, through a profound surrender deep in my psyche that came from a Power greater than myself.

Over the next few months, I slowly learned to turn my will and my life over to the care of God and to completely surrender to Roy’s counsel and the Metasteps process, which is transforming my life. I have learned that every day I am responsible for choosing recovery and a better life. I now know that I must make the commitment, with God’s help, to identify and release the unhealthy habits and addictions that kept me so physically, mentally, and spiritually sick. I could never do this before, but with Roy’s love and belief in me, I am finally able to make healthier choices for my life.

Today, I am a healthier, happier person enjoying a much higher quality of life. I am less interested in selfish things and more interested in what I can do to help others. I only eat foods that are life and health to my body. I no longer have to visit psychiatrist or therapists, end up in psychiatric hospitals, or take medications to control the bipolar illness, because I no longer have any symptoms of bipolar illness. I owe my new life to the help of my Higher Power and this wonderful man who continues to help me grow through this process of recovery on a daily basis.