The Entertainer

One of my favourite parts of our intergroup retreat was the "review", "entertainment", "variety show" or whatever else you call it, that we had on the Saturday night. I helped out with the writing and performance of several skits. Everyone loved them and thought they were hilarious. I want to put the scripts here:

I got a lot of inspiration from the television show "Starved" which was on late at nights in Australia at the same time as I started the program (odd or God?...A pretty big coincidence whatever the case). Apparently it only ran for a few episodes, but it was an absolutely awesome show. If you can get your hands on a DVD or an online version let me know. If you're offended by sexual references and things then don't watch it because it is quite risque, but otherwise it is amazing.

Script 1: Romance Gone Wrong:

Characters: Compulsive Eater, Fruitarian, Narrator

Compulsive Eater approaches Fruitarian infatuated and shy, like a lovesick puppy

Hi....um...I really really like you. I've never met anyone like you. Please...please, please, will you go out to dinner with me?

Fruitarian: in a snobby voice

Well you know I only date fruitarians....are you a fruitarian?

Compulsive Eater's face falls and they look horrified.

Errr...do fruitarinas still eat chocolate, pizza, KFC, ice cream and cheeseburgers? Because I haver to eat those.

Fruitarian: Er...in a word, No! ...But I do make a delicious, fruititious, nutritious, 110% fat free, zero-calorie vegan burger!

Compulsive Eater: Falls to their knees and shouts Oh my! I love you so much! Will you marry me? Your lifestyle totally enables my eating disorder!!!

Compulsive Eater and Fruitarian turn away from audience. Compulsive Eater stuffs padding in his/her clothes. Fruitarian puts on a wedding viel.

Narrator: 6 months later

Compulsive Eater: Angrily rips the veil off Fruitarian's head. What have you done to me, you liar!!! I've been eating a gazillion of your burgers every day. You said they were zero calorie 110% fat free so I should have been able to eat as many as I wanted. Now look what's happened to me! The wedding's off!! I never want to see you again!

Skit 2: Dietrette Patches
This one was inspired by the Nicorette ads I posted about previously and also by a Chindogu I saw once.

Characters: Compulsive Eater (name can be anything), Dietrette Salesperson, Cheerleader, Devil, OA Angel

Compulsive eater: Slumps down on the stage.
You know, I really am addicted to food. Beats the air with her fist I need to do something about it, now!

Dietrette Salesperson: Oh I have a wonderful solution for you. These new dietrette suhgar patches and this nose cover. Put your favourite foods in the nose cover and put on this patch, and you'll smell your favourite foods all the time- whilst also keeping your blood sugar up in that hyperactive range you've come to love. You can eat a salad and feel like you're eating five mudcakes. And it only costs $5 millioon! Imagine it...it will be like having your own personal cheerleader to help with weight loss....Hands a huge children's band-aid and a ridiculous loking fake nose to COE, who puts them on enthusiastically, then exits

Cheerleader: Enters stage in costume doing elaborate moves and chanting "No [COE's name], No!" "No [COE's name], no!"

Devil: Enters from other side of stage and places a bowl in front of COE's face, whispering Eat it! Eat it! Eat it

Cheerleader and Devil continue on either side of Compulsive Eater, who becomes increasingly distressed, clutching her nose and arm. Compulsive Eater then covers their ears and shouts desperately "NO! No! NO!!!"

OA Angel: Enters from the back of the audience, wearing an angel costume. Reaches out hand to COE and addresses them by name. It's alright Sally. I put my hand in yours and together we'll find freedom. Just say "Yes God Yes."

Skit 3: Apocalyptic Eating:
This one is all me. This is my mentality to a T

Characters: Compulsive Eater, Friend

Compulsive Eater: Stands in front of a backdrop picturing a massive pile of canned food of all types. Holds a pot and is frantically tipping cans into the pot, stirring and cooking

Friend: Walks in and surveys the scene. What on earth are you doing with all this canned desert....baked beans,, spam....and dog food!???

Compulsive Eater: Looks terrified. I'm preparing for the apocalypse! I told you before- tomorrow there's going to be a terrible disaster! The end of the worldas I know it. Slim chances of survival. I have to get ready!

Friend: Oooookay.....welkl for starters you never mentioned an apocalypse. Um...and you do realise that the advantage of canned food is sort of lost if you cook and eat it before the apocalypse actually happens?

Compulsive Eater: Not this apocalypse! This is the diet apocalypse. I have to eat as much as I can before the dreaded calorie count falls.

Skit 4:

This one was inspired directly by a Garfield cartoon.

Characters: Compulsive Eater, Scales

Scales: Stand in the centre of the stage. The person can be made to look like scales in any way you like. The person in our skit just used mime. Compulsive Eater Walks over to scales. They tip to one side

Compulsive Eater: You're fat

Scales: Look very distressed Am not.

Compulsive Eater: Are too!

Scales: Angrily Am not!

Compulsive Eater: Are too!

Scales: Scream Am NOT am NOT am NOT!!

Compulsive Eater: You can dish it out but you can't take it, can you?

Intergroup Retreat- Morning After

Lots of things happened on the Monday morning before breakfast at the intergroup retreat....
I wouldn’t know about them. I got out of bed, got dressed and rushed down to the main hall just in time for breakfast (who isn’t surprised I missed that? It’s amazing how effective a motivator food is to the compulsive eater). I was pretty ticked off that they put raisins in the porridge, since that was the item that was on my food plan for breakfast that morning. I don’t like raisins.

I had a good chat over breakfast to some people who were interested in Asperger’s/autism. As usual I did most of the talking. Learning to listen is going to be an important part of my recovery, I think. I also had a good chat to a lady who had a similar history of “never having been slim” before OA. There are so many OAers who weren’t that overweight to begin with, or who were yo-yo dieters. She was on a very restricted food plan because as she became abstinent she discovered heaps of food allergies. She pointed out the link that some people believe exists between food intolerances and autism.I know about that. I’m not supposed to eat Gluten and Casein. That means no wheat, oats, rye or dairy. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that dairy and carbs tend to be big triggers for me,. But I’m trying to give up one food at a time. My first total eliminations were weetbix and ice cream. Besides, my psychiatrist is very scepitical of the food intolerance theories of autism. He is much less sceptical of the idea that I have a physical reaction to refined sugar and simple carbohydrates. Apparently that's fairly common in people with ADHD.

Now I have been committing to my sponsor daily that I will abstain from ice cream, chocolate, bread, sugar and white flour. The weetbix is also off the table, but it comes under the sugar thing I think. Anyways, I don’t eat weetbix. But at the meeting after breakfast I discovered that merely refraining from binge foods does not constitute abstinence. One of the veteran members said that “you mustn’t eat an abstinent meal compulsively” I can completely relate to that idea. It seems like a contradiction in terms, but it isn’t. For example, on my birthday this year, I thought that I was abstinent because I didn’t have any sugar or white flour. Now i know that was a huge achievement to get through the day like that. But it wasn’t abstinence. I was eating non-stop even if I wasn’t eating my so-called trigger foods. In fact, if I’m honest, I was bingeing. It was only a matter of time after that before I did break my sugar and white flour rules.

The fact is that abstinence is defined as “refraining from eating compulsively”. This means, whenever I eat for my own self-will and not God’s will, whenever i’m not submitting to the guidance of God and the program, whenever hte food is eaten selfishly not to nourish my body so I might better do God’s will, and whenever I’m failing to have “life in between meals”, constanntly thinking about the next meal instead of being present in the moment,-whenever I’m doing all these things I am not abstinent. That’s a hard definition to have, but it’s true. Lots of OA members shared that they still struggled with the freedom from the obsession. I don’t want to have that obsession for the rest of my life, to be a “dry drunk.” And yet that’s what I do. I do feel powerless against this obsession, but I find it hard to trust thqt God can relieve it.

Retreating further

Ok so I really wanted to share as much as I could about my intergroup retreat. It was awesome, and I want to milk the experience for all it's worth by writing about it, sharing about it and reflecting on it as much as I can...now where was I up to?..

Ah yes, after the candlelit meeting on the Friday night, most people went to bed, but since I'm a nightowl I stayed. I had the added incentive that somebody was setting up a Scrabble game. I LOVE Scrabble! But I have nobody to play it with. I play it on the computer sometimes, but I always see board games as social things.

Of course socialisation for the compulsive person with Asperger's is a real double-edged sword. I was terribly nervous because I didn't know anyone there. Now I'm doing my fourth step I'm becoming aware of many of my faults. I know I'm not as spiritually fit as I thought I was. I was frightened that the people in the program would look down on me for not being spiritual enough. I felt my old need to show off and impress coming through. I had to win the scrabble to prove I was "smart". That is my self-worth and my social worth...I have to be smart. That's the one thing I can do. I'm fat, annoying, clumsy and socially awkward...but I can win a scrabble game. That's how I think. But then of course, I started to worry that my showing off would be obvious, and that these "spiritual" people would think me an arrogant smart-##S. So I slipped into the defence of "I'm not upsetting you am I?" "Sorry if I did...". It tends to work, people are like "Oh no it's fine." Few people have the courage to answer "Yes you are." to a question like that.

But that's the thing about spiritually fit people, they don't need to judge others. They just cared for me and accepted me. That became even clearer that night, when I woke several people up in my dorm by having a late shower. I said I was sorry, and everyone was ok with it. They seemed genuinely forgiving. I tell you what...people who disturb my slumber don't get much sympathy from me. I just felt the serenity from some of those people.

Getting away from it all

OA Intergroup Retreat

Hi everyone. I hope you are all well and abstinent. I had a wonderful time this weekend just past at a retreat organised by my local OA intergroup. It was amazing. I knew I needed to go. My sponsor went to great lengths to get to her retreat, and recommended I do the same, and I’m a big fan of retreats anyway. I had wanted to go on one ever since I started the program.

We arrived on the Friday night at about 7pm. Everyone was eating dinner. It was lovely to be around people who also had physical allergies to certain foods, like me. The food was free of gluten, and somebody else asked whether there was sugar in the chutney (the only thing on the weekend with added sugar). When I waited to have lunch, a simple “I don’t like to have eat too early” sufficed, without any need to worry what people were wondering.

After dinner we had a late night identification meeting which included a beautiful ceremony where the lights were dimmed, the chair lit a small candle. After her share, she told us one quality that she’d like to pass on to the person nextto her, and then used her candle to light theirs. As we each shared our experience strength and hope the room gradually began to light up and we became a circle of hope united against the darkness. I can be a very visual and kinesthetic learner, and I'm a bit of a romantic at heart, so I enjoyed the symbolism. It was also good to see teh variety of people there. Several of us were in our twenties, whilst others were in their seventies or eighties. Some has been in teh program a few months, and some had been in it for decades. My usual face to face meeting is very small so there was no one whom I knew. That was actually a good thing because it gave me an extra level of anonymity which enabled me to share more honestly and openly.

The Flatlands

Have you ever been in the Australian outback? It’s a wonderful experience and I really recommend it. There’s nowhere else on earth like it. The remoteness is unimaginable to all but a few. The colours are brighter than anywhere else on earth, and contrast with each other in a raw primeval way, even as they blend together into one another to form strangely beautiful new hues like green gold, red-blue, and silver-cream.

Of course all this can be observed fairly early on in one’s journey, and, since journeys through the Australian outback take hours.....and hours....and hours on end, the novelty can wear off, or at least become drowned out by the car-sickness, boredom, drowsiness, and other more familiar, if less pleasant, sensations we associate with road trips.


I feel that my recovery is in a bit of an outback spot at the moment. I’m travelling along a flat road, neither improving nor deteriorating...at least the landscape around me isn’t deteriorating. It’s been the same for the past couple of months. But I am deteriorating. My recovery is going backwards. Recovery is a mountain, not a plane. I haven’t been climbing it. I’ve been content to coast along and hope things improve. I was so excited by my progress, that I just let things slip. This program requires so much dedication and perseverance. Sometimes we can be deceived by the beautiful country of wellness that we are entering, into thinking that we have left our disease behind for good. The moment we forget our first step, we are bound to slip. I keep forgetting my first step.

I think part of the reason is that I don’t like the second and third steps, and the first step makes them necessary. If I can’t manage my own life then I have to let someone else manage it. It’s hard not to admit I cant’ manage my own life. Just the other day my mother said to me “We’ve tried so many things to make you happy, and you’re never happy. You need to spend a long time with God.” I knew the first part was true. I didn’t like what she deduced from it. But that second part was true too. I need something outside myself to manage my life. If nothing else that means the program. I need the program, and I need to be devoted to achieving recovery through spiritual renewal. To get that spiritual renewal I need to work the steps and use the tools. Even if I don’t want to. Well at least I’m writing here now.

The biggest problem for me at the moment is in the relationship department. I finally laid stuff on the line to my boyfriend over a month ago. The way he treats me would be totally unacceptable under almost any circumstances. (I don't mean he hits me or anything like that). But our circumstances are very unusual, and he is going through a LOT at the moment. I said I would stick by him through this hard time, but I still feel taken for granted and besides, what's so great about this relationship anyway? We don't really have that much in common to be honest.

Anways, I layed things on the line. I was sure that was God's will. But I was angry and resentful in the way that I spoke to him. That was not God's will. And I wasn't honest. I blamed him for our problems, and ignored my own part in them. Moreover, I was insecure and distressed. I said in the email I sent him that "I don't suppose you'll even bother to answer" but the fact was I really hoped he would. He didn't, and I felt so rejected and alone and lost. So, about a week or two after that, when I hadn't heard from him, I sent him another email, saying I was so sorry for being so mean to him in his hour of need, and would he take me back. (Can anyone say "coward"?) Now I'm back where I started....thinking I'm in a relationship that isn't God's will but not trusting God to get me out of it and take care of me...after all I tried that. Oh yeah...my boyfriend replied to the second email, and we talked, but I haven't heard from him since. (can anyone say Jerk?)

Sorry Guys!!!

Ok well I know that not many of you are reading me at the moment (and who can blame you?) so you might have missed the fact that I've been missing in action for almost two months now. I have quite a few excuses. But they're all pretty lame ones. I need to blog here. I need to be part of this online community of OA bloggers. I know there are only a few of us that can post every day, but here's my new commitment: to post once a fortnight and to comment on each of the blogs in my blogroll during the same period. Let's see if that's do able shall we?




In the meantime, my food has been off and on. I finally broke 50 days abstinence the other day (my longest time yet) and haven't got anywhere near that since then. But it's all about progress not perfection and there was a time when 50 days abstinence would have been as impossible for me to achieve as a gold medal in skiing. Also, I've hit the 30kg mark in my weight loss (that's 66lb). Which is just awesome for me. I've never lost anything like that in my life. I'm a special breed of yo-yo dieter- the "inverse inexpert kind". You know how kids (like me) who can't use a yo-yo properly, end up with it bouncing up and down at the end of it's string, never rising back into their hand? Well my weight bounced up and down within a range of about 5-10kg (10-20lb) and never got anything like target weight. In factg I was never anything less than obese. I am now just 3kg away from normal weight. Amazing! Praise God!!!


Here are some photos:


These first two are of me near my top weight (around 95kg/
























These are from my "losing weight" phases (somewhere between 80 and 90kg/ 175 and 200lb)

And these are from my graduation and my trip to the easter show in the last couple of months (71-75 kg/155-165lb)

Crash

Attention All: this is a community service announcement concerning public safety:

Foodfairy is learning to drive!

Actually, I've been learning to drive for a while now. But today I had my first accident. I'm pretty shaken up about it, and my natural reaction would be to eat. I can control it for the time being, but without some program work that will only be a temporary soluation. As one of the virtual speakers I've been listening to lately mentioned, if you don't write about your feelings you will eventually eat over them, sooner or later. That has certainly been my experience. I can deal with my emotions by bottling them up for only so long. But inside that bottle they all ferment into hunger. So I know I need to write about how I feel right now. I haven't been injured physically by the accident, but I could still be injured by the emotional fall-out.

So basically what happened was this: I was driving along a two-laned road that becomes one lane about 200m down from where I was. So, knowing I would have to change lanes at some point, I thought I would be smart and get in early. However, there is an important turn off before the lanes merge, so, the cars in the target lane are liable to be stopping quickly. This is why, in fact, my supervising driver had always waited until AFTER we passed the turnoff to tell me I needed to change lanes.

So, being inattentive and wilful as I usually am, I decided to change lanes early, without being directed, and without seeing that there was a car getting ready to stop and indicate.I was going too fast and I didn't check in front of me as well as behind me before I changed lanes. I think I got distracted when my supervising driver asked me why I was changing lanes. Anyway, I pulled in behind the car in question, and, I think, accelerated. I saw it, and my supervising driver yelled BRAKE!!! and I put my foot on the ACCELERATOR. I soon realised that I had put my foot on the wrong pedal and switched, but it was too late. We banged corners. Here's a picture of the corner of my car.

So the other guy got out and said I'd hit something. I said I hadn't, because my supervising driver said she didn't think I had. This got his back up, and he said "Yes you have, get out and have a look." Well I didn't want to get out and have a look. I was stopped in the middle of the road held in place only by the footbrake, inches from his car, and taking up two lanes. I asked if we could drive down the shoulder at the bottom of the hill. But by now he thought I wasn't going to take responsibility for it, and so he was trying to insist that I give him my name, license and registration before I went anywhere. We managed to convince him to follow us 100m down to the kerb, and I got out and gave him my license and name. But by that time I had started crying and was close to breaking down. So my supervising driver took over and I went to the car and started shaking and bawling. We went straight home, and I sat on the couch and bawled and cried some more. My supervising driver happened to be my mum, and so she sat on the couch with me and comforted me.

I have so many feelings going round in my head at the moment and I don't know what they are. I feel angry and resentful towards the other driver and my mum. I'm not exactly sure why. I mean he didn't really do anything wrong. The accidwent was undoubtedly my fault. It was no one else's fault- not my mum's and not his. He was angry and pedantic about getting my details-but who wouldn't be, especially after I denied I hit him in the first place? I'm resentful of my mum because she didn't tell me that I was a wonderful driver and it wasn't my fault (which is what I wanted to hear, but it wasn't the truth) and because she's still upset and gloomy, and that makes me feel bad and guilty.


I'm afraid, very afraid. I'm afraid that he will come after me for all I've got, and that the damage to his car and/or our car will be much worse than it looks, and there will be, at the very least, a huge insurance excess that I can't afford and my parents can't afford (I'm really struggling with money at the moment anyway). I'm afraid that my mum will think I'm a terrible driver and not take me out driving again. Or, if she does take me out driving again, I'm afraid she'll get all overcautious and overprotective and do the whole "You have to drive at 40km an hour [24miles] in an 80km [48miles] zone" thing. I'm afraid that my ADHD will stop me from ever being a good driver. That I'll never be able to pay attention to everything on the road, and that I'll be stuck at home with no life forever. Or else I'm afraid that one day I'll have a terrible car accident and get brain damage and turn into a zombie or a horrible person or something. (Yes I'm getting ahead of myself). I'm afraid that my parents will be angry at me and hate me.

I'm also afraid of my feelings- that they're not right or proper or real or something. This is a longer-running issue that is coming out in my fourth step. But I often use sad feelings to manipulate others, and I can't tell the difference between genuine bad feelings, and dramatized ones. Often I think it's a combination of both. But I still have this guilt and confusion about where one ends and the other begins. Today, when I was crying and shaking, was it to get sympathy and leniency from the other driver and from my mum? Or was it because I was actually shaken up? The thought certainly did cross my mind that I should cry, and that it would be better for me if I did, but I was also upset, I think. And when I called the people whom I'd been goin to see to say that I wouldn't make it, did I really need to tell them I'd crashed my car, so that they'd be all sympathetic? Couldn't I have just said something happened? Wouldn't other people be too ashamed or shaken to tell anyone that? Doesn't the fact I was able to use it to excuse something show that I wasn't really feeling ashamed, guilty and shaken enough?

I also feel fear about guilt. I worry taht I don't feel guilty enough. I'm really quite self-centred in my reactions to all of this. I"m not concerned for the person I crashed into, or my mum's trauma and state of mind. I'm not concerned for the other people on the road (primarily). I know I need to feel guilty, and to feel humbled so that I won't be so cocksure of myself next time I drive. But I can't make myself feel these things to a satisfactory extent, And if I did feel them to the extent I think I should I woulnd't be able to cope anyway. So I'm scared of not feeling the right way, scared of feeling the right way, and just damned confused and guilty.

Epilogue: Learning to drive in my part of Australia:

Ok, so the first thing you guys need to know is that I've had my learner's permit for about five years. That's a little bit long, but the reasons for it are threefold:

1. Finding the time and money was difficult for a long time

2. I am a procrastinator

3. The laws about driving in my part of Australia are insanely strict. So it's becoming more and more common to take a long time to get your licence

In my state you have to go through ALL the following stages to get a full licence

1. Turn 17 years old

2. Take a test on the road rules and safe driving habits, getting a very very high score

3. Complete 50 hours of driving practice under the supervision of a fully licensed (not provisional) driver, practising a variety of manoevres in a variety of conditions (since I got my learners' permit it's gone up to 120 hours thank goodness I missed that.)

4. Pass a very strict on road test, which almost everyone fails the first time.

5. Receive a 1st level provisional license (red P's) and keep those for a year. Your driving is restricted during this period, and you have ot display P-plates on your car

6. Pass a test based on a computer simulation designed to test how you deal with emergencies on the road

7. Receive a second level provisional license (green P's) and drive for another two years with P-plates on your car and restrictions

8. FINALLY receive your full license.

Is that overkill or what???