Jax sat in a circle among the other participants of the
eating disorder group he’d been meeting with for the past three weeks. It
wasn’t easy, sharing his issues with strangers, but he was learning that it
helped him look at food differently and understand that it was okay to have
something unhealthy every now and again without feeling like he had to pay for
it by starving himself and putting in extra workouts.
The binging was harder to deal with though, as was the
headspace he found himself in when those moments hit. He hadn’t been able to share
those thoughts with the group yet, most of the time he just tried really hard
to ignore them or berated himself until they went away. Like this morning, when
he’d felt the urge to buy half a dozen donuts on the way back from him run and
start scarfing them on the short walk between the bakery and his door.
On one hand, he felt fortunate that he’d only eaten three
before rational thought kicked in and made him hand off the rest to Callum, but
that didn’t mean he’d stopped beating himself up over it. Sighing, he shifted
in his seat and told himself to focus on the African American man who was
speaking.
“Sometimes I eat when I’m not even hungry,” the man
explained. “And yet I can’t seem to stop myself from getting up and going to
the fridge. My wife is constantly yelling at me about eating all of the
leftovers and getting into her shakes and yogurts, but I can’t seem to help
myself.”
“Let’s talk a moment about what you feel while this is
taking place,” the group leader said. “Are you board, restless, stressed? Many
people find themselves using food as an escape from something else.”
“I wouldn’t say I was stressed out,” the man said. “Bored
maybe, it feels like I’ve gotten into such a rut lately. Every morning I get up
and I go to work and when I come home I find myself too tired to do anything
but sit in my chair, turn on the television and make constant trips back and
forth between that chair and the fridge until it’s time to go to bed.”
“Then perhaps it’s time that you look for activities you
can do outside of your home. Explore a hobby, or a recreational sports league,
perhaps even find something that you and your wife can do together so that you’re
not simply sitting in front of the television each day.”
“I used to play football, back in high school and
college,” the man said. “Thought about joining a park league but it seems like I
miss the signups every year.”
“Then that might be something to plan for in order to not
miss it next year. In the meantime, what else do you enjoy?”
The man shrugged. “Never given it much thought.”
“Perhaps it’s time you should.”
The whole time the man was talking, Jax was thinking
about his own life. He’d never been one for television, and he was rarely bored,
but when he was stressed, or feeling negatively about something in his life, he
found himself eating more. In fact, all of his binges had come after big disappointments,
the worst being after Jason had cheated on him and broken up with him because
he hadn’t fit the ideal Jason had for what he’d wanted his boyfriend to look
like.
Jax had been trying so hard too. Working his ass off in
the gym to get cut and lose the last bits of extra weight he’d still been
carrying around. After Jason’s betrayal, he’d done nothing but hold a private
pity party for himself and indulge in every sugary treat he could get his hands
on, indulging himself in a pity party of epic proportions until he’d woken up
once morning and realized that only two pairs of jeans still fit.
After that, he’d never allowed himself to backslide so
horribly, but a few time it had come close, and that had scared him so badly he’d
made himself sick trying to make up for it.
“When I’m upset I eat,” Jax blurted, the words leaving
his mouth before he could fully give himself time to think.
She nodded in encouragement and gave him a small smile. “That
has been one of my biggest struggles too,” she admitted.
“I was always the fat kid, all through school, I guess I used
food to make up for the fact that I was lonely, and that I was shy and I was
never really good at fitting in, plus, it was kind of hard to make friends with
people when their parents never wanted them to hang out at your house because
your mom always seemed to have a different guy over.” Jax said.
His hands were on his knees and his eyes on the ground as
he spoke, but now that he’d started opening up it was very hard to stop.
“There was always something in the fridge to eat though,
and it wasn’t until I got older that I started looking in the mirror and hating
what I saw. The only problem with that is, once I started, I can’t seem to
figure out how to stop. I still look in the mirror and see that fat kid and
when things go wrong, I still turn to food to make me feel better, even though
I have friends I can talk to and someone who’s becoming very special to me.”
The change in his pocket jangled a little as he bounced
his knee up and down.
“The thing is, I keep asking myself what he could
possibly see in me. How he could ever find me attractive? I want to be with him
but I keep thinking that it will only be a matter of time before he finds
someone better and ditches me or cheats on me and I know that isn’t fair to
him, to judge him by the things that one of my ex’s did, but I don’t know how
to put away that fear.”
“One day at a time,” the group leader said. “And with honesty
and conversation so he knows that you have issues that you are working through.”
Jax nodded. “He knows, sort of, I mean, I haven’t really
been able to tell him my fears about him and I, but I’ve told him a little bit
about my life when I was growing up.”
“I take it this is a new relationship?”
“Yeah.”
“Then as you both come to know each other better, these
are things that you will want to share with him,” she explained. “It takes time
and effort and sometimes a lot of setbacks before you’ll start to be able to
look at yourself differently and even then, there might be times when something
triggers you to slip back into old habits. If you can share what you’re dealing
with, than the people that are closest of you will be better prepared to help
you.”
“Even my sister and my closest friends don’t know all of
it,” Jax admitted. “I’ve tried to keep it hidden and deal with it, but
sometimes it’s too much and I can’t handle it on my own.”
“And that’s when you need to let others in and allow them
to help you.”
“I have the same problem,” a blond girl three people away
from Jax said. Carol, he thought her name was. “I try to keep my binging a
secret, and I feel so ashamed when I notice that my clothes are fitting
tighter. I lost my boyfriend over it all about a month ago and that’s just made
it harder.”
“Did he, um, break up with you because of your weight?”
Jax asked as politely as he could, not wanting to offend her or hurt her
feelings. He knew first hand how bad that felt.
She just shook her head. “No, he told me over and over
again that he didn’t have a problem with my weight, that he loved me. What he
couldn’t deal with was me freaking out and getting jealous every time he talked
to or even looked at a skinny girl.”
“I can relate to that,” Jax said.
“Is your guy built like you?” The blond woman beside the
group leader asked.
Jax shook his head. “No, he’s shorter than me, a little
stocky.”
“But you smile when you talk about him and your eyes
light up,” she said. “It’s pretty obvious that you’re into him even if he doesn’t
look like he’s spent hours and hours in the gym. So why shouldn’t he feel the
same about you?”
Jax blinked, because damn, he’d never thought about it
that way. True, Danny wasn’t built like most of the guys he’d been with and
while he tended to lean towards women who were curvy with a little extra meat,
he’d never considered that they might want him even if he was less than ripped.
Maybe there was more skewed about his thinking than he’d ever considered.
Jax never could find an answer to her question and when the
meeting broke up a short time later, he checked his watch, grateful to see that
he had two hours to kill before he had to be at the shop. Gassing up the bike,
he headed out of town to cruse the highway and try to get his mind straight.
