Cari De La Cruz
I need compassion - not understanding
Feb 08, 2011
MexiKen doesn’t understand what it feels like to be addicted. At least, he doesn’t *think* he does. He’s one of the lucky ones who is able to turn a negative behavior on and off at will. Substances have no power over him, unless he chooses to allow them to. This is how he explains it, anyway.
You can imagine my frustration over the course of the last 22 years.
- He doesn’t understand my fibromyalgia, because nothing “shows” on the outside, so what could possibly be wrong?
- He doesn’t understand my food addiction, because he doesn’t feel the compulsion or obsession I feel around food.
- He doesn’t understand chemical depression, because he can just talk himself out of it and do what needs to be done.
- He used to think it was all in my head, and I almost believed him.
I remember after my precious baby girl was born (oh, so many years ago). I was a basket case. I had severe postpartum depression – almost psychosis. I felt like I was losing my mind, I beat myself up for my weakness, I criticized myself for being such a rotten mother and wife. I began to see how a woman could be pushed to the edge of insanity and do crazy things to her children. No one was really talking about it, so I figured I was crazy. I certainly wasn’t going to harm my baby, but I understood how someone could get to that point. I was out of control and scared. MexiKen will tell you that he didn’t understand my problem because his own mother had 12 children and never seemed to miss a beat with the birth of each one. We used to joke that she could give birth in the kitchen, then finish the mole and heat the tortillas before anyone would even notice the new addition.
I, on the other hand, was broken. I was not normal. I wanted to die. I hid in the closet while my daughter cried her lungs out in her car seat on the bed. It is a horrible memory, but I no longer feel the shame of it.
Of course, it wasn’t that easy for MexiKen. It was a bone of contention for many, many years in our marriage because he viewed me as weak. He thought I just wasn’t trying hard enough, or that I was seriously deranged to feel that way about my own flesh and blood. He wondered why I wasn’t more like his mother?
It was only after many, many years that he was finally able to “forgive” me for my behavior. That’s really what it came down to; Forgiveness. Though, I know that I wasn’t in control of my behavior, I did apologize to him for the pain my untreated condition caused for the entire family.
After all that, you’d think I’d blame him for his inability to understand the complexities of my damaged psyche, but I don’t. Mostly because *I* struggle to understand the complexities of my damaged psyche…
I don’t blame him for NOT knowing how to show me compassion. Neither one of us knew how to do that.
Which is why education is so important for everyone in the family. As with weight loss surgery, people don’t automatically *get* why we choose to have it. They think you should just eat “as if” you have had the surgery, but not have the surgery. They think you are a cheater, or that you will be cured, or whatever “excuse” you want to plug into the criticism. They think you are weak and lazy and are seriously flawed.
The point is, for someone who does not have a food addiction or weight problem, it is virtually impossible to comprehend the torture of someone who DOES.
I guess it’s like trying to explain menstrual cramps to a guy.
Girl: “Well, it hurts *here* and I only feel better if I lay on my side…with a heating pad. And my back hurts, but you can’t really massage the pain away. And I just feel irritable and sad.”
Guy: “Is it like getting kicked ‘down there’?”
Girl: “Well, since I don’t know what that feels like, because I don’t have *those* parts, it might be like how it feels when you fall on the crossbar on your bike.”
Guy: “Yeah, it’s probably close to that; It’ll pass in a few minutes. What’s your problem again?”
Which is pretty much the same dialogue me and MexiKen had all the time about my “issues.”
AGAIN, I don’t blame HIM for not understanding, because you can only truly empathize with someone if you’ve actually EXPERIENCED what they are going through. Fortunately, I learned that I really just needed support – not understanding. So, a few years ago, I started helping him help me. I’d say, “Hey, you don’t need to understand *why* this is the case, but I have a problem with “X”, and if I see them, I go crazy and eat uncontrollably. I am NOT telling you that YOU can’t have them, but would you mind hiding them from me? Could you put them somewhere you can get to them, but I won’t find them?”
He agreed, but it didn’t keep him from getting that puzzled, “I don’t get it”look on his face. The good news is, he did learn that hiding stuff was a good way to support me (as I’d asked). But that little technique only lasted so long before an addict like me went “looking…”
Ultimately, I had to deal with my addiction, not find ways to make it more acceptable! I had to stop looking for the “WHY” of it all, and just work on the “HOW” — as in, “How will I put an end to this destruction I’m allowing?”
Easy (or not so easy, depending upon how you look at it.) I just had to STOP bingeing. Of course, that’s where those 12-Steps come into the picture, and they are NOT easy, but they ARE possible.
Here’s what I have learned: In the final analysis, even if no one else has ever suffered with my addiction, it is still valid. Even if no one else understands my condition…my frailties, they can still show me compassion.
I could be addicted to mint dental floss but, as long as someone takes a moment to be human and say, “Hmm, I don’t understand this fixation with dental floss, and I don’t have a problem with it, but I see that you do, and I see that you are working to overcome the addiction, so I will support you however I can.”
Perhaps that is the message of this posting. Even if no one else suffers from my particular brand of binge-eating disorder, I do, and I know the tremendous toll it has taken on my soul. That is why, I have asked MexiKen to support me in my endeavor to choose recovery. (This does not include hiding food, by the way.) He will tell you that he doesn’t get it – but he will also say that he understands that I am suffering and doesn’t want me to hurt anymore. That’s big progress for both of us.
Gone are the days of suffering alone. Gone are the moments where I feel crazy and scared. I have my rock — even if he doesn’t know why he is supposed to stand completely still so I can grab onto him when the current gets too rough (LOL) – He does it, with a warm and generous heart (and a good sense of humor). He still has to stop himself from making critical, offhanded remarks, but I understand…because I know how hard he is trying. Hey, sometimes I’d have a hard time being married to me.
Here’s the bottom line: Find your peace and run to it. Never let anyone tell you you don’t deserve it, because you do. It is possible to find compassion — even in strangers.
SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
(7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
By the way…Today is Day 11 of My Recovery 
(In case you were wondering!)
