communicating about food abuse, was Raw Aggression

[Guest guest]

Hi Nick,

I'm sorry to hear that you are in such a distressing situation. My experience

parallels Ron's in a general sense, except I tried to hang onto those

relationships longer than he did, and in doing so caused myself lots of problems

that will take years to dig out of. It would have been better for me if I had

chosen sooner to allow myself the freedom to live my life as I felt I needed to

and let them make their choices about their lives.

 

Each person truly has the right and responsibility to make their own choices.

Dealing with this gets much harder when kids are involved. Eventually I had to

recognize that running my own life into the ground in an attempt to care for

kids wouldn't help anybody then or later, and would set a bad example for the

kids in the long run. Some kids are listening, but many times it takes years for

this to surface (late 20's or 30's) , and you owe it to yourself and them to

sustain well-being in your own life in the mean time, while waiting to see if

the kids were listening.

 

Its too bad there has been so little useful work done on the underlying

psychology related to food. Sometimes people actually choose to starve to death

rather than change their diet. Its very common for people to die of degenerative

diseases directly caused by their diet. Compared to food, people are quite

rational about politics, sex, and religion.

 

I think we have very little understanding of what is going on under this

resistance to diet change. I have a very strong will, and many issues of change

which are a struggle for others are easy for me - except for food. I'm still

somewhat amazed and shocked at how hard it was and is for me to get myself to

eat what I know I would be good for my health, and I have lots of will and

tenacity.

 

Very likely part of the backlash about healthy diets is that underneath the

resistance to diet change is guilt, frustration, and anger, and since they can't

deal with it and try to ignore this, they lash out at others who keep reminding

them of these painful issues which they are trying to ignore. As long as they

are choosing to avoid dealing with their underlying issues related to diet, they

will lash out at anything that makes it harder to avoid and ignore. Likely this

also applies to what happened during FOX news interview too, both to the doctor

and the audience.

 

In many ways food abuse is as hard to deal with than any other substance abuse

(partially because our culture keeps pretending its a small easy issue), and its

well established that until a person chooses to work to resolve the underling

issues related to substance abuse, there isn't anything that can be done about

their substance abuse issues. Its also well established that when a person lets

themselves be drawn into the mess of another's substance abuse issues, it blocks

constructive resolution and messes up their own life.

 

When a person lives their life in a healthy way, and allows others to make their

own choices, and leaves the door open, then sometimes later on positive change

occurs. I'm referring to the fine line here between caring about a person, and

caring for a person. You can care about a person without cleaning up the messes

they make in their lives. Its easy to become an enabler of problems in other

people by cleaning up their messes for them.

 

Every time I think I've finally gotten the judgmental framing and tone out of

how I speak, I discover new more subtle layers of this. Even if people can't

point out how this is conveyed, they can feel it and react to it. When a person

is already feeling guilty about the issues they are ignoring, a judgmental tone

is like throwing a lit match into a box of fireworks. Likely this is part of why

backing off and letting people make their own choices opens the door to

potential positive change in the future. Backing off reduces my frustration, and

this reduces the negative tone in my thinking and speaking, and this reduces

their negative reacting towards me, and then, maybe, one day they will take a

look at themselves and their issues.

 

In many ways therapists are people coaches, and can be used in this context. A

large part of their study is the complexities of relationship dynamics, and they

can help provide insight and coaching on how to best deal with tangled people

situations. When people have a complex accounting problem, they go to an

accountant. In that same sense, therapists are people dynamics experts and can

help with tangled people problems. Just like some accountants are incompetent,

so are some therapists, and its important to determine if the person you are

seeking help from has an adequate skill set for the issues that need to be

addressed.

 

There has been quite a bit written about the problems a person faces when a

family member is a substance abuser, and likely a lot of it also applies when a

person is abusing their heath through food. Some people ignore their abuse

issues, but when physical health issues show up, choose to face what they need

to, so they can deal with the cause of their loss of health. When a person

chooses to ignore their issues even after significant health issues show up, it

gets very tangled, messy and destructive for the other people in their lives,

and that's what these books help family members deal with.

 

Possibly the most important piece of framing is for a person in this situation

to choose to move towards well-being and peace of mind in their own lives, while

they leave the door open for others to come with them, if they choose to do so,

then or later.

 

These are those simple ideas that take a long time to understand and accept -

sometimes this takes years. I usually write about things I'm thinking about or

dealing with, and I'll be a lucky and blessed guy if I can apply all these good

ideas in my own life.

 

May your day be filled with clarity, grace, progress, and warm laugher,

Roger

 

-

" dukkadon " <dukkadon

 

Saturday, January 19, 2008 8:37 AM

Re: Raw Aggression

 

 

> Hello Nick,

....

> Ron