communicating about food abuse, was Raw Aggression

[Guest guest]

What a beautiful piece, Roger, thank you for the time you put into creating

this.

Elchanan

_____

 

Roger Padvorac [roger]

Saturday, January 19, 2008 12:38 PM

 

communicating about food abuse, was > Re: Raw

Aggression

 

 

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