On the local (and now national) news, there's a story about a woman who lost 500 pounds, not by dieting or exercising, necessarily, but by having her emotional needs met after someone gave her a computer. The emotional support she got online helped her to stop eating compulsively. I don't know how long this woman's needs can be met by online friends, but I do know that after this burst of fame (she's going to be on Oprah, etc.), when she has no "follow-up" to her miracle and people begin to treat her as if she is a "normal" person, she will once again feel bereft and emotionally in need. Been there, done that. Many years ago, I lost 110 pounds and everyone treated me like a "special person"--lots of compliments, lots of attention--but then it ended. Suddenly I was expected to just be a normal person who had no extraordinary need for emotional fulfillment. Something similar happened about five years ago, when I lost about 90 pounds.
Growing up as I did, so very poor and with such unsophisticated parents and family, I was chastised and belittled far more than praised and supported. The ONLY thing I was ever praised for was my good grades in school, but even then, it was less praise for me than put-downs for my siblings: "Why can't YOU do well in school like Sharon?" My sister wasn't praised for her abilities, either. When she learned easily how to ride a bicycle before I learned, instead of saying to her, "That's wonderful that you can ride the bike now!" my mother said to me, "Aren't you ashamed that she can ride and you can't?" That is but one example of my parents' style of interaction. My mother believed wholeheartedly that praising a child would make that child vain, and to her, vanity was a great sin. My father would often praise us if we did something that reflected well on him, like getting our bedrooms clean, but he was just as likely to drag us out of bed at 4 a.m. to make us rewash dishes that hadn't gotten clean enough when we'd washed them the night before. Mama often said things like "Little head, little wit. Big head, not a bit." That was meant to do two things: dampen any desire within us to feel pride in our accomplishments, and put me down because my actual physical head size was large in comparison to my sister's. (I still have a big head--not because of a big brain, but because my head size is just big. I can't wear women's hats, for example.)
So in a nutshell, I am emotionally needy. Geneen Roth in Feeding the Hungry Heart talks about this hole in us that can never be filled, and indeed, that is exactly what it feels like--a big empty aching hole. I know that when I overeat at night, I'm trying to fill that hole. I used to try to get my husband to fill my emotional emptiness, but it never worked. He loves me, and I know it. He respects me, and I know it. But he grew up in a really normal family, with security. He always had enough to eat. He always had what his friends had, if not more. He never had to be ashamed and embarrassed about his family. His parents were the envy of all his friends because they were so good. He simply does not have that empty hole, and he can't imagine having it. Even if he could imagine it, even if he had the surplus love and affection, it wouldn't be enough. Roth also notes that if we don't get this need met in our childhood, then we just don't get it met. If our parents, especially our mothers, don't love us enough then, it won't matter how much others love us later. The hole will always be there. I would not want my husband to feel that his only reason for existence was to pay constant attention to me (although there have been many times that I've felt that my only reason for existence was to pay constant attention to him--but that's my problem, not his. I'm the one who thinks that what I need is what he needs, so I give him what I want, and no doubt in his secret heart, he needs something I don't give him).
So I've spent my life conquering mountains. (They may be simply molehills, I don't know.) With each peak I climb, I long for and hope for praise and acclamation. Even if I get it, it's temporary, and I have to seek another "fix." As a result, I've earned all these degrees. I've won awards for my painting and even for my writing. And it's not enough. It wouldn't be enough if I won "World's Best Everything." The hole would still be there. It will still be there because I won't ever be good enough. My mother's words, her frequent assertions that I was selfish and self-centered, too hot-tempered, too stubborn, too awkward, too unattractive, too stocky, too big-headed, have confirmed my existence as someone who is never "just right." No amount of weight loss, no change that I can make in myself on the outside, will ever suffice. Mama is dead, and so her words will never be changed. I know she loved me, in her own odd "you're my child, of course I love you" way. But she was just 18 when I was born. My birth was followed by a miscarriage and then a sister less than two years later and a brother less than two years after that. She didn't have enough of herself to share it with her children, and I fear that I may have done the same thing to my sons. Thus, I overcompensate monetarily with them.
There's this commercial on tv that grates on me for this very reason. This father buys new cell phones for his wife, daughter, son, and himself. He hands a phone to his daughter: "You're my Number One." He hands one to his wife: "You're my Number One." He hands one to his son: "You're my Number One." And then he heads out the door, chuckling to himself over his own new phone, the best of the lot: "And saving the best for Numero Uno." I suspect that I overgive Christmas and birthday gifts to my sons (and to others), expecting in return that someone will say to me and truly mean that I am Numero Uno. Unlike the father in the commercial, I have never seen myself as Most Important. Best. Number One. On one hand, the man's selfishness and deceit disgust me. On the other, I'm envious that he is able to put himself first without suffering any guilt whatsoever. Unlike him, I go out and buy all this stuff for other people, and make personalized gifts for them, and try to meet their every need, all the while knowing that what I WANT is for someone to do that for me, and no one ever will. It's not normal. What is normal is to have a healthy sense of self-esteem where you don't need for people to do all that for you.
At least, that is how I imagine a healthy sense of self-esteem to be. For all I know, it's nothing like that. There's no way for me to know. As I sit here, clearly needing to lose 100+ pounds, I know that I have a big old black empty ugly hole inside me, and that what I think I want and need, I can't get. So in the meantime, how about another bowl of ice cream? Yet, my own experience tells me that I can overeat until I am ill and so miserable that I want to cry, but I'll still feel empty. Unworthy. Unpraised. Unimportant. Un. Dr. S.
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