We are all a product of our habits and behavior patterns. When we are born, we are born with a blank brain space. We rely on our parents to help us navigate circumstance, our environment, and exposure to situations in life. As we learn to navigate things as a child, we are developing patterns that determine how we navigate situations as adults. If we get a cut on our hand, our parents put ointment and a band aid on it. Now as an adult, we get a cut on our hand, we are headed straight to the medicine cabinet for band aids and ointment. “Monkey see, Monkey do”. As kids, we learn to navigate things based on survival. “What is going to make this situation safe?”.

On a neurological level, we have brain patterns to help us survive. I could really go deep. Should I? Do y’all want to hear about how your brain works? So be it. Brain patterns are like a plasma ball. A plasma ball is a glass ball and shoots out colorful, electric streamers from an electrode at the bottom.  The electrode basically creates a high voltage which combines with the gases that have been trapped in the glass and when the two come together, it creates beautiful colored streamers. Your brain works similarly to that plasma globe except instead of gases, our body creates chemicals which are neurotransmitters and hormones (the pretty glowing streamers). You have the cerebral cortex which is the wrinkly outer part of the brain and your thalamus which is center of the brain but acts like an old telephone switchboard.  Those two parts of your brain act as the electrode. They shoot off the electrical currents in your brain that keeps you safe and functioning.

You have probably heard of dopamine, the “reward” chemical. You have probably heard of endorphins, the body’s pain killer. Those are chemicals, like the gases in the plasma ball, that create reactions in your body. Combine exposure, the chemicals in your brain with the cerebral cortex and thalamus and you are creating brain patterns. Your brain memorizes how you handle certain situations and if it’s effective and the consequence is safety or dopamine, you have just created a pattern. Have you heard of the limbic system? Do you want to go that deep? Welp so far, I have…. Welcome to science class. The amygdala is where emotions lived in the movie “Inside out”.  They had access to Riley’s eyes and were little threat detectors. They sent signals out and Riley created her reaction to her circumstance. Your brain is constantly processing what is safe and what is not. For someone with a binge eating disorder, my enemy is my brain patterns.

                It’s no secret that I have a binge eating disorder. Everything I like is over one thousand dollars or one thousand calories. Ive mentioned that being comfortable is my favorite thing. No need to be hard on myself for it, and if you like to be comfortable, there is no need to be hard on yourself either.

 I am not writing this because I have cracked the code. I’m only on step one. I’m still hacking away at this thing. I’m just taking you along with me. Here recently, I have been looking for answers. Ive done some psychoanalysis on myself. “Where did this brain pattern come from?” So far, Ive analyzed my childhood, and teenage years and found some interesting information about myself. My pattern of looking for comfort came from my childhood, but mostly my teenage years. I was a pretty fat kid. I was always overweight and always compared myself to others. I felt like being overweight prevented me from having experiences other skinny kids had. I felt like being overweight prevented my parents from loving me and having confidence in me. Feelings may be felt but may not always be true. I truly believe today my parents cared deeply about me; they were just trying to survive as well. I have the best parents and step parents anyone could ask for.  As a kid, being overweight I carried shame. I wondered if I was skinny would they give me more attention. My parents, like I said were surviving as well…. I don’t know how vulnerable I can be in this setting but maybe if I am a tab vulnerable, maybe it would inspire one of you. So… here goes…

After walking around in a society, a culture, where being overweight is frowned upon, I developed a sense of rejection. “no one loved me”, “I wasn’t worthy until I was skinny”. I tried to stop eating, but eating was my only sense of comfort. I would overeat until my stomach hurt. Living in the south, overeating is a term of endearment. I even say, “my love language is giving everyone I love type two diabetes”. Food = Love.

                My parents’ divorce solidified my rejection. My dad’s remarriage solidified my rejection. Not seeing my mom every day solidified my rejection. During my parents’ divorce, I saw different versions of my parents. And I knew they were hurting, but they found their vices, remarried, and there I was, alone and still hurting. So, I ate and ate, until the food wasn’t giving me enough attention. I needed to be with someone. I needed to be loved too. I turn to sex, drugs, alcohol, anything that would numb my pain, my rejection, my shame.  My teenage years were the loneliest time of my life. I had to learn to self-sooth. The problem is if you get your arm cut off, it will need attention to heal. You would have to put a tourniquet on the wound to stop the bleeding, evaluate it, clean it, close it, then one would have to recover. For me I was bleeding, and I bled on everyone. I started cutting as a teen, but the only reason I did it was to get attention. And it only landed me in front of a counselor which further confirmed something was wrong with me.  She told me I was cutting because I had a midlife crisis at a young age. She said my stepmom came in and took my place and I was having problems coping with it, but that was furthest from the truth because I love my stepmom. I loved her when I was a teen, I just didn’t love myself.  I just needed to be seen, understood. I needed someone to take an interest in who I really was. See my hurt, see my pain, offer a band aid.

                When I think about my teenage Sarah, I see her trapped in her blue room with her blue sheets. I imagine her sitting on her bed. I imagine her room is spotless. Not a spec of dust to be seen. I see everyone in her life content on the outside of the door, but she is waiting for someone, anyone to just walk through the door. She is scared to look up. She is scared to move because it may cause imperfection. She wants people to see how clean her room is. She wants her parents to come to see it. Her room is inviting. Her room is how everyone else wants it to be. There Is nothing in her hands, but she has so much to offer. She just needs the chance for someone to see her, the real her without an expectation, without failure, without pressure, without a false reality.

                Don’t think I was just a kid sitting and waiting, I wasn’t a little twerp that was entitled because mommy and daddy couldn’t work it out. No, there was more. Ever heard of someone having a type A personality? Are personalities developed? They are!  My type A personality didn’t come from nowhere. It was developed. I’ll set the stage. Curtains open and there’s a little overweight girl alone, no one loves her, or at least she feels that way. She feels inferior. How is superiority earned? In my little kid head, I learned to be a shiny star. I became an imaginative kid. I lied and made my stories extravagant; overexaggerated. I was popular, I had crazy things happen to me, I overshared. All attention seeking behaviors. I wanted to be seen. There was a time when during my parents’ separation, my little sister needed me. (This is very hard to write about, so bear with me). The situation was that my little sister needed comfort during a hard season. God forbid she must deal with feeling inferior. I protected her from it. I didn’t want her to feel alone. I didn’t want her to feel that isolating pain or that she needed to measure up. She was and is good enough for me to spend time with and for me to just see her.  I attached myself to her. We played, we created, we experimented and made potions out of lotions, shaving cream, and any other liquid we could get our hands into. But as much as I wanted to prevent her from feeling less than, she was also distracting me. She wanted me. She loved me. She depended on me and it felt so good to have someone to depend on me. I associated meeting needs with receiving love. I tried to be the best kid. I struggled all through out school, which affirmed, I’m not good enough. “Try harder”. I struggled with ADHD and still do. That affirmed, I don’t have a good enough mind. “Try harder”. I learned how it felt to be a failure at a young age. I could try to be whatever everyone else wanted me to be. But being me, the raw me, she wasn’t good enough, even trying her best, wasn’t good enough. My dad’s door stayed shut, my mother’s house was only accessible twice a month and my “outlets” (church and school) are where I learned to fake it. “Be likeable”. “Don’t talk about yourself so much”. “Talking about things happening at the house will get you in trouble”. “Don’t show emotions”. “You can’t have a bad day”. I created my own rule book with wildly unhuman expectations, and I couldn’t even please myself.  These experiences created certain brain patterns. I’d learned to “fake it”. I had learned to seek reactions by trying to be special or noticing. I had learned that my needs can wait. I learned that I needed to be helpful to be valued. I learned that I cannot fall apart because someone else needs me. Food was my coping mechanism. I didn’t have to fake it for food. I didn’t have to impress food. It just made me feel good no matter what. Ice cream made me feel loved. Pasta didn’t have expectations. Food gave and didn’t ask for anything in return. I could just take it.  I took care of myself by eating. Natural human instinct is comfort and when all your efforts fail, food! And I couldn’t get enough. I bandaged my arm and stopped the bleeding with food. My brain patterns are when I experience any negative emotion, food is my go-to. I am a thirty-one-year-old gal who needs to feel better with food. Pretty sexy right?

                This is the part in my journey that I stop looking for food to keep me safe. First, I am looking at my wound, and I am beginning to observe my emotions before I eat. I am seeing that teenage girl in her room and taking care of her. I am not going to shame her. I am not going to tell her she could have done better. I am not going to put pressure on her or give her a reason to stay in that room. When I think of her, I want to see her raise her head up. I want to see her hands with a pen and paper because she loves to write. She loves poetry. I want to see her talking. I will no longer keep putting food outside her door. I am going to step in and take this next step with her, and we are going to walk out together.