Christians and Closets

Surgery is tomorrow, Thursday. I have to be at the hospital at 8:30. I had confirmation today that I'm having this surgery in the nick of time. My pre-op blood tests came back and showed I'd moved from borderline diabetic to diabetic. That makes 3 co-morbidities. Lord I am tired of this disease!

It is amazing to me that Christians don't talk about food addiction and obesity. It's not like we can't see it. We may be in the closet about it but our stomach's are sticking right out of the closet for all the world to see. Some of the highest rates of obesity (as well as depression) among women exist in the Bible Belt of the South.

Shame, I'm sure, is the biggest reason we don't talk about it. We confuse food addiction with gluttony. But most of us who are food addicts have been battling it all our lives. We don't want this addiction. Nobody says when they're little, "I wanna be a fat food addict when I grow up." But we continue to eat even when we know its killing us. We stop for a while, lose some weight, and then the cravings and compulsions return more powerful than ever. And shame over our lack of control, shame over what we perceive as a lack of faith, or of obedience to the Word, drives us even deeper into the food.

Pastors don't preach about it because they'd lose some of their very best workers. We, the food addicts, help everyone else as "good" Christians, frequently negating ourselves, and then help ourselves to more food because it makes us feel better. We eat to medicate depression, and in my case, to medicate ADHD as well. It satisfies something in our brains and that enables us to keep functioning and keep from falling apart.

We don't seek medical help for what we now know is a medical condition because somehow that would make us bad Christians. So we stay in our closets and keep our mouths closed.

This blog is my way of coming out of the closet about my food addiction and the terrible toll its taken on me and on my family. Come out of the closet people and lets talk.