Mary Lou was a 54-year-old depressed obese woman who managed to maintain a wrinkle-free pretty girl’s face. She came to psychotherapy complaining of depression and anxiety related to family issues, a mom that had been mean to her and now suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease therefore lived with her, the recent death of her father whom she adored, a twenty year marriage to former spouse who she described as a “punisher”, an abusive and manipulative man; and her inability to overcome obesity.
As a young child in Cuba, Mary Lou was the victim of sexual abuse by an adult family friend who, for years, attended a regular Sunday brunch where he managed to discreetly molest the child on a regular basis. When she confided in her mother seeking protection, her mother betrayed her by punished her instead. Her abuser threatened to have her family arrested through political connections he had in Cuba. The family had filed paperwork to leave the communist country. Fearful that the arrest would impede the family’s ability to seek freedom, Mary Lou tolerated the sexual abuse in silence for four more years. Her attempts to fight him off were usually unsuccessful.
Frequently Mary Lou would cough during our sessions. Upon questioning, she replied she would typically develop a cough whenever she initiated a diet. She went on to explain that she had developed this pattern during the course of a previous abusive marriage to a very jealous husband. Mary Lou married him at 19 years old to get away from her strict parents. When the couple first met, Mary Lou was slim and pretty. She felt guilty because men looked at her, which would cause her husband to become enraged and beat her. As she spoke about her guilt, her coughing became increasingly intense having to stop to catch her breath and drink water at times. Mary Lou had an “Aha moment” when she realized that by subconsciously becoming obese men no longer looked at her and thereby the jealous fits were one less cause for beatings.
During Mary Lou’s sessions she would also experience physical symptoms and pain including neck tension and headache. Through the process of introspection, she was able to associate these symptoms with overeating as well. Mary Lou realized that when she felt pain or anxiety, she would overeat. Eating brought her relief of pain, made her feel good and calm. Subconsciously, Mary Lou had associated her grandmother’s affection and compassion toward her with grandma’s delicious meals served lovingly to Mary Lou. Mary Lou learned to distract herself from suffering through soothing meals. Unbeknownst to her, what was her saving grace today would become her source of suffering tomorrow.
I had asked Mary Lou to close her eyes in order to facilitate a state of introspection. She started to experience physical sensations that she described as facial tingling that went to her head. She began to experience pain on the right side of the nape of her neck which then worked its way down her left arm has a sense of tingling, which was then released through her left hand through the index and thumb fingers. Her face began to itch . Mary Lou had revealed previously that when she would feel relaxed, she developed an itching sensation.
Mary Lou began to experience a visualization in which she saw a vertical rectangular box with many worm-like figures representing her cough on one side connected to what appeared to be a green umbilical cord connected on the opposite side to another vertical rectangular box containing her obese body. The boxes began to move in opposite directions, stretching the green cord until it “faded until it disappeared”.
We had several other sessions covering other areas of her life, mostly about work-related stress. During one of those sessions Mary Lou complained of pain in her knees and back often associated with obesity. I asked Mary Lou if she was interested in losing weight in order to reduce the stress and discomfort. She stated she could not because her family would not eat low-fat food and due to time restraints she was unable to cook a separate meal for herself. Afterwords, she added she feared that losing weight would reveal wrinkles.
Mary Lou had canceled several consecutive appointments. This was unlike her. When she made it in, she reported having been sick with a cold for three weeks, which was ongoing and several times was coughing repeatedly throughout the session. Happily, she reported she had lost eight pounds. I asked her how she did it and she replied, “When I am eating, I suddenly start to feel a tingling on the outside of my belly and suddenly thereafter my stomach indicates I’m full and I’m unable to eat anything further.”
Mary Lou had coped with her childhood sexual abuse and adult mental and physical abuse by diving into half gallon containers of chocolate ice cream to seek comfort and in a dysfunctional manner it paid off . By becoming obese she was able to decrease her then husband’s episodes of rage and the beatings that followed. The discontent with her physical appearance also served as a means of punishing herself for being “guilty” of attracting unwarranted men’s attention as a child and a young woman. She would develop a cold as a means of protecting herself against losing weight, remember the adage, ‘Feed a cold, starve a fever.’ When this awareness entered her consciousness, she realized that the means she had used for coping with stress and trauma had become second nature and a way of life. She was no longer married to the abuser or exposed to threats. Quite to the contrary, her second and present husband was a very loving and easy-going man. Just as Mary Lou had created a toxic pattern of overeating and coughing in order to cope with stressors; through psychotherapy Mary Lou overcame the negative pattern of inducing her own suffering by her body tickling her when her stomach was full resulting in weight loss.
Categories: Real Life Stories