Friday, March 2, 2018

Coming Clean

On February 26th I posted this on Facebook while still in New York after the International Association of Culinary Professionals:

"I did something incredibly stupid or brave at the keynote address on Sunday - and I have feelings of pride and shame about it. Strangers have approached me after and I will be doing a full post on this one topic when I return home - but I just got this message from someone I love and respect and it meant the world to me.
Hi Jenny, _____ ______ told me how incredible you were at IACP's keynote address. She was so impressed and touched by you and the panel. I just wanted to say I'm sorry I missed it, but I take my hat off to you for being able to share your story. So many on social media only show how perfect they are, their lives are, their homes and families are. They're the cowards. You're the warrior."

                                                                           ****


This is that post.

In the age of social media where we post photos of our dinner, video of our kid's first steps and bad news with as much exuberance as good news, many of us hide our truth behind a keyboard. I am one such person. 

Overall, I am a brutally honest person. Politics, injustice, my son's battle with bipolar and autism are all shared with vigor and abundance. But my issues, my dirty laundry, I don't share. I avoid confronting my demons with as much strength as I do when I champion those that are fighting injustice. I avoid social situations and meeting online friends. If people see me, I believed they wouldn't like me as much as they seemed to in the virtual world.

Growing up I faced abuse daily - verbally, emotionally and physically. Repeatedly told that I was stupid, ugly, needed to lose weight and more. I didn't deserve anything. There is no need to recount the beatings, blood spilled and solitary confinement punishments which started my path of self-loathing.  

When my father died a few days before my high school graduation, I thought I would be free of that overbearing hate, but my mother was left to take up the slack. I moved out at 17 just having graduated and shortly thereafter, I started working for a doctor. Six months after starting with the doctor, I had just gotten a cute haircut, I felt good - it was the first one that I paid for at a hair salon. The doctor told me "Nice haircut, now lose a few pounds and you'll look great." I was 5' 7" and 130 pounds. The next week I got the flu. I lost seven pounds. I found my answer to becoming what the doctor wanted me to be and what I thought the world wanted as well. Everything would be perfect.

For years, the see-saw of starving myself, forcing laxatives, exercising four hours a day, battles with pregnancy, gaining weight, purging, starving again led to incredible weight losses and eventually weight gain. At one point before my first marriage, I was so distraught and tired of fighting this battle, I took a handful of drug samples from the doctor's office and swallowed them all. I recovered. Even my first husband, when I was still 5' 7" and 120 pounds once said something about an inch he could pinch. I was never good enough and never felt worthy. Once I heard an older nurse from an office saying to a patient, "oh that's Jenny she's the office manager, she just walks up and down the hall looking pretty all day." Man, I loved that nurse - I worked seven days a week and ran the whole office, but she said I looked pretty.  

Years later I met a New Yorker, named Jim. I knew he was my soulmate. In an AOL chat room, I reeled him into my boat. When we made our plans to meet, I started starving myself so that I would be good enough when I met him - which just added weight - trust me - the more I purge, the more I gain. But even then, he loved me. He told my mother on the phone "I love your daughter". Even during our dating and marriage, I never felt good enough and this was not his doing. He and his family have always treated me as one of their own, always better than anyone who shares my blood. I was the one that couldn't be good to myself. I was the one who would self-sabotage our relationship because I just knew I would end up hurt and alone. It is better to be in control of one's own demise.

Jim and I married and after two years of trying to conceive, we had a child, Andrew. When that boy was about a year old, I started running again, keeping food down (no carbs because carbs are evil) and was in the best shape of my life. Wanting to keep up the good work, I found out about these over-the-counter diet pills that gave me energy and helped me to exercise even more. Trying to have another baby, while abusing myself and then being body slammed with Andrew's diagnosis - I lost hope. The over-the-counter diet pills stopped being carried, I was horribly depressed and stressed with the battles of having a special needs child and a husband who worked all the time to give us a nice home. This led to even more purging, which led to more stress on myself.  So began the avoidance of photographs, people, social events and general hatred of myself.

This weekend I attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference in New York - it's 40th anniversary. When I registered, I said - this will be it - I will get everything together and lose the weight - stop starving myself, stop vomiting up dinner - and look good. That right there is the kiss of death. I had enough stress in my life without putting all these horrid unrealistic expectations on myself. 

I didn't want to meet anyone and I surely didn't want anyone to see me. I looked awful - I remember getting on the elevator facing the taunt of the mirrored walls and my reflection and actually said aloud "you are disgusting". The doors open and someone walked in and I was sure they had heard me. While I am writing this I am in tears. 

On Sunday morning during the keynote address and panel about topics such as #metoo, mental illness, drinking, drugs and racial injustice - something stirred in me. And I knew that when they stopped for questions, I would stand up. Kim Severson (from the fucking New York Times), Michelle Rodriquez (Executive Chef at Del Posto), Michael Twitty (The Cooking Gene) and Kat Kinsman (Hi, Anxiety) and another panelist who discussed food packaging/trends, finished their discussion and asked "who will be brave enough to ask the first question?" I stood up and there was no going back.

Kim Severson asked my name and I told her (yesterday they didn't ask names - but such is my lot in life) and I introduced myself. I mentioned that I didn't want to make this about me, but it was going there. I thanked them for telling their truth and confessed that I really didn't want to come to this conference because I didn't want anyone to see me. I went on to say that I have dealt with mental illness in my family and myself and that my son battles bipolar and autism. I have spent years bouncing from anorexia to bulimia and that this panel gave me the courage to stand up in a room of 800 people I didn't know or had just met and owned that. There was clapping, I think. I was out of my body. I mentioned that while drugs, mental illness, drinking are all horrific -- most people get that. But when someone, like myself, doesn't feel she deserves to eat and enjoy it, then runs to the bathroom to purge with the end result of gaining even more weight - she has no control, she is a pig. People don't get that. As Michael Twitty said, "Just eat a salad." Why, I would just purge that as well.

A discussion began on this topic - Michael understood - everyone understood. I went back to my table and had support from Jane and Jamie next to me. After the questions were over, I  went up to the stage and hugged both Kim and Kat afterward (later I spoke with Michael Twitty and got a hug). People stopped me afterward and said really nice things. "Are you the woman..." (I had gone back to my room to change my top to throw them off my scent.) I felt empowered. I can fight this.

I do remember just shaking for a long time questioning why I had exposed myself when I was alone working in my hotel room. Then I would go back out for a session or meeting and someone would hug me - and the regret would subside.  All during the meeting and appointments with publicists over those days in New York, everyone was very sweet. People at parties and dinners - hip people - laughed at my jokes and were so pleasant. I am a good person, I do deserve everything good. Things will get better. I found my footing. I spoke my truth.

We all have our rows to hoe, visible and invisible battle scars, secrets and dreams. For years, I thought I could do this by myself. I would confide in Jim and rely on his support until something would cause me to veer off-track. If we open ourselves up to the world, the world will come to our side. As Kat Kinsman said, she put herself out there and compared it to a country field at night. One single firefly lights up, then another and soon you are embraced by the light of thousands of fireflies. I need to hold onto the world's light, take strength from it, and fight the darkness. 






12 comments:

  1. Jenny I am so proud of you! You have overcome so much in your life, and you deserve all the best things this world has to offer. Anyone who tells you otherwise can go fuck themself. You are inside out beautiful.

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  2. I am so proud of you! You are an awesome human being and someone I truly admire. Thank you for sharing your story. xo

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  3. I don't fight the same battles as you do, but I also had a point in which I felt a need to come clean in public. I wrote a story about my anxiety and it's the thing I'm most proud of having had the courage to publish. While I have no idea how many people read it, it definitely gave me a feeling of coming clean that was very liberating.

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  4. Dear dear Jenny, When I heard a woman speaking during Sunday's breakfast, I couldn't imagine it was you. I knew you. I knew you from the interwebs, from our wonderful chat the day before, from your fierce, strong, giving hug. Yet it was you and I was so proud to know you. You are brave and true to yourself and with those qualities, the world is yours. You are so loved, my friend. xoCathy

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  5. <3 You ARE a good person. You DO deserve everything good. Things WILL get better. Happy you have found your footing and have voiced your truth. And just look at how many people still love you and how many more now that didn't before. Thank you for sharing.

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  6. Well done and well said. Thank you for writing this.

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  7. I have always loved you, and there's nothing you could do or say to change that. Let us lend you our strength whenever you need it, Sunshine. {{{Hugs}}}

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  8. Though we have never met. You are my inspiration! You do not have to change for anyone. You are loved by so many. You are truly an incredible and beautiful woman.

    When I read your White Toast with Butter stories or cookbook reviews, you writing is impeccable, a quality I wish I have. You are honest and incredibly funny.

    It doesn't matter how tall you are, what you weigh, what you look like, I love you to the moon and back. xxooxx

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  9. Loved you even before I met you. Loved you after. Love you now - xo

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  10. I don't even know where to begin. I love you more than ever. I identify with so much of this story. You are not alone. You are unbelievably strong and I admire you more than you could ever imagine. You are one of my favorite humans.

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  11. You're not alone,ever. We see you and you are brave and wonderful.

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