Todays Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

Tears of Joy

By Joan Fountain with Carol Kline

To cry is uniquely human, to weep for joy even more so. I cry every

day.

I cry for all the years I wanted and needed to cry and didn't. I cry

for

the loneliness and pain I've felt. I cry for the sheer delight of being

alive.

I cry for the pleasure that moving my body brings, and for the ability to

dance

and stretch and sweat. I cry in gratitude for the life I have now.

I was a cute little girl. I loved laughing and playing with my

friends.

Then, when I was eight years old, I experienced the devastating trauma of

incest. In order to cope with that physical, mental and emotional

nightmare, I

made two unconscious decisions: First, I wanted to be as ugly as possible;

second, I didn't want to think or feel. I knew if I let myself feel

anything,

it would be too much for me.

So I started eating. When the fear came, I ate; when the pain came, I

ate.

By the time I was 12, I weighed 200 pounds.

I spent most of my time by myself, doing things with my hands or

watching

TV. Even with my brothers and sisters, I felt alone. I was never asked out

to

a dance or to a movie or on a date. I was socially invisible.

By the time I was 25, I weighed 420 pounds. My doctor gave me six

months

to live. My body couldn't support the fat I was carrying. I didn't leave

my

house for two years. I literally couldn't move. I had to lose the weight

if I

wanted to live. And I decided I would do whatever the doctor told me to do

to

lose it.

I lost my first 100 pounds and I felt so light I wanted to dance. But

I

started to gain it back, and I realized I had to go deeper and deal with the

root of my problem - the unfelt pain. I began therapy, joined a Twelve-Step

program and accepted the love and support of my family and friends. At 35,

I

cried for the first time since I was eight. Feeling my pain was the true

secret

of my weight loss.

Once I turned that corner, it was up to me to continue the work and to

be

conscious one day at a time. It was a process of growing self-knowledge and

self-acceptance. I continued my therapy. I started to study nutrition, and

I

learned that for me, eating fat is a sedative. I watched my behavior and

monitored what brought on my need to eat. When I found myself knee-deep in

Haagen-Dazs, I stopped and asked myself how I got there.

Though there were times when I would backslide, it was my acceptance of

myself in all my strengths and weaknesses that helped me get back up and

keep

going. My goal was to be better - not perfect.

When I see childhood obesity now, it breaks my heart. We wouldn't

dream of

laughing at a child who has no arm or leg or who uses a wheelchair. But

people

will tease and ostracize a child who has an eating disorder and is obese.

We

still don't understand that the weight such a child carries is the weight of

that child's own pain.

Healing my life wasn't just about losing weight. I had to learn how to

live life as an adult. I had never learned basic social skills - once, at

work,

a man talked to me at the water cooler and I giggled like a 14-year-old

girl. I

started the process of learning about relationships and growing up.

Now, at 46, I am an adult. I have become a person I truly love. My

weight

is in the average range, I exercise regularly and I have a career I love as

a

motivational speaker. I recognize the good things that came from my years

of

childhood pain and isolation: my love for classical music, my ability to sew

and

to do stained glass - to create beauty with my hands. Even my ability to

speak

well and engagingly can be traced to the many hours I spent watching such

great

entertainers as Lucille Ball and Milton Berle on TV.

I am grateful for the blessings in my life now, and I accept the events

in

my life as gifts of growth that create strength of character and strength of

faith. Today I cry in gratitude for the life I have.