I-Search Background

When I was first married, over 17 years ago, I became very close
with my sister-in-law. She was always a very quiet person, keeping
to herself at family gatherings a lot. She and I had that in common.
Neither of us liked crowds, but we both married into a very large
and noisy family. Go figure. Our husbands were quite the same.
Funny, outgoing, and loved to interact with people. The men in
this family could be a lot of fun. But on their other side, they were
very much controlling in their family life. Most of them thought
a woman's place should be home cooking and cleaning. This was
the beginning of me observing my brother-in-law putting his wife
down and telling her how worthless she was. I found my husband
to take on some of these qualities once we were married. Bits
and pieces started to come out. The difference between our
lives was that I was brought up to be a strong, independant
woman who did not tolerate these behaviors from my husband.
At first I did, but as a few months went along, I stood up for
myself. Funny thing was, my husband didn't realize how he
was treating me until we talked about it. I've never had him
treat me disrespectfully again, which is a great accomplishment
being raised with those beliefs.

My sister-in-law turned to food when she felt bad about herself.
She ate foods high in fat and low in healthy nutrients. Her battle
with depression began. She saught help from therapists, only to
be medicated. When that medicine didn't help any more, they
increased or switched the dose.

We decided to try to shed some pounds together, so we joined
Weight Watchers. I will never forget this time in our lives. We
had such good times. We started a healthy lifestyle that lasted
for a couple of years. Every Wednesday night was girls night out.
We went to the meetings, sharing stories with others that were
inspirational and celebrating lost pounds throughout the room.
After the meeting we had our "cheat" meal for the week. We
walked together every day and enjoyed each others company.
I had never seen her so chatty and funny. She and I had lost
weight, gained energy and enjoyed life. We then decided to
grocery shop together, which helped keep each other in tact
of healthy eating at home. Every other week we made an
afternoon of it. We clipped coupons and made our list of meals
for the week together. We then traveled to Bangor, shopped
and had lunch together.

After a while, her family started making it difficult for her to
enjoy herself. When I picked her up for our Wednesday meetings,
they made fun of us, calling it our Fat Farm class. When we
went grocery shopping, she would have to beg her husband for
money. It was the same battle every time. An arguement about
how much he would allow her, and then the lecture of bringing
excess change back to him. After a while she gave up going.
She gained a lot of weight and became severely depressed,
and at many times even suicidal. Her battle has gone on for
a very long time now. Her family all adapted the bad eating
habits and no physical activity. Her husband and son now take
medication for depression. When her husband snaps and treats
people badly, he blames it on not having a large enough dosage
of meds. He contacts his doctor and gets an increase. The cycle
continues.

From my own personal experiences, I know how my diet can
influence my moods. When I was in high school I had a bad
habit of starving myself. I would go days without a proper
meal. Mountain Dew, coffee, and peanut m&ms were my diet.
I could barely keep my eyes open during classes. I became
very thin and weak. A lot of it started when my cheering coach
gave us her famous lecture of what we needed to look like to
stay on her team. A friend of mine who was not much larger
than me and had muscular legs was embarrassed in front of
everyone when the coach told her she needed to drop weight.
My greatest fear was being next. It took me many years to
realize no matter how much you starve yourself, you body
will not turn into a model's body just by wishing it. But what
I really discovered was that without proper nutrients, I became
depressed. Nothing made me happy. I had a hard time dealing
with even small situations. But it didn't stop me from the yo-yo
effect of crash dieting and then gorging myself. I thought as
long as I looked the way others thought I should, then life
was good. I played this game with myself for years before
I completely understood that I can be fit and eat healthy
and not become overweight. It was actually the opposite.
When I started eating more calories, but the right calories,
my body looked and felt the best ever. But even better, my
mind became stronger and I felt a complete happiness I had
missed for quite some time. I liked myself again.

I know that I feel better with proper diet and exercise. I hope
to find concrete answers and maybe help my friend along the
way, which is my motivation for picking this topic.