*** The below story is written by Debbie about her personal & vulnerable journey with her weight, health & trauma.

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DEBBIE’S STORY – WHY I’M DOING THIS

Trigger warning – sexual abuse – skip to 2^nd paragraph to avoid it

I was an average sized child – thin, ‘normal’. At the age of 12, before I even began having periods, my breasts seemed to sprout out of nowhere and my body expanded with it. I was 110 pounds by the age of 12. As I can now well see, this occurred once I was out of Catholic school, and out of the hands of a priest who abused me for 3 years. This was not the first. I was also abused at the age of 3. I have no recollection of any of these events, other than what trusted psychics and healers have been able to put together for me. That very summer I was again molested by my uncle. Beyond this, as an adult, there were 4 rapes. Of course, this sounds excessive and unbelievable, but when you have trauma, you are prone to revictimization as you continue to put yourself in dangerous situations. Please don’t feel sorry for me around all this. It has served me. I have been able to help so many women, and a few men. I am a safe place to land for folks. It is in great part, what led me to be a healer. The classic ‘wounded healer’ archetype. 

I remained overweight. I thinned out a bit, to 145 lbs during high school, with Weight Watchers and my skinny mother’s vehement clocking of everything I ate. By graduation I was 175. Over years of alcoholism and food addiction, I finally arrived at my top weight of 255 pounds. I got sober in 1996 but that just gave me more opportunity to fill myself with food. I quit smoking in 1998, and gained 50 pounds. In 2003 I opted for gastric bypass surgery. You were supposed to lose about a pound a day for the first six weeks, but I only lost 26 pounds. I was devastated because I knew I was not doing anything wrong. I had a miscommunication with the doctor where I thought he told me to stop taking the diabetic meds. He meant only while I was in the hospital. My blood sugars were outrageous and I had to be on insulin for a while to get it back in line. Eventually I got down to about 175, but my body wasn’t comfortable there. I went back up to 220. Then I spent a year in Charlotte, NC working in IT. Oddly, and unexpectedly, I dropped 40 pounds while I lived there, with zero effort. I have remained between 185 and 195 ever since. I have not had sugar since I learned I was diabetic, back in the 80s so those who tell you that you’ll drop weight if you drop sugar are wrong.

I tried many diets. I know they don’t work, and I kept swearing I’d never do another one. Then something would intrigue me and I’d try it. I always thought I was following it correctly but nothing would come of it. I even worked with a Native American woman who has a beautiful plan, especially powerful for finding out what foods you are reactive to. I brought her tobacco and properly asked her if she would help me. Eventually she stopped working with me. She said she had never had anyone do this who did not lose weight so she assumed I was lying to her. I was used to this response. Doctors don’t believe you. Parents don’t believe you. Friends don’t believe you. Because if you were actually following the diet, you’d be losing weight, right? As someone with sexual trauma, not being believed bangs on a familiar pain point. For years, probably well into my sobriety, I had self-mutilation fantasies – physically slicing off layers of my belly in these half-awake/half-asleep delusions. 

Often people would think they saw that I was losing weight, and I would absolutely blast them. “Weight loss is not always a positive thing”, I told them. How do you know I’m not sick? And why are you looking at my body, I thought. Stop it. That’s a personal invasion. So many were baffled by why I would be so rude, when all they were doing was complimenting me. Does anyone else get that, or is it just me? Every New Years, everyone who knew me assumed that my resolution would be to lose weight. Because, why wouldn’t it be? It should rank as the number one issue in my life, right? I started to hate people, women especially. 

In December of 2019 I spent $9000 to learn Brittany Watkins program and learn how to coach with it. It is a tapping program but not tapping/EFT as you know it. And it works. If you do it, it absolutely works. I no longer binge. I no longer eat emotionally. I will be teaching some of these techniques in class. I have also been working with a therapist on the last piece of the trauma – the dissociation – learning how to stay in my body. The dissociation had ceased to be a defense mechanism – it had become a habit. Too painful? That’s OK. I know how to ‘go away’. Embodiment is some of the most difficult work I have ever done.

After more decrees that I would never diet again, I finally decided to try one last thing. Last October I took a challenge to try intermittent fasting for a week. It was the one thing I had never tried because I snacked round the clock – even when waking in the middle of the night. I didn’t think I could go 8 hours without food, much less 16. First couple days were shaky and rough but it has been smooth sailing ever since. In truth, it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Because for me, I pretty much have no appetite. I always laughed at appetite suppressants. I never required an appetite to stuff my face. Let me be clear – I am not recommending intermittent fasting or any other diet or ‘food plan’. For me, it tested 10 out of 10 with my body. It has done wonders for my blood sugar. As for the weight, in the first six weeks I lost 3 and a half pounds. Today, 6 plus months later, I waver between 4 and 5 pounds lost – all together. In many ways it is of course, devastating. In other ways it has been cathartic. Because it is absolutely clear now that I am doing nothing wrong. I suspected this for years – that I was doing everything right, but the weight couldn’t come off. But I could always pick out one or two things to blame myself for. Now I know for certain. Even in the 6 – 8 hours I eat, I do not touch sugar. I admit to eating bread but hey. I don’t eat chips and garbage. And yet my body hangs on to this weight for dear life. The mind is incredibly powerful. Some part of me refuses to let go of the weight. I know that it helps me remain invisible. I know it protects me by keeping people away from me. After so much early trauma, I see clearly now how I have set up my whole life to be safe. That was my only purpose. Never having a relationship. Never trusting women, due to past betrayals. Never letting anyone in my house. Even in my alcoholism I drank in gay bars with gay men because they were safe. It astounds me that I can lose only 4 pounds over six months with intermittent fasting. How is that even physically possible? Again, it is the power of the mind.  

And thus, I decided to start this program. Let’s be clear – this is an issue I have not conquered. We are in this together. I make no promises. These are deep and difficult issues. What I DO know is that clearing these things up will affect other areas of your life. You will be releasing a ton of stuff. We will do EF, SRT, Access Consciousness energy pulls (the meditation we do in the Abundance Group), tapping, and anything else I can think of. There will be ZERO TALK of diets, exercise or anything else. 

Often with any kind of trauma, we start to hate our bodies. I heard something in a PTSD meditation that was incredibly powerful. What she said was that “We blame our bodies for the trauma. But not only are our bodies not to blame; our bodies were the only witness.” Our bodies carry the records of all of that abuse. 

It doesn’t matter if you have experienced abuse or not. There are many reasons we hold on to weight. If you have tried and tried and done everything right and not lost the weight, join us. If you have not been believed, if you’ve been told you’re lying, if you have felt alone in this fight, join us. If you have cried and cried and cried until you should have at least lost some water weight from the tears, join us. I hope to bring you home to your body. To make you comfortable in your skin. To heal your body dysmorphia. To allow you to live peacefully within your body. And perhaps to lose some weight. We will clear nearly 100 issues I have gathered around why people hang on to their weight, or hate being in their skin.  

Join me in coming home to your body. Enough shame, hatred, guilt, and low self-esteem. Let’s work. And let’s play. See you there.