Past Sexual Abuse is Often at the Root of Overeating

field of spring grass and sunset

80% of the women who struggle with overeating and overweight have been molested or raped at some point in their life.

That is my best guess.

The reason I guess that the statistic is that high is because so very many of the women I have come to know over the past 13 years have experienced this. I have asked others who teach Thin Within classes and it seems to be a consensus that 8 out of 10 of the participants may have been sexually abused in some way.

My own story is found here.

Mandisa shares in the video below. If you see yourself as one of the 8, I hope you can be encouraged by knowing that you aren’t alone. Mandisa shares what she has done about it, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYNI8y33Yto&w=480&h=360

Do you have challenges, trials, trauma in your past that God may be calling you to bring to the cross to invite his healing? Won’t you consider getting in touch with a godly Christian therapist to help you to do so? While this is one of the most difficult things to do, it is also worth what it costs.

We May Fear Being Thin

WARNING: This post contains mature content. Please read this only if the Holy Spirit directs you to do so. Stop if you feel a check in your spirit along the way.

Additionally, as you read, please know this…there is HOPE.
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Regarding the comment about being afraid to being thin…it touched off some thoughts…

Many of us do have subconscious fears of being thin. As crazy as it sounds!

The Halliday’s “Thin Again” book (note the difference in title…it is not Thin WITHIN, but Thin AGAIN) addresses deeper issues we may have as we proceed on this journey. An earlier copy can be had from many libraries. It was also originally released as “Silent Hunger.”

What I am about to share is rated R (well, not due to language, but definitely “mature content”). Maybe no one can relate to this. But a lot of women can from what statistics say!

Someone I know struggled and struggled with losing weight–100 pounds by the time she decided to do something drastic about it. She was a mom of young children. And decided to do whatever it would take to be rid of the weight. As she worked hard to lose the weight through many different ways, she realized that she hoped that maybe if she lost the weight her husband would be more interested in her…she realized that she assumed that his disinterest in intimacy in the bedroom with her had to be associated with her being overweight…. She finally allowed herself to hope that her marriage would be “perfect” in every way, if only she lost all her weight….it seemed to be 99.9% perfect at the time except for his disinterest in the bedroom. Given she was a lady who enjoyed this aspect of married life, this was a devastating thing for her. (I know many of us can’t relate!)

Over the course of a year, she lost the weight and got extremely fit. She worked out with weights, worked on becoming a certified fitness trainer and aerobics instructor. To tell it now, she says she actually became quite obsessive. Her heart got taken captive to the entire diet and exercise thing.

BUT…men began to pay attention.

That is…every man except her husband.

There she was, thin now, but with the devastating realization that the one thing she assumed was the reason for his disinterest in her…well, it wasn’t apparently the reason, after all. What could possibly BE the explanation? If her weight wasn’t what bothered him enough not to want intimacy in the bedroom…what could be the real reason?

She shared that she journaled some strange things in the subsequent months…about how there were things that she just felt her husband must be hiding. It was an impression she said she had…nothing she could really nail down. She said she had this distinct impression that he had been dishonest. She had recurrent nightmares about him being unfaithful. Yet when they were together, he never looked at another woman! They openly spoke about these things. Here was a man who was an elder in the church, everyone’s idea of a wonderful man and husband (including her own! she thought he was the best possible husband!)…She and her husband led marriage bible studies together! Yet she felt there was some deep dark secret lurking.

She had blamed herself –her weight for their problems…and now that it was no longer a viable reason it became obvious that something else was, apparently, the problem. This, in effect, caused her eyes to begin to be open…to look outward a bit.

It was then that her husband’s secret came to the forefront. He had a double life. In one, he was superman…In the other, he was engaging in inappropriate sexual experiences apart from his marriage bed. No, this wasn’t because she was heavy. He had lived this way since he was fourteen years old. She didn’t enter his life until he was 21. He was a sex addict and had been for the better part of 20 years.

Obviously she was devastated.

In speaking about this later, she related that she thinks she knew intuitively somewhere in her own mind that “their problem” didn’t have anything to do with her at all…but that she could blame it on herself as long as she remained overweight. She felt in retrospect that all of the indicators were there, but she was in denial to see it. After all, they loved the Lord, led marriage groups and so on. If their marriage had *any* trouble spots, it *had* to be her fault! She looked back and realized that being heavy was safer than the place she found herself once she was thin and attractive.

She realized when she was thin after working to get 100 pounds off, just how exposed she was. The problems remained…and the fog of denial lifted. She saw it….

So, yes…some of us may, in fact, subconsciously be afraid to be thin.

Others of us were violated as children and young adults. We found that boys and young men might stay away from us if we were chubbier. Our fat became our safety wall. 🙁

This isn’t everyone’s experience, of course. It might not be anyone’s here on this list (though statistics indicate that out of every 6 of us on this list at least 1 of us has been the victim of sexual abuse).

But, YES, there are some very REAL reasons we might have developed a real emotional attachment to being heavier than we hope to be….sometimes it is the best defense mechanism we have for a truth we may not feel ready to come to grips with.

But Jesus did say, it is the truth that sets us free. He waits to walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death.

In the book Thin Again, the authors invite us to peel away the layers of what they call the graveclothes. They invite us into what can be a very painful process, in fact. But as these graveclothes are peeled away, the new man that has been given life from the dead, may step forth. As Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth!” He says that to each of us. Yet it is a process…..

Peeling the layers away may include the sort of stuff I have shared here or something totally different.

But we all have many reasons we struggle with releasing weight. And God wants to meet it all with his cleansing grace.

Hugs,
Heidi