Abuse & Gluttony – Could They Be Linked?

For anyone reading this article who is still living with an abuser, please reach out for help.

When food is not food

God gives us food as one of His many blessings on our lives. Indeed, even in the Lord’s Prayer, we ask Him for our daily bread. Food is not bad. Like all things that are good, it has a context. 

Early on I learned to connect being very full with feeling a sense of peace and safety. 

When we live with an abuser, often one of the consequences to us is the misuse of food, which can lead to gluttony. How does this happen? 

Before I go too far with this post, I want to state up front that I am only skimming the surface of this issue here. It deserves far greater attention, and a book about this topic is underway. However, I don’t want to wait to have that completed before writing on this topic here on the blog. Indeed, with having just commenced the Apostles Fast, it seems like a good time to start talking about food and its role in our lives.

If you are uncertain about gluttony, how it’s defined and how it’s viewed by the Orthodox faith, I highly recommend this post from Pittsburgh Oratory.

With that clarification, let’s dive in. 

food as comfort

Growing up, I lived in a home that was chaotic on a good day, and traumatizing on a bad one (which happened frequently). On rare occasions we had peace. Those occasions were usually when there was a particularly rich and tasty meal: Thanksgivings, camping trips with lots of grilled foods, nights when mom made a pot roast. Early on I learned to connect being very full with feeling a sense of peace and safety. 

My mother’s parents had a very peaceful home. Every time we visited was for a holiday that involved a lot of food (and my grandmother was an outstanding cook, so the food was particularly yummy). As a child, this further reinforced for me that plenty of food means plenty of peace.

In no way am I suggesting a cause and effect here.

After a particularly bad blowup on the part of one or both adults in our home (usually my father), in the come down that followed, my mother would make meals of comfort food. Likely for multiple reasons:

1. Rich foods are comforting to eat
2. The wonderful smells and pleasant presentation of the meals bring a sense of joy
3. Cooking a more complicated meal gave her something to focus on
4. Doing something she was skilled at helped her to feel less shame after the awful things he said to her
5. The meals were similar to what we would have at her parents’ home, further connecting it to a sense of peace

 

food as appeasement

As is very common, I grew up and repeated the cycle of abuse by being involved with narcissistic abusers. One of the things I learned early (as an adult) was one of the surest ways to “prove” I was worth treating with a little bit of kindness was by making great food. Over time, it became my way to feel like a have a right to take up space. 

After all, how awful does someone have to be if they can make you feel small and useless after you have spent hours cooking and baking, creating some of the best tasting meals that they have ever had? 

Food became a kind of “shield” of protection. Adding this to the comfort (and frankly, numbness) that comes from a very full belly, and it’s not hard to draw the line from narcissistic abuse to gluttony. The more frequent and severe the abuse, the more frequent the indulgence.

food as a friend

Over time, especially if we are talking decades, this can lead to food being the one thing you can count on. An abuser is chaotic, especially a narcissist. One minute an action on your part can bring praise, the next it can bring wrath. 

But food becomes a source of reliability. If I set my oven at a specific temperate and combine specific ingredients in a specific way, I will reliably get the same results. When I eat it, I will experience that same satisfaction. When I see how well it turns out, I have something small I can feel proud of, even if the person who claims to love me has said I am a complete waste of space. 

By this time, the passion of gluttony has taken hold and prying it out is going to require spiritual surgery. Trust me, I know. 

Consequences

Given that I had no power over my childhood environment, and have suffered so greatly, is it really so great a sin? To answer that, I think it’s important to understand sin and why it matters. At its most basic, sin is a departure from holiness. That which is holy leads to wholeness. Sin leads to brokenness (and is often caused by brokenness). Look at some of the various potential consequences of gluttony:

• Being uncomfortable (physically)
• Diabetes
• High blood-pressure
• Possible high cholesterol
• Financial issues from overspending on food
• Frequent skin infections
• Difficultly breathing
• Shortened lifespan
• Higher risk of heart disease
• Higher risk of infertility
• Many more

None of these are consequences God directs at us out of some kind of anger. And in fact, they are proof of His love! These consequences are one of the many ways God tries to get our attention so we look towards Him. Whether we have trauma in our lives that brings us to this sin, or it simply comes of a type of epicurean delight in the best and tastiest pleasures of the stomach, the result is the same: we have replaced God with food. 

Begin to feast on prayer, fasting, and acts of mercy. To begin to truly love Him.

recovery

While the purpose of this post isn’t to discuss overcoming gluttony, but rather one of its many roots, I want to give you some quick actions to help get you started.

The first step to having an ordered approach to food is confession. This can be much harder than many other sins for us to confess. Having spent a lifetime of being shamed for the size and shape of my body, and living in a culture that celebrates most of the other passions, I think it is harder to confess to this than to anything else (and yes, we celebrate gluttony as a culture, however, we consistently bully those experiencing its consequences).

Being on the defensive for years makes it very hard to go to my priest and say, “I have been living in gluttony and I need help.” But it’s important, especially if we want any hope of bringing this part of our lives under control. 

Try to have an honest conversation about fasting with your priest as well. Neglecting the fasts has been a pattern of mine that has reinforced the self-delusion. It’s so easy to fall into. After all, long term gluttony has created some serious health issues that mean I can’t necessarily follow the fast as it is for most Orthodox Christians. In my case, I am diabetic and also have serious iron-deficiency anemia. Eating a diet of high carbohydrate food for weeks on end isn’t going to be conducive to health for me. 

Walking the line of “ekonomia” that alters my fasting rule without it becoming yet another excuse to indulge is going to take spiritual guidance from a loving and yet firm priest, along with my willingness to obey him. (N.B. please be sure to discuss this with a priest you trust).

Another obstacle to proper fasting can be that larger people experience higher levels of poverty, making higher quality foods that are better for the body more difficult to obtain. For example, during Great Lent we can eat shellfish. However, being an American, foods like shrimp, lobster and crab are prohibitively expensive when compared to, say, Oreos, which are fast-friendly but I should not be eating as a diabetic. 

In my case, eggs are a source of protein that is relatively inexpensive and follows the spirit of simplicity that is the heart of fasting. My priest has given me permission to use eggs as a protein source during fasts (please speak with your own priest about any modifications to your fasting rule). It took being willing to have an honest conversation to find a path that leads to better health, spiritually, mentally and physically. 

Other helpful practices

There are a few other things things we can do to combat the spirit of gluttony in our lives.

• Always pray before you eat
• Pray after you eat, giving thanks
• Stop seeking novelty in your food
• During a fast, give up something you particularly enjoy as an indulgence
• Don’t seek fancy ways of replacing foods during a fast 
• Give food to the poor
• Do not eat between meals*
• Use a smaller plate
• No getting seconds
• Give the “best piece” to someone else
• Make someone else’s favorite version of a dish instead of your own

Making this change in my life is a work in progress.  If you are reading this, please remember me, a sinner, a glutton, in your prayers. 

*Depending on your needs, “meals” can look different. My own rule is breakfast, a small snack, lunch, a small snack, dinner and a bedtime snack. This is the prescribed rhythm from my doctor.