From the age of nine until just shy of age forty, I lived to eat and thought of food obsessively. At a young age, I started going to the market on my own to buy junk food and eat whole packages of it in secret, shoving the bag deep into the trash can so my family wouldn’t find it. I binged at houses where I was babysitting, I ate tons of food at a fast food restaurant I worked at, and when I was old enough to drive, having my license gave me the freedom and opportunity to go places to buy junk food and eat it even more secretly.

I never wanted anyone to see me when I was shoving food into my mouth. I ate in private in my home—hiding from my mother, father, and brother—because I was afraid to get in trouble with my mom. However, it quickly grew to be something that I hid from anyone around me. I felt that how much and how quickly I ate was disgusting, embarrassing, and my secret.

By the time I was in my 20s, talking to friends at a party was merely tolerated until I could get to the dessert table. Hovering around the dessert table, and then sneaking the treats off in a corner, was my main objective. When I was older and threw parties, I couldn’t wait for the party to be over to scarf down leftover desserts. If anyone asked, I would lie and say I stuffed the desserts down the garbage disposal or threw them away outside.

The self-loathing I felt was immense, but I was powerless to stop eating; it controlled me.

During my 30s, I dated and subsequently married a man who emotionally and verbally abused me. Now I was not only binge eating but also emotionally eating as well. I cried many tears of confusion and pain, wondering why I was being treated so badly and wondering if it was normal and if I deserved it. I turned to food to bring me love and comfort. One night, after being married for a little over a year, we pulled into our driveway after a dinner out. We sat in the driveway while we talked about having children. He told me that I would have to go back to work as soon as my maternity leave was over because he didn’t want to change the comfortable lifestyle he had become accustomed to.

At that moment I knew our relationship was not healthy for me. I realized that I didn’t want to have a child that was like him in any way, shape, or form. It took me six months to build up the courage to leave him. I was with him off and on for a total of eight years until I finally got the strength to divorce him. Though I was no longer going through the emotional upheaval he caused me on a regular basis, the emotional eating lingered.

About 12 years later, when I was just a few months shy of my 40th birthday, I was watching TV and heard the words “compulsive overeater.” I can’t say for sure whether or not I had heard that term before, but this time it struck me. I went to my computer and started googling. I soon found myself on the Overeaters Anonymous (OA) website, where it prominently asked, “Are you one of us?” It displayed a list of questions about behaviors with food, and I answered yes to almost all of them. I was diagnosed as a compulsive overeater and binge eater. That diagnosis was the catalyst that changed my life for the better.

Learning that there was a name for my obsession with food was very emotional. I started going to therapy and OA meetings. While it was upsetting to discover I had a mental illness, it also gave me hope that I would recover and improve my mental well-being.

In therapy, I learned that my mom hiding cookies was a message to my nine-year-old self that said, “You are not worthy, you are not deserving, and you are not good enough.” The therapist helped me realize that I grew up in a dysfunctional home where my parents didn’t express love and support to me. I turned to food to cope; food was the love I didn’t receive. In addition to the eating disorder, I had low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and no sense of self. I had no strong female role model to show me how men should treat me. My mother let my father treat her horribly, and I realized that I had followed that example of what marriage should look like in my own first marriage.

It took time, and I’m still a work in progress, but I learned that the reason my mom didn’t show me love wasn’t because of me; it was because of her. She wasn’t wired to be warm, fuzzy, and supportive.

As I healed the younger version of myself, the current version of me discovered I didn’t need to turn to food for love.

Through a wonderful second marriage, I learned that I was indeed lovable, worthy, deserving, and enough. I love our two children fiercely, and together we have created a warm, loving, close-knit home for our kids to feel safe, secure, and well-loved.

When I had children, I made a conscious decision that I would bring them up differently than my parents brought me up. Fortunately, I was wired differently from my mother, so expressing love to my children came naturally. I spent quality time with them, listened to them, laughed with them, and tried to be someone they could count on to always be there for them. I let them know that while I may not always love what they did, I would always love them.

While I always kept healthy foods in the house, there was also junk food, and I never placed any rules on how much they could have. I also tried to keep food as a matter-of-fact thing, never labeling food as “good” or “bad” or making them feel like forbidden fruit.

I was never shy about showing my love for them in physical ways either, and I still do today, even though they are 21 and 19 years old. My husband was equally as loving as I was, so our children—I hope—always felt safe, loved, and supported.

My children are close to one another, which wasn’t true of my brother and me, and I’m grateful for that. My kids both share confidences with me and ask for my opinion, something I was never encouraged to do with my mom. I sometimes cry after getting off the phone with my daughter when she asks for my advice because I’m so thankful she confides in me and wants to know what I think.

When my children were small, I started competing in triathlons. My husband and kids would come and cheer for me. For one of my Ironman races, we took a family trip together to the race location. My 12-year-old son came onto the course, ran with me towards the end of the race, and told me how inspiring I was. I was blown away.

I tried to show them that they could be or do anything in their lives if they laid out a plan and followed the plan—just as I had done in my triathlons. When my first book, Out of the Pantry: A Disordered Eating Journey, came out in 2020, they again saw me work very hard on something until it came to fruition.

I tried to show them by example that hard work pays off and that dreams do come true.

Growing up, my parents never conveyed those messages to me in any way.

Looking back at my life, I went through experiences that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. However, hindsight has helped me to make conscious decisions to live my life differently than how I was raised. All of these negative events made me into a better person, wife, and mother that I am today.

Ronni Robinson is a member of the sandwich generation–she’s the tired lunch meat layered between two college-aged children and aging parents. Ronni is a freelance writer and a certified spin instructor. Her first book, Out of the Pantry: A Disordered Eating Journey, came out in 2020.