How could you ... why did you ...

I received an email last weekend via the IAEDP listserve.  It was from a psychologist I did not know. Her very brief message included a link to an article written by Geneen Roth. I must admit that I ignored it at first glance. Although in the past I'd always been impressed with Ms. Roth's writing this positive impression was replaced with disillusionment ...

... about eight years ago. It was then that I attended a two-day Geneen Roth workshop. It may have been that she was having an off day or a tragedy had occurred the night before and she was doing what she could to get through the morning but the way I observed her treat other conference attendees felt to me to be edged with disdain and dislike--so much so that I left the workshop after lunch on the first day.

For some reason, I happened to hit on the link right before deleting this email a few minutes ago.  I'm glad I did. I have no idea how accurate my previous impression of Ms. Roth was, but her writing again touched me. Her article had nothing to do with eating behaviors. It is titled "I was Fleeced by Madoff."  It was actually the subtitle that caught me, "The financial guru's Ponzi scheme cost me 30 years of retirement savings. How could he do this to me -- and why did I let him?" 

"Why did I let him?"  Those are the words that grabbed my attention.  So often when bad things happen to us we tend to vacillate between self-blame and blaming others.  Ms. Roth was no exception. She explained:

Since the Call [when she was informed of Madoff's scheme], I have chanted the mantra of "How could you, why did you, what's the matter with you?" Another, even meaner version of this is, "It serves you right. You thought you were above it all, different than everyone else. Well, guess what, honey? You're not." I have also been eager to blame someone else -- anyone else -- for the mess I am in: my friend Richard, who offered to let my husband and me into his Madoff fund; my accountant, who encouraged me to put all my money in one place; my friends, who all did the same thing. Where does the blame end? My father taught me to take risks, to accumulate wealth. He said it didn't matter how I did it. But this was after 40 members of his family were killed in Auschwitz and his motto became, "God abandoned us. There is no such thing as morality, and it's every man for himself." Do I blame my father, who has been dead for eight years? Or is it Hitler's fault that I put my money into a Ponzi scheme?

Although these are words I can easily identify with, having used a variation of them at assorted times throughout my life, what moved me most were the learnings Ms. Roth expressed in her article's conclusion: 

Although I never would have chosen this path, and although it still feels terrifying at moments, I know I can never see the whole picture in the chaos of the moment. And sometimes, sometimes I am aware that there's an unimaginable, uncharted world on the other side of this loss, like stepping through the Narnia wardrobe.
On this side of the loss, there is the necessity -- the urgency-- of staying in the moment. This breath. This step. This splash of sun. The money I lost will never come back. But if I wander into fear -- what if my husband or I get sick and we can't pay the medical bills, what if there is an accident and we can't work, what will we do when we get old -- I'm lost, too.

So often when our children suffer with an eating disorder we cannot help from "wandering into fear." Our lives before the eating disorder are as lost as Ms. Roth's money. Her intuitive sense that there is an "unimaginable, uncharted world"on the other side of this loss combined with her wise realization of the "necessity -- the urgency -- of staying in the moment" expresses succinctly how we, too, can avoid the fear and avoid losing ourselves. 

There IS an "unimaginable, uncharted world"on the other side of our child's eating disorder--we "can never see the whole picture in the chaos of the moment."  And we too, need to feel the "necessity -- the urgency -- of staying" present while still in the midst of the struggle. It is easy for us to forget this so basic of necessities. Thank you Geneen Roth for reminding us.

Blessings until next time,

Doris