My Ears Were My Enemies

 On the first day I decided to join OA, I made my way to the meeting with disbelief, barely climbing the stairs to the building where the session was held.
Written on the closed door of the room where the meeting was being held was:
“Location of Overeaters Anonymous Meetings.”
Seeing that stirred up dual feelings of anxiety and calmness within me, a combination I can never comprehend or express in words. When I came to OA, I had shut many doors on myself, not just for one night or one day! In fact, this was a recurring process in my life. Every day many doors closed on me due to my illnesses. In addition to that, in response to the mistakes I make, many doors are also closed on me. And seeing the closed door of the meeting room brought the same feeling for me. But I had hope within me, saying: If I decide to, I can open the door. I can seek help.
Behind the closed door of the meeting, great things could be happening, or maybe nothing extraordinary was happening. With this duality, I entered my first Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

As I entered, with the emotions of a shy compulsive overeater, with fear, and with a world of doubt and hesitation that I always had about things, and with the existence of this voice inside me that always said: You must stay alone! You can manage it alone! Of course, the presence of these voices made me not notice much during the first session.
It was like the first few moments when you wake up from sleep and do not know where you are and what time of day it is. I felt a strange confusion in the session, and looked at the other people. Two people were sitting behind the table, one of them was talking, but I could not hear anything, I just saw his lips moving. This was my experience on the first day of entering OA.
There, I realized that I had not only shut many doors on myself but also closed my ears to the messages of those around me who had been warning me for a long time.
I had heard many voices from the scale before, voices telling me: Compulsive eating makes you abnormal! You weigh too much!
I tried not to hear the voice of the mirror telling me that I had gained weight by avoiding looking into it.
I did not want to hear the voices of people around me telling me that I was not normal! You are restless! You are self-involved! Why are you like this?! Why do you eat this way?!
So, that day, I knew that in the meeting, I would probably hear truths that I would not like, so I tried not to hear the voices.
The speaker at the session talked about his recovery and struggles, how he stole food, how he ate leftovers from the fridge, how he felt bad about himself!
When I felt that they were just like me, I felt hopeful that I could easily share my joys and sorrows with them.
Amidst all the faint voices and strange complexities that existed for me, one sentence was clearly heard: You are not alone anymore! Under the surface of the city where I lived, these people were not only like me but were me.

That day, I realized that there are people in my city who have my struggles; eat secretly in the middle of the night; eat sneakily after parties; eat alone before parties; have disgust for their image in the mirror; cannot fit into the clothes they bought last season; and have tried various diets and gotten tired. I really was not alone. Just 22 minutes away from my home, there are people who gather in a specific place on a certain day and talk about pains I had hidden for years. What beautiful voices! I heard the voice of recovery from the mouth of each of my friends.
I heard the beautiful voice of life, continued with the program, chose the guide, and found weight loss with the eating plan I had. I realized that all this turmoil would not disappear with reaching the desired size and weight. I looked for another version and finally took steps. I realized that now I spend more hours and days in peace than before. This simple, albeit foolish, thought came to me that everything had been fixed. Like that person who saw me one day before joining the community and said, “You’re all good now!!!”
The sentence, “Everything is all right now,” could also lead me towards extra food, uncontrolled compulsive eating, and losing everything I had achieved.
I understood that if I wanted to live in the same old way, my ears and hearing would become my worst enemies.

-Iran