A HUNGER SO WIDE AND SO DEEP: FIGHTING BACK AND OTHER AFFIRMATIONS

Some of the women's attempts to re-create what was injured or stolen from them by trauma took the form of affirming their racial and sexual identities. Not surprisingly, those who consider such an affirmation most central to their healing are those whose racial and sexual identities had been most under attack. Two of the African-American women were raised in families that supported and celebrated their black identity, while three were raised by parents or other relatives whose internalized racism hindered their racial development. For these three women, developing positive racial identities has been integral to establishing new eating patterns. A trip to Egypt was a crucial beginning in Rosalee's process of claiming a positive sense of herself as a black woman. She wanted to see the roots of black culture before slavery; her journey paralleled her need to recover the psychic abilities she had before being sexually abused. In Egypt, she was able to "see a sea of brown faces and be considered beautiful." Because Christianity is the backbone of her identity, going to mosques where paintings of a black Jesus predominated was "one of the most empowering experiences I have ever had." After returning from Egypt, she designed a shrine and altar in her living room that houses three sculptures of a brown-skinned Jesus, a statue of an Egyptian woman in black and gold, and candles and stones set in formations she saw in Egypt. Her shrine symbolizes her vision of Christianity and a religious tradition that embraces her black identity. In addition to Overeaters Anonymous, Rosalee joined a black women's self-help group called Phenomenal Woman:

I have been searching high and low to find a support group that would consist of my sisters, meaning black women. I feel a kind of kinship with all races, and I can really say that from a humanitarian point of view. In OA and Al-Anon meetings I have seen how much we suffer from the same things, which has just done so much to open my heart. But by the same token, there are issues that I need to deal with that are exclusively black that I want to deal with with black women. I see it as a necessary separation until we get a hold on who we are.

For Antonia, healing has meant finding a community where she feels valued as an Italian-American lesbian and a woman of stature and size. She lives and works with African-American, Latina, and white women, and she feels more acceptance for being assertive than she did growing up in an overwhelmingly WASP town. Learning about her own racial identity and about racism in the United States has been key to her self-acceptance, including her relationship to her body and to food.

For many of the women, sexual healing began with determining when and how they had internalized the idea that they had no right to be sexual. For fat women, this includes claiming the right to sexual pleasure despite the barrage of images that desexualize them. For some of the women, losing weight softened their own harsh judgments about their bodies, which gave them confidence to express themselves sexually. Many linked the end of bingeing and becoming sexually involved for the first time. This connection made some wonder if what they had thought was self-imposed celibacy was actually a consequence of living in a society that is phobic about fat. But even those who maintained long-term weight loss eventually realized that their new body shapes did not guarantee continued self-acceptance —that long-term affirmation of sexuality has less to do with weight and more to do with positive and supportive relationships, healing from trauma, and other forms of empowerment.

Affirming sexuality often hinged on reevaluating scenes indelibly carved in their memories that had made them uncomfortable about sexuality. One woman remembers having always cringed when men told her they would date her if she lost weight; it did not occur to her until adulthood that regardless of her weight, she might not have wanted to date them. For many of these women, reestablishing a sense of themselves as sexual beings meant facing down the emotional ghosts that haunted them because of repressed or painful memories of sexual abuse. Some had trained themselves to turn off their feelings during abuse — an act of basic survival — but this made it hard for them to let go and enjoy sexual pleasure, even when sex was desired and not abusive. Some were left with deep-seated feelings that their bodies had betrayed them during abuse. Some had become physically aroused during the abuse, which engendered much shame and self-blame; such a bodily response can make a girl think she somehow asked for or wanted the abuse. Affirming a positive sexual identity demands believing that physical arousal is not the same as consent and that no one deserves or should ever have to endure sexual violation.

Sexual healing in many cases required tracing debilitating messages back to their sources and getting angry about the destruction they had caused. Carolyn recently realized that being sexual and being violent have been one in her mind for as long as she can remember. Years of listening to her father beat her mother in their bedroom taught her that sexual behavior and violence were inevitably intertwined. As she stopped bingeing, she recovered these memories, a step that has helped her retrieve sexual feelings and memories that have been too frightening to acknowledge. Distinguishing between previously conflated emotions was a step toward developing a full range of feelings. In the process, she began to acknowledge shame she had long felt about how she took her anger out on herself and others when she was growing up. Developing an affectionate understanding of all of their responses to abuse —including their use of food—was central to the survivors' ability to claim their sexual feelings in the present.

Among the lesbians, coming out played a pivotal role in claiming a positive sexual identity. They spoke of it as a release of life-affirming energy, as an exhilarating, frightening process that frequently coincided with a dramatic change in their eating patterns and weight loss. For Martha, meeting lesbians who felt comfortable with their sexual identities and falling in love with a woman coincided with losing fifty pounds. This was the first time she remembers having feelings and knowing she actually exists. Weight loss signaled a transition from reaching for food for comfort to turning to people instead. Similarly, Ruthie made a direct connection between claiming her lesbian identity and worrying less about her body size, which helped her stop dieting. In Nicole's relationships with women, she began to open up parts of herself that had been smothered when she was a child. Because of her mother's emotional and physical abuse, Nicole did not have a friend until she left home for college. Her first close friendship was with a woman with whom she binged, which broke Nicole's silence about her eating problems. During her early adulthood, a woman unexpectedly gave her a big kiss, and she felt sexually alive for the first time in her life. Nicole's friendships with other black lesbians and other feminists of color have been at the heart of her recovery, partly because they gave her the courage and confidence she needed to face childhood trauma. This community, along with Overeaters Anonymous and therapy, eventually led her to stop bingeing and purging.

Coming out as a lesbian is often much more like walking through a complicated maze than like emerging out of a single closet, and the women's use of food to cope with this process is equally complex. Several of them attribute their ability to stop starving or bingeing to the initial excitement of coming out. The transformation gave them energy and often brought them into contact with supportive people, which countered the isolation and alienation of many of their childhoods. But claiming a lesbian identity also means facing homophobia among family members and old friends, which encourages a retreat into old methods of coping. When Julie was first coming out, she felt joyful and experienced a reprieve from extreme dieting, but homophobic reactions made her feel as if others no longer saw her, and she "felt empty inside." Bingeing made her feel "filled up again"; she had trouble knowing that her feelings exist even if others don't acknowledge or approve of her or her choices.

Political activism can link healing to larger historical and political struggles both as an affirmation and as a method of empowerment. African-American women got involved with other African-Americans and in multiracial alliances. Most of the Latinas are activists at college, in their workplaces, or in their neighborhoods. Many of the lesbians — black, Latina, and white — coupled coming out with political activism.

Education and community support are other links to larger contexts. After Yolanda returned to college, she stopped gaining weight and began to wear contact lenses and makeup again —all signs of breaking the isolation that had fueled her bingeing. She has also spoken publicly about mothers on welfare, making a bridge between her personal experiences and those of poor women throughout the country. Going to college put Julianna in touch with other Latina students, gave her access to classes that helped her understand alcoholism and its effect on families, and helped her create an identity independent of her role as a daughter in her family.

*37\241\2*