I know a 12-year-old boy who is fat and getting fatter by the day.
He is a big, beautiful kid, but even still, he must be 60 lbs overweight.
Why is he getting fat? His parents aren't fat. His siblings aren't fat. Why is he getting fat? We cannot know unless the boy himself tells us. But it is doubtful that he knows. How could he know? Many 40-year-olds don't know or don't want to know why they do what they do, so how could he?
We are left with intuition. Often our intuition can lead to a helpful place and even help the patient say what he needs to say. In fact, psychoanalysts and therapists are trained to allow themselves to think their thoughts, no matter how outrageous, or psychotic - if only for a moment. These thoughts that flash through our minds in an instant are actually a form of communication - something that another person may want to tell us about us or themselves, but can't. Either they don't have the words because they are unaware or because they are afraid.
Last week I went out for a lunchtime walk with a colleague of mine from the neighborhood. We went into the local bagel store to get a cup of coffee. As we paid at the counter, I noticed the heavy young man got in line behind us. I greeted him and introduced him to my colleague. A short time later, I asked her what thought flashed through her mind when she met him. She said with some embarrassment, an "erection"
The thought intrigued me because years 3 or 4 years ago the mother of this boy that had called me because he was involved in some kind of sex play with his friends and some of their sisters -- the kind that 8 or 9-year-olds regularly get into. (A bit of pulling down of pants sort of thing) While most of the parents shrugged it off with awkward humor and light-hearted apologies, this boy's mother was over the top with rage. "How could he do this?" she asked over and over.
Although he was no more "guilty" than anyone else she made him go over to all the "offended" parties one by one and apologize. In fact, I remember her driving him from house to house in what seemed to be a ritual borrowed from Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter. She stood next to him with her hands folded "making" him say the "right" words. No mealy-mouthed mumblings would suffice. He had to say it loud and clear. "I am sorry for the terrible thing that I did."
It struck me at the time, how harsh his mother had been. I often see men in groups and other settings where they feel they cannot make their point. They glom onto something that someone else said, or they assist, but they can't or won't make their own point of view. A friend of mine thinks of these intellectual points as little erections. Often what becomes revealed is that their mother or father did not allow them. Perhaps they were frightened by them and so they squelched the natural "roostering" that children have. This terrible and destructive message carried into their adult years.
This young man I know, (however self-destructive) is communicating a message. He is gaining in weight in defiance: He declares to his mother and father and the rest of the world: I will be big. I will have one!
I have no doubt that if he could put these powerful feelings into words, he will no longer act them out by overeating. To be sure, he might go the usual, effective route of diet and eating discipline, but the more he talks, the more likely that his "need" to over-eat will diminish.
