Les trouvailles de Rwatuny

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Being out of touch with our senses disorients us in many different ways. Particularly for women, it breeds a fear of food and a terror of becoming fat.

Burdened with anxiety and obsessive control, these women may become anorexic or bulimic, like a woman a friend of mine met in his Overeaters Anonymous (OA) group. Her bulimia became so severe that her throat and mouth were bleeding from the years of daily vomiting.

In desesperation, she sought out yet another psychiatrist, who also felt overwhelmed by the hopelessness of her case. He suggested that she try attending some sessions of OA, one of the organisations where people with such problems congregate and share their experience and seek support.

For two month this tormented woman attended meetings where she sat silently in a circle with my friend and others. But her condition only worsened. As she sank deeper into depression, the others in the group feared that she would die.

But then one day she arrived at a meeting looking very peaceful despite her frailness. As the meeting started, she was the first to speak. She told the group that the previous morning she awoke unusually early and went to the market where she usually shopped.

For some reason, she began with the lemons.
“Please forgive me,” she said to the lemons.

Then she moved on to the oranges.
“Please forgive me,” she said to the oranges.

Methodically, reverently, as if in a sanctuary, she made her rounds, asking forgiveness from the fruits to the vegetables, from the breads and the milk, from the cheeses and the meats.

She realised that she had abused them. She had taken their life giving energies and their sensual delights and desecrated them. After seeking absolution, she left the market and spent the first day of her adult life without vomiting.

In the following weeks and months, she was finally free of her addiction. In the face of death, she found the stength to forgive herself. And with that forgiveness she came to her senses.