I Am Not A Food Addict

Over On another site I am blogging about Food Addiction and Being a Food Addict.

You Can read some of my insights and failings at The Food Addiction Sanctuary.  Just go here. 

Yet, I am not a food addict.  I have a food addiction but I am not a food addict.

It goes the same for people with other diseases such as Diabetes, Heart Disease, Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. You are not Diabetic, Heart Diseased, Alcoholic or a drug addict. You may have one or a few of these disease but you are not the disease. So, what is the big deal? Am I just being a little picky at semantics? Not at all.

YOU are magnificent, exquisite, unique and powerful.     You may have some thing but you are not it.

I am not a food addict.  I have a disease that is called food addiction. Allow the shame the propel these labels to float away because they are just your “thing”. Every person on this earth has a “thing” that keeps them human. For example, my “thing” is food while my friend has a healthy view of food.  She eats to live.  When she gains a few pounds she just cuts back on her portions.

Her “thing” has to do with intimate relationships.  That is her “thing.” Yet, that thing isn’t who you are, it s merely something that keeps you human and humble.  It allows you to be compassionate.

For many years I called myself a food addict, yet I refused to allow anyone to say my son was Autistic. 

Was I in denial?   Not at all, I just knew that he was a boy who had Autism. He wasn’t autistic he had autism. When I would rally for that autism diagnosis during IEPs  and with insurance; people would question me; wondering why I would want THAT label to follow him his whole life. I knew that that diagnosis was not a label it was a Godsend.  With an Autism diagnosis I knew that he could get the maximum help required.

Eventually Austin was re-diagnosed with complex learning disabilities. He is almost 21 goes to school in Florida, thousands of miles from home. He is in a fraternity and has friends. Besides my brother, he is the most content person I have ever met. Did it all happen because I refused to allow a label to define him? I would like to think I was that powerful!  I believe that lack of shame that is fueled with an autism diagnosis helped.  If anyone said he was autistic, I corrected them. I think God just made him that way.

Can you see the importance behind how you refer to yourself?

You may have a thing but you are not that thing?

What is your thing?  Let me know in the comment section!