Eating Disorders - fieldi

Jodie’s Story 101
house and a terrified Jodie followed her, undiscovered, around the
neighborhood. At the same time her mother was capable of warmth
and generosity, and her unpredictability and inconsistency kept
Jodie bound to her (Bergmann 1988).
Children acquiesce masochistically to mistreatment—its echo
may be found in later behavior. Although Jodie was now in therapy
as a young woman, she placed an advertisement in a singles newspaper
and received numerous replies. She met many of the respondents,
often giving them her home phone number. Once she came
close to being raped. When this unsavory character called her back,
she considered going out with him again. I told her how worried I
was about this behavior. “Why would you offer yourself up to him
as his next meal?” Jodie could take me in as a good mother, giving
advice, or perhaps as a waitress serving her food.
After our first meeting, she dreamed the following: “I left work at
9 a.m. to go to lunch, and I stayed until noon. I felt guilty about taking
three hours for lunch. When I woke up, I thought my guilt had
to do with the fact that I wasn’t doing my work.” “Why did it take
three hours?” I asked. She replied, “First we got lost. Then we
couldn’t get the waitress. It seemed like where I work, and it sometimes
seemed like college. I was with my roommate and then with
my boyfriend. I asked the waitress for the special. I think it was
broiled fish, but she brought me a plate of bacon. I don’t even eat
bacon. I didn’t want my boyfriend to pay but then I saw him take
money from his wallet.” In the dream, Jodie felt so hungry that she
needed three hours for lunch. She experienced her relationship with
the waitress/mother in terms of food. The waitress was going to
bring her something special, but it quickly turned bad (into bacon).
Bulimia collapses relationships into an oral experience that fails
because the food turns bad as soon as it is consumed.
Jodie had not mastered waiting. She yearned for immediate gratification,
for that unknown something that she failed to get. Maybe,
as Winnicott suggests, “Nothing happened when something might
profitably have happened” (Winnicott 1974; quoted in Geist 1989,
10). I couldn’t please her. She often told me, “Nothing is happening.
You’re not helping me. You talk too little. I need advice. You don’t
tell me anything I don’t already know.”
We first met in May 1980. She was a slim, boyish-looking woman