What’s Your Addiction Affliction?

The TV show My Strange Addiction has certainly brought a lot of bizarre repetitive behaviors to light. I don’t believe mine has specifically been included in their menu of episodes, and since they haven’t called me to be featured on the show, maybe mine isn’t quite as bizarre as my friends and I think.

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Model of Mental Disorders), the Bible of mental disorders, the authoritative voice of health care professionals, has been updated to include behavioral addictions like compulsive gambling, stealing, buying, and sexual addictions, along with the nine more familiar substance use addictions. The reason for this is both philosophical and medical because there are similarities among all addictions. It is not so hard to believe I could have an addiction, as it is hard for me to believe mine could be included in the DSM. Only it isn’t. Not technically.

Addiction, no matter what the source, is devastating and I would never mock someone else’s debilitating illness. I will, however, make fun of my own illness. I am curious to know if we all have our own forms of the bizarre happening in our daily lives.

Some of my illness began the year my mother died and it exacerbated the things already going on. A few days after my mother’s funeral, my sister and I started divvying up the excess food my father didn’t need. I can’t remember a thing I took home other than the fact it was not the bag of pork rinds. As my brother-in-law innocently reached for the bag, I wanted to sink my canines into him and whip his hand wildly around like a wolf who had caught a rabbit, until he released his grip on the Baken-ets. But I knew I had to act like an adult, so I wanly smiled and backed away. That was when I recognized the compulsion I had developed for those airy, crunchy, fried slabs of pig skin.

Earlier that year, our school secretary started sitting a tub full of the addicting crunchies next to the coffee pot each week, for the taking. I didn’t drink coffee at that time, but I would dip into the tub for one or two rinds each time I walked by. Then I began getting up from my desk for no other reason than to grab some. Soon, I was scooping a handful. Then both hands full of them. It must have become obvious how frequently I was visiting the coffee area from two offices away, to our observant secretary, because she added another tub to my desk whenever she replaced the original one. A full barrel of pork rinds–my own! I was in hog heaven. And had my own dealer.

My job as guidance counselor had become extremely stressful. I was dealing with students and their myriad of very real issues that would keep me awake at night, trying to help them solve their problems. I felt I was a band-aid and not a very effective one, trying to handle issues from first graders not wanting to attend school to suicidal high school students and every kind of abuse in between. That was in addition to the daily routine of record keeping, securing scholarships, etc. I wasn’t cut out to be a band-aid. I was in a deep depression, hardly able to get up in the mornings or go to work. I began searching the want-ads.

By the time my mother died, I was on anti-depressants (many teachers I know are or have been), had an undiagnosed underactive thyroid, and was crazily replacing healthy food and drink for only McDonald’s sweet tea and pork rinds. I would constantly have a bag of rinds and a huge cup of tea everywhere I went. It is inconceivable anyone could survive that way very long. I did it for two years. I felt terrible, couldn’t sleep, and it began taking a toll on my health. I became anemic. My hypothyroidism was finally diagnosed and I went on medication for it. My husband was diagnosed with a progressive kidney disease. My father moved into our house. Life stress became unbearable.

It was a laughable, ridiculous addiction. My family, friends, and I laughed as we stopped at a convenience store for a couple more bags of pork rinds before going somewhere. Every day. Multiple times a day, sometimes. My poor husband had a routine of texting me to see if I needed any more. How crazy was this?

After two years of being in a severe downward spiral, I took my life into my own hands. While the pork rinds were certainly a conversation starter and repulsive to many, I don’t think any of us saw it as life-threatening. I didn’t make the connection between my poor diet and my health. I didn’t make the connection that my thyroid could affect absolutely everything in my body including cause the depression. I thought my job was the root of all my problems. When my primary doctor felt the antidepressants he had prescribed some years before were no longer effective, he recommended I see a psychiatrist. I don’t believe I told either about the pork rinds and sweet tea, but I remember the psychiatrist asking one question after patiently listening to my problems:

“Can you take a leave of absence from your job?”

“Huh, I don’t know. I guess I can check and see.”

On what was probably the verge of a nervous breakdown, I checked with the school and wrote a letter requesting a leave of absence that year, from December 1 to the end of school in June. On December 1, I went cold turkey off two antidepressants and those stupid pork rinds. I watched Christian TV all morning and was fervently praying along with each program, for my physical and mental health. I begged God to heal me. I was desperate. My faith started out so strong, but by the end of the day I went to my sister’s house and told her I was beginning to feel terrible–I could tell I needed the antidepressants after only one day without them and was so depressed, I was going to have to take them after all. I had ordered a heavy-duty anti-oxidant mangosteen juice (not the kind found in grocery stores–pure mangosteen) that was to be delivered by the end of the week, but by the time I returned home, the package was at my door earlier than expected. I didn’t think it was an accident; I felt it could be Divine Intervention. Instead of the ounce I was to drink, I drank the whole bottle. I know it is such a cliche, but it truly was the “first day of the rest of my life.”

I spent the next months eating healthier, exercising, drinking the mangosteen juice (only an ounce a day), sleeping at night, and searching for a new job. I hadn’t felt so good since college. I became a better mom and wife; a happy person. When I went to my next doctor check-up, they asked if I was still on the antidepressants. When I said no, with looks of concern, the nurse and doctor wanted to know why. But what they really wanted to know, was HOW. I told them my story about December 1 and about Divine Intervention.

“Did you have any withdrawal?”

“No, not really.”

“You should NEVER go off them like that. They needed to be tapered off. You should have had definite symptoms of withdrawal. The antioxidant must have helped.”

“Well, I did. I didn’t realize it could be dangerous.”

My doctor said, “It was nothing short of Divine Intervention,” confirming what I already felt.

His nurse ordered a bottle of mangosteen juice from me. By the time school started in August, I was back to teaching in the classroom, no long in guidance. I now believe my thyroid had been the cause of the depression I lived with since my first child was born. The absence of withdrawal and the mangosteen arriving at just the right time were the results of prayer and “nothing short of Divine Intervention”. I have been antidepressant, pork rind, and depression free for almost fifteen years.