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Self will run riot

Debbie (Bingham) Nicholson

For every action there is a reaction.

Instant gratification brings temporary relief or pleasure.

Along with selfcentred choices come hard lessons and

huge consequences to bear.

I have a dedicated and supportive family, who went without for the sake of my career.

Thanks to a Phys-Ed instructor at primary school who recognised my talent in gymnastics. Thanks to my mother, who took his advice and packed up her three kids three times per week and travelled some 30 kms to a gymnastics school where she and my two younger siblings patiently waited around for two hours while I trained and then it was back in the car to whence we came.

I was a natural. When I was not at gym, I was at home practicing whenever I got a chance to do so. I loved to perform and I seemed to get an extra boost of adrenalin when I had the attention of a crowd. Within a year, I had become national champion in my age group and kept that title throughout my primary school years.

By this time, I was in the gym training five times a week, with no time for any other extramural activities; therefore I never interacted with my peers outside of the classroom, always missing out on parties, sleepovers and weekend fun. From this early age, my life was one-dimensional.

I thrived on the thrill of winning – the adrenaline, mounting the podium, the acceptance of the crowd.

At fourteen, the South African national coach spotted me and offered me a place in her training squad. What an honour! This meant leaving home and heading for Johannesburg. My coach had already sourced a foster family willing to take me in and, before I knew it, I was enrolled in a new school far away from home; a stranger in a foreign place and in a gym where I was training with SA’s best.

These were big steps for a shy, insecure, protected young girl. I managed to portray an external sense of control, yet I was empty, fearful, lonely and homesick. I wanted to be with my family. The gym was my sanctuary. When I was training my mind was fully engaged and motivated to excel. Seven days per week, for four hours a day, I could escape there.

Over the next three years I was privileged to train and be part of the Springbok team training and competing under the most fantastic coach, Nellie Snyman, who sacrificed and dedicated her life to us six girls. We trained our hearts out for her: blood, sweat and tears.

We were a very close group. Training together, competing against each other. It was challenging and hugely rewarding, with us striving for perfection and thriving on the feeling of winning, mounting the next podium for the gold.

Winning was everything. I lived to win and won to live.

At the height of my career and seventeen years old, I became a household name. Thanks to a certain few sports photographers and TV cameramen I became known as “South Africa’s Golden Girl”. I was always camera ready and loved to perform for the crowd. I was at the top of my game.

After being offered numerous modelling assignments, I secured a role in a South African movie – ironically called Winners 2 – and a theatrical production called Director of the Opera, which had an age restriction older than I was at the time. I was living a dream: press, paparazzi, and popularity. I was the centre of attention and living it. The world was my oyster.

Six months prior to writing matric and prior to the final international competition of the year, I decided to quit gymnastics. I had to quit while on top. With no backup plan for my future and a fall-out with an agent who had taken control of my affairs and whom I resented, I quit everything. I had put all my eggs in one basket with no backup plan for my future. I went from hero to zero overnight.

The decision to turn my back on everything positive in my life to spite those I resented would surface many years later with devastating results that could have been avoided, had the lessons of selfindulgence been learnt earlier.

The big void ... what next? What was I going to do with all the hours in a day? What was I going to do with my life? I had always done what I was told. I did it well. I had abandoned it all and now had to move on and get a life. I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Selfcentred fear set in … I had lost what I had (success, accomplishment) and had not achieved what I wanted (recognition and more success). Living up to the expectations of others was to become my biggest fear.

My physical regime of training for four hours a day, seven days a week, in the gym was over. I withdrew from the limelight entirely. I had so much idle time to indulge in self; the only control I now had.

My selfworth was measured by what others thought of me. Image and performance meant everything. I looked outside of myself for internal gratification. I had to look good.

My obsession with image has led me down the path of selfdestruction. This began with the fear of the thought of getting fat. I had seen what had happened to some of my peers when they gave up intense training.

I was consumed with self and my fears were magnified at the thought of losing popularity. I had become apprehensive of venturing out into the world in fear of failure. My hours of nothing were endless, with myself procrastinating and being obsessed with image. I had twinges of success at any recognition I received, which I was getting from weight loss. My obsession with food became my career.

Getting away with not eating was all part of the exercise. As dedicated as I was to my gymnastics training, so I was, through my hunger strike, to not getting fat. I went to any length to get away with not eating. I isolated myself in order to not have to sit at table and eat meals. I would make excuses when invited out to restaurants. When I got recognition for weight loss it was exhilarating. There was a feeling of accomplishment attached to the feeling of hunger. I classified that as a win.

A feeling of euphoria overcame me and gave me the strength to carry on. I continued to starve in anticipation of the next win (recognition). I had the attention I was used to. However, it came from a negative dimension.

The disease of “denial” was my addiction. My immediate family’s and friends’ lives were turned into disarray. And all this time I was oblivious to what I was becoming and the heartache I was causing. A prisoner in my own body, my existence was one of lies and compulsive and obsessive behaviour. I became the person I loathed the most.

I was hospitalised in 1977 and an article was published giving a face and name to anorexia nervosa.

I battled with this internal “war of weight” for many years causing me much physical ruin and emotional instability. I had become a spiritual wreck. To live or to die was a choice I had to make. My life was totally consumed with one thing only and the more I tried to control it, the more it controlled me.

I had little selfworth and was fearful of not being the best at whatever I chose to participate in. I became a recluse.

I had to change the way I felt. I always felt uneasy around people, never feeling good enough.

One night, at a friend’s 21st birthday, I was offered a drink, my very first drink. I should say my worst drink. From the first sip I got a feeling that changed the way I felt. It gave me courage and confidence.

Temporary relief came. I had found the perfect remedy. It gave me the confidence to get out and conquer the world. From zero to hero overnight, I had found what I was looking for. This liquid changed the way I felt. I became the life and soul of every party. I found every reason and occasion to drink. I felt indispensable.

Over the next chapter, the progressiveness of my consumption escalated intensely and, before I knew it, I had become a 24/7 drinker.

I was spiralling out of control. I was so in denial that I had substituted the obsession with food with the compulsion to drink and for many years, I put my trust into a mind-altering substance to change the way I felt.

Totally oblivious to what I was becoming and not remembering what I was doing, my family and close friends tried to intervene. I again isolated myself and made geographical changes thinking that a new start in a new place was what I needed, not realising that I was the problem and was taking myself with me.

I had the inability to accept personal responsibility. I never had a clear mind or the brutal honesty to admit to my situation. The consequence of bad choices ...

Then, one magical day, an acquaintance that I now choose to call my “Earth Angel” came to my rescue. Over time, she had watched me slipping down to the depths of despair.

She reached out to me. She loved me unconditionally and accepted me for who I was. She took time to just be present with me and expected nothing in return.

With time, I was able to venture into trusting her and sharing some of my deepest fears and secrets with her. Never before had I opened up to share some of me with another. I had always thought that asking for help was a weakness, but sharing my problems with another definitely shed some light and lessened the burden. I was as sick as my secrets and felt a huge amount freedom once I shared them with someone whom I could trust them with.

My selfcentredness had me believing that my willpower alone was enough to control my life.

“Self will run riot”. I couldn’t do it anymore and, in my desperation, I surrendered into trusting that there must be something bigger than me that could help me. I had lost all faith in myself. I was desperate and willing to give anything a try. I leant on my newly found friend who had an aura of calmness about her: I wanted what she had. She made a point blank declaration one day that God had done for her what she could not do for herself. Her human will had failed.

Throughout my life the word God had aroused aversion. When it was suggested that there might be a God personal to me, these feelings were intensified. “Why don’t you choose your own perception of God?” she suggested. It was merely a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.

On the foundation of complete willingness, I might build what I had seen in my friend.

Acceptance was truly hard for a stubborn, egotistical girl like me who had always done it “her way”.

After grappling with this idea for a long time of “letting go and letting God”, I surrendered.

I stood in the sunlight at last. A new world came into view. How blind I had been!

I experienced an amazing sense of freedom. My compulsion and obsession with self diminished, my fear of people and life eased and selfseeking was replaced by reaching out and sharing with others. I ruthlessly faced my shortcomings and became willing to have my new found God take them away.

I had to humble myself and grow into a state of honest selfawareness and accept all aspects of myself and admit to my faults. This process was long and hard, yet simple. It has given me the freedom to move on with my life, to let go of the past and to not project into the future and learn to live in the now.

It’s not always easy to make the right choices. This is especially true when trying to live by spiritual principles in a material world. I often find myself trying to take back the controls of life but my conscious contact with God keeps me grounded, humble, honest and willing to hand it back with love and gratitude.

This ‘new I’ is evolving into the person I was born to be. Love is a new frontier for me. I am learning to love myself and to give freely the Love I have received and share it all around.

My relationship with my God is personal: He walks with me through the good times and the bad. I ask for His protection and care each day as I venture out in anticipation of another fantastic day. Whatever the outcome may be at the end of the day, I thank God for it. I have learnt so much about who I really am for the very first time and I accept myself, defects and all. I strive for progress rather than perfection. After all, there is only One who is perfect.

I have much to be grateful for today.

Firstly, to God, who has restored my sanity and serenity and relieved me from active addictions.

To my husband and two daughters, whose lives had become as unmanageable as mine in times of despair: I love you.

I am hugely grateful to those wonderful people who loved me when I was unable to love myself and who showed me the way to God.

Today, I live each day according to God’s plan. I keep my life simple and live one day at a time. I am eternally grateful to Him for my altered attitude and for His Will working in my life, ever reminding myself never to shut the door on my past where I lived a life of destruction and darkness.

Faith without work is dead. I am passionate about sharing my story of hope with others and am willing to help others suffering with addictions.

Today I’m living and not just existing.“Praise be to God”!