Because I grew up in a tiny rural town, I spent a lot of time in my head.  Not much was happening: the sun came up and went down, millions of stars lit the night sky, the palm tree grew, the chickens scrabbled for worms, lizards basked in the sun, my brother and I ran around naked in the mild summer rains, we watched out for snakes and scorpions.  This was Cave Creek AZ in the late 1940s.  Phoenix was 30 miles away (now it’s next door) on a dirt road.  There were 300 people in Cave Creek, and none of them lived within view.

So I found activities inside my own mind.  I watched the earth and its scrub plants, felt the sun on my back, petted the wire-haired dachshund when she was around — and daydreamed, either alone (mostly) or with my brother, who made up stories with me.

I’m now 71, and just realizing why I’ve always watched people who live in-the-world as if they were a different species.  I live in my thoughts and give sporadic attention (as required) to “the world.”

Of course I get less done.  My life is nothing to be ashamed of — it’s been interesting, reasonably successful, and it isn’t over yet — but I wonder what would have happened if I’d being “doing” instead of mulling, daydreaming, wondering, turning things over and over (like the fascinating patterns on a lizard’s back).

I’m sure the mental habit was reinforced by my position in the family: second child (less important), girl (less important), and aware that my greater safety and approval depended on being as non-intrusive as possible.

Anyway, at my advanced age I’m realizing I have this way of being, and I don’t have to.  It’s familiar; it feels “normal;” but I want to get my books finished and published; I want to play the violin better; I want to move my body more.

Part of this shift in awareness comes from my odd but compelling urge to get Italian citizenship.  My father was born in Trieste, and I’m applying to the Italian government on that basis.  Lots of hoops to jump through, but the process means I’m reading a lot of documents about my father and feeling closer to him   He went through various versions of hell — and, I’m realizing, he never complained.  He was a do-er; each day was a new day, and he liked it.  That’s where my brother learned it, and finally, I guess, I’m going to learn it, too.

I’m reading a book by Michael Gershon, M.D., called “The Second Brain” (1998).  He’s a neurobiologist fascinated by the intestinal tract, which apparently has an independent nervous system, a brain of its own:  a piece of guinea pig intestine living in “organ broth” will respond to internal touch with peristaltic nerve activity.  No neural connection to the brain upstairs or spinal cord.

It’s amazing, and mind-boggling for a non-biologist like me, but the whole concept makes me wonder if what psychology calls “attachment” is more allied to this downstairs “brain” than to the one upstairs.

I wonder, in particular, because I’ve realized that words are almost useless in helping someone deal with an eating disorder, or even an attachment disorder.  Somehow words are the wrong “language.”  And this “second brain” absolutely does not care about words, so maybe that’s where these deeper, early emotions live.

The pragmatic approaches like cognitive or dialectical behavior therapy modify how your upstairs (verbal) brain manages your relationship to food and digestion.  But what about all those feelings related to food and eating?  Feeling full, feeling safer and connected, feeling bigger and stronger and maybe armored, feeling the power of autonomy, feeling reassured, feeling consoled.  What about those, regardless of what you do about food?

And, by the way, 95% of your body’s serotonin is generated in your gut, as is 80% of your immune system.  What?!  I’ll read on.

I have a client who has lost a lot of weight but hovers around 250 pounds.  She’s healthy, exercises a lot and regularly.  No crises.  But she would like to take off more weight.  She has the normal “I’ve had enough” signals, but she overrides them.

We’re trying to figure out what magic she’s endowed food with.  We found the usual: food offered consolation, safety, and a sense of autonomy (rebellion against parents who were trying to help her not get fat as a teen).  She had a relationship with food when she was lonely, and, by god, she owned her life.

I suggested food was like a placebo, and it did reassure her (because she believed in it), but we should try to find the real medicine, so she wouldn’t have to seek soothing carbs every day.

She mentioned offhand food (or eating) made her “real.”  Well, that’s important.  Everyone needs to feel real to herself.  Maybe we could find a way for her to feel real that didn’t involve extra food, or the act of eating.

Then she added quickly, she didn’t want to blame anyone.  Like her parents? who made her throw away the candy she’d been hoarding, or shamed her about the candy wrappers they’d found hidden under the bed.

Those incidents coincided with puberty, her parents fighting toward a divorce, and her being bullied at school — all at once.  Where else could she turn?  Food was easy to get, cheap, delicious, and consoling.  Good solution, with unfortunate side effects.

Was she blaming her parents for their inadequacy, blindness, or whatever you want to call it.  No.  Becoming real to herself — acknowledging and feeling her experience of those years — wasn’t blaming anyone.

They loved her and had done their best.  They were good people, with limitations.  There were no bad guys here.  They just didn’t know how to say, “Wait a minute.  She’s eating a lot of candy.  What is she really needing?  And can we help her get it?”  They didn’t recognize that the eating was a symptom.  They had no medicine for the disease causing the symptom of her sugar-seeking.

But she did.  If she could acknowledge how things had “really” been for her — and realize she wasn’t blaming her parents — maybe she could stop running, protecting them (and her relationship with them).  She could take care of herself with no morality attached.  Normal.  Not against anyone.  That’s how it had been (for her): she’d been scared, lonely, confused, feeling helpless.  Things happen.  Those were the facts of those moments in her life.  No one’s fault, and not happening now.