28) Allied together against the HO Monster

Yesterday afternoon, my husband confronted Sasha about his cache of chocolate.  As predicted, he denied that he had taken or eaten any chocolate. However, when told of the known chocolate and their hiding places, he had to admit that he had eaten the chocolate.  He ended up confessing that he had snuck out of the house in the early morning hours to buy the chocolate.  He then melted down into a puddle of shame and self loathing and retreated to his room. These outbursts, although very upsetting, are not unusual- unfortunately, we are used to these meltdowns because they occur each and every time he is confronted about food sneaking. In his typical fashion, he stayed in his room to stew and lick his wounds (and to probably finish off the rest of his hidden chocolate)- after his hour-long retreat, he came out and had dinner.  He was sober and quiet but appeared much less distressed.  We decided to leave the topic alone for the evening and to revisit it the next day.   In order to secure the house from any future elopements, my husband installed alarms on all the doors in the house.

In the morning, I calmly and very matter-of-factly told Sasha that I wanted to talk with him about the chocolate he had acquired and that I was not at all interested in punishing him or shaming him for the behavior.  I told him that I understood very well that it was not Sasha who acquired the chocolate but that it was rather the HO Monster.  I explained to Sasha that there are in fact five beings living in our home- his dad, mom, sister, himself and HO Monster.  I described this HO Monster as being like his evil twin...it tries to overpower him by seducing him into finding and eating foods that are harmful to him (carbs/sugars)... it needs to be conquered by us in order for Sasha to be happy and healthy... WE need to become allies to destroy this monster.  I asked Sasha if he understood the importance of becoming partners in the fight against HO Monster.  Sasha appeared thoughtful as I described that he is the victim to the monster and how he needs to find the strength to fight the monster off before it destroys him.  I also told him that our biggest weapon against the monster would be The Truth- that The Truth, however undesirable, inconvenient, or confusing, would help us the most in conquering this monster.

Now, I know HO Monster is a liar living inside of him and that there are several reasons to see Sasha's reports as COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE.  The monster's agenda (to acquire food, especially sweets), Sasha's desire to not disappoint me, and his poor memory all add up to give me little reason to believe anything he reports to me on the topic of food and food sneaking.  I know this.  I know to take what Sasha says with a big ol' chunk o' salt.  That said, I still wanted to see if I could piece together the sequence of events to help me understand what happened with his appetite and cravings for chocolate.  I thought that it might be easier for him to reveal the truth to me since we were talking about events in the past after his big secret had been revealed.  Call me a gullible fool,  I still needed to ask... use your own judgement about the credibility of what I am about to reveal regarding Sasha's reports.

I felt like a detective as I tried to help him remember the sequence of events.  Based on what I learned from him and other observed clues, my best guess is that his cravings for more sweets began the weekend we went away to the family camp (July 8).  There, they served all meals family style that included many foods that are normally prohibited in Sasha's food plan.  It was very difficult for us to keep the food away from him in this environment so unfortunately, he did eat carbs like bread, potatoes, a brownie and cookie.  Sasha admitted to me that during this weekend, he started to think about food a lot.  His thoughts reverted back to how he felt before oxytocin took effect- he found himself being more preoccupied by food and after tasting the sugary desserts, he wondered how he could get more.  After this weekend, Sasha shared that he became obsessed with getting more sweets.  He doesn't recall the exact date he snuck to the store the first time but reports that he went twice and that these visits were done in the last two weeks or so.  He admitted that he snuck out in the very early morning hours while we were asleep (4-5 AM) and walked the 1/3 mile from our house to the 24-hour Safeway to buy the chocolate candies.

I thanked Sasha for telling me about the monster's behaviors and remarked how clever, daring, and ambitious this monster is.  I told Sasha that we would need to be even more powerful in order to conquer this beast.  Then I held my breath and asked him the question I was most afraid to ask:

"During the couple of  weeks (between June 24 and July 8) when we noticed your decreased appetite, was HO monster sneaking in extra food or sweets that we did not know about?"

Without hesitation, he replied "no."  I gave him several outs and told him that I would not be upset or angry to learn that he had in fact taken extra food during these weeks.  He stuck with his report that during that time, he was in fact noticing a reduced appetite and a lessening obsession about food.

Dare I breathe a sigh of relief?  I want so badly to believe him that what we thought was a reduction of appetite during that time was in fact TRUE.  I really don't know if it's true. When I discoveerd that he was continuing to sneak food during his trial with oxytocin, I had been thinking that the oxytocin experiment was a failure. However, as advised by Dr. Miller, I need to be more patient with this experiment.  She explained to me that these victims of HO are programmed to seek food and that it takes a long time to break the habit of seeking food as a survival mechanism.  I can certainly understand the need to continue to hoard food under these circumstances.  With the additional piece of sugar addiction, I can also see that it is possible his eating sugar created a vicious cycle to crave more sugar...

With the help of increased food security and a healthy dose of caution and skepticism, I will soldier on with the oxytocin experiment.