Once upon a time there was a little girl that had many m&ms. They were really yummy m&ms and she had a lot of them. No one really knew where she got them, and really, she didn't know either. They were just there; all the colors, this was even before the blue ones came out. She had the holiday ones, peanut, mint, peanut butter, pretzel, plain-all of them. She liked her m&ms. The peanut butter were her favorite. The m&ms were important.
She liked to share her m&ms. She would give them out at school or church or sometimes at home - she loved the look of happiness or pride on another's face when they had that little colorful pile in their hand.
Sometimes though people would take her m&ms. Sometimes they would go missing from the place that she kept them, sometimes they were physically ripped out of her hands, they were dug out of her pockets and snatched as she was about to put some into her mouth. Sometimes they would reject her m&ms. She would give and there would be no pride just more taking.
This hurt, it was frustrating, and confusing.
She thought, well I always have more, they always just show up so I guess it isn't a big deal. Maybe it is normal. Sometimes though, she would ask people, why do people take my m&ms? I am willing to share. What do I have to do to keep some m&m's?
She was told that she has to give more m&ms then the people would stop taking so many. She was told that she should take less for herself. This sounded good to her.
Then
She wasn't a little girl anymore.
She started to tell herself that she was being selfish by taking *any* m&ms. Didn't she realize the number of m&ms that she had taken for herself? It was so awfully many, wasn't it enough? Actually she thought that she deserved to have the m&ms taken. What had she done to get the m&ms? How dare she be so upset about the ones that she didn't have? She told herself that it was her job to make sure everyone else had their m&ms.
Somehow she found more people to take the m&ms from her. More and more and more of them.
Then
She would run from those people and horde what was left of the m&ms. Taking them for herself, bingeing on her freedom to eat as many as she could, keeping them from the takers. Making herself sick.
Time passed as she sometimes gave them, sometimes received them. Sometimes her misguided attempts to protect the m&ms would make her sick. Sometimes there were none. Sometimes there were, even peanut butter ones. Sometimes there were m&ms and she would ignore the m&ms, for fear that someone else might take them.
Then
She realized that she was in control of her m&ms. She realized it was her responsibility to stop the taking. That she could do the giving, freely. She remembered that she loved the giving.
She didn't know how to be in control of her own m&ms. She had forgotten how to give them freely.
She knew it would be hard - harder than all the taking, harder than the rejection, more painful than the bingeing - she had to learn to be in charge of her own m&ms.
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