The Miss Fizzy Phenomenon

My boyfriend used to have a cat named Miss Fizzy. As I understand the story, Miss Fizzy was a rescue cat and was very thin and starved when she came into the care of my boyfriend. In his household she had ready access to food. This, it seems, was a huge change for Miss Fizzy. In response to the presence of food, following a lifetime of scarcity of food, Miss Fizzy gorged herself on every occasion and became an obese cat.

My boyfriend and I moved to Houston about 6 years ago and struggled to gain an economic foothold. He does small project construction and has spent years slowly developing a steady stream of clients, scraping for work along the way; he was in a constant state of anxiety about from where his next job would come. Similarly, I opened my practice and spent the next 3 months sitting my office waiting for the phone to ring. My practice picked up and after about 3 years I was finally bringing in enough money to pay my bills most months. We spent the first 5½ years in Houston in our own version of starving.

Within the last 4 months my boyfriend has had steady work and is now scheduling clients about a month out. During February and March I started to have record weeks with regard to number of clients I was seeing each week. Suddenly after a Houston lifetime of scarcity of income, we find ourselves with ample opportunity for income. He has been engaging in 50 to 60-hour physical labor weeks and I have been scheduling more clients than was my goal to see in a week. So like Miss Fizzy, we appear to be gorging on income opportunities. In fact, it seems we could work ourselves into our own version of poor health if we are not careful.

The temptation for what has been absent is great. Part of the motivation comes from the fear that the opportunities will not last: How do I know that there will still be some later, so I had better grab all that I can now. A gluttonous period following famine is natural, but it can also be unhealthy—the body needs to gradually adjust to the change. Consequently, I have imposed limits on myself with regard to how many hours a week I will see clients. I know that I may need to even adjust that down once the sense of scarcity has faded in order to protect my health.

The Miss Fizzy Phenomenon can affect people in a number of ways. One of the ways to which my boyfriend and I are particularly sensitive is spending—suddenly having disposable income after 5 years is REALLY tempting. But another common version of this which I see with clients is sexually. When someone leaves a relationship or when someone changes their body (e.g. weight loss or body building) and can screw around, he or she can binge on sex or sexual novelty, which may have felt scarce during the relationship or when one did not find himself or herself attractive. Unfortunately, this type of sexual gorging often leaves someone feeling empty—and frequently increases his or her pursuit of sex. There are, of course, too many other ways in which one can gorge following deprivation to enumerate here.

I think many of us experience sudden access to something that previously felt scarce at some point in our lives. When this happens keep Miss Fizzy in mind. Be mindful of the gorging in which you engage. Attend to the effect on both your body and your mind and pace yourself.