I have an addiction that is ridiculed and encouraged in equal measure. I am addicted to food, and I live in a society that is just becoming used to the idea that such a thing is possible. Gluttony is a billion-dollar business, and pop culture extremism carries the fascination into the stratosphere. But this isn't about the fads and the diet methods, the fatshaming and fatclaiming, the glorification of bigger and more processed for less money which results in a Happy Meal being cheaper than a bag of apples. I could easily turn all these thoughts into that, make this a grand issue, but then it becomes about what it has always become about before: anything other than me.
I was never a skinny kid, but I was active and definitely ate much better in my early years. Growing up on a farm gave me access to fresh produce that were the staples of my snacking, and the trees into which I would climb to retrieve them. I can mark pretty significantly the turning point: my parents' divorce between my 7th and 8th years. Divorce is never easy for kids but ours was complicated by (what I now know as) my first memory of my mother's mental issues. Of course, it's only in hindsight that I can recognize this. As a seven-year-old, all I knew was that my parents were suddenly screaming at each other, my mom and brother and I were suddenly living with my grandparents in another city, and I was a country kid without any friends in a suburban environment. I went from feeling secure to feeling timid and shadow-haunted.
My maternal side has never been what you would call good in the kitchen. My grandfather was a meat n' potatoes kind of guy; the vegetables usually consisted of a salad of iceberg lettuce with a couple of cucumbers and a bland tomato coated in Thousand Island dressing. The meal always ended with coffee and ice cream or cookies. My great-grandmother, when she visited, always brought a tin of homemade cookies with her to eat during tea. She visited at least a couple times a month. Lunches were grilled cheese sandwiches and canned soup and my tongue pretty much got used to two versions of flavor: salty or sweet. Afternoons were spent in the den watching Days of Our Lives while my grandmother starched and ironed shirts, even during the heat of summer. The only time this changed was when I went with her to the hairdresser, where sitting still and being good for 2 hours usually netted me a dollar and a cherry Slushee.
The rest of my childhood and adolescense fell into a pattern: mom would do well enough that we would move out, but not so well that we could afford anything but the cheapest and worst food possible (not that she would have known what to do with something better), then she'd have a breakdown and we'd move back in with the grandparents who were having their own issues...my grandmother also starting having mental issues that gradually grew worse to the point of anorexia and food paranoia. I believe now that both issues were caused, at least in part, by my grandfather but my goodness, that's another path to travel down another day. This revolving door happened 3-4 times between the ages of 8 and 18. While most around me sought their mothers for comfort from teenage disappointments, I took mine in bags of Cheetos and soap operas. My insta-response to stress or sorrow or disappointment ever since has been in the stuffing it down.
This isn't meant to prod pity from anyone and the only reason that I'm even making this public is because I trust the members of my core group who I am primarily writing this for who seem to understand where this comes from. Our stories might not be the same, but, at some point or another, the external struggles and the internal condemnation have been experienced. The internal voice might not say quite the same thing as mine says to me, but it's still something we all listen to, and that's something we all understand.
Writing is my catharsis. I do my best self-analyzing when I write, but somehow journaling isn't quite the thing for me; it's a bit like I need to know someone aside from myself is reading...or at least could POTENTIALLY read it...before I can claim it as real. And I can't change things if I'm not willing to claim them in the first place.
I love food and I hate food. It's my joy and my celebration and my drug and my anasthesia. I feel guilty for enjoying it, and mad when I feel guilty about enjoying it. I feel like I'm not entitled to like it since I'm overweight, and I feel like why aren't I entitled to it if I'm already overweight anyway? I feel like why does being overweight have anything to do with whether I enjoy it or not. The voices inside are evil and they get quiet only when they get a cupcake. But once the cupcake is gone, they get louder and the cycle starts again. And until I'm willing to stop feeding the voices, I will never end the cycle.
This blog posting option is going to get real. It might get funny, it might get sad, it might get ugly and nasty, but it's time for it to get real. I want more than 4% weightloss; I want guilt loss. I want anger loss. I want shadow loss. I'm tired of using food as an anasthetic. It's time to let the numbness wear off.