(Part One: https://tsutsujigirl.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/life-with-an-eating-disorder-part-1-what-its-like )
Let’s be honest. I LOVE food. I love to cook it, I love to eat it, I love to make it for other people, I love to read recipes. It’s comfort and joy and new experiences. It makes me happy. Some people may think that’s why I binge on it, but that’s not it at all. It’s about control, not food. It’s about holding it, knowing it’s mine and not wanting it taken away. It’s about demanding power.
Ed (my name for my eating disorder, and my way of personifying him) decided to take hold of my brain in middle school. I hated middle and high school. I was a chunky kid and was bullied for my weight, bullied for my brain, bullied for my interests. I used to run to gym so I could change before any other girls arrived, because they called me “fat bitch” if I changed around them. They pointed and whispered and drove me so far beyond endurance that I developed psychosomatic illness and would make myself vomit to stay home. Back in the 80s and 90s, school choice wasn’t a thing, so I couldn’t leave. When I asked the counselors for help, I was told bullying was character building and I should feel sorry for the bullies. Aside from my parents, I felt no one cared about me or my feelings. After I asked for help for awhile from the school and was met with indifference, I gave up. I felt helpless and like no one cared about me.
But there was food. Food didn’t make fun of me. People loved it when I baked for them and I got attention. And of course you have to taste what you’re baking, and taste, ans taste, and taste. I felt better. I could survive a heinous day, then come home and eat. And oh, did I eat. But then, because all my eating, I had to diet. My family all struggled with weight, and would cycle in and out of diets until we got tired of it and ate whatever for awhile.
Let’s talk about lasagna. My mom makes insane lasagna. It is my favorite food; I can make it from memory and it’s perfect every time. It was with lasagna that I first remember needing control over food. My dad was a tall guy and needed a lot of food, so my mom would serve him bigger pieces. This makes total sense, rationally, but mental illness isn’t rational. I’d see that bigger piece of lasagna and I wanted it. And when it was explained that I got a smaller piece because I wasn’t as big as my dad, such extraordinary rage rose up in me. Ed was furious. I wanted it, I deserved it, it was the only thing that would make me happy and no one wanted me to be happy. Nobody cared what I wanted. And after my parents left the kitchen, I ate the scraps out of the pan in the sink and felt like I had control. And Ed just lied more and more, and made me think this was a normal way to live.
In high school I did Weight Watchers. When I started losing weight, suddenly I had attention. “You look so pretty. Did you lose weight?” It taught me that I was only pretty as long as I was thin. Ed had a field day. But I had a secret. I’d pack my Weight Watchers lunch and head to school. Do you remember that diet bread? It tasted like paste, and couldn’t hold its shape. By the time I reached lunch, the sandwich had disintegrated into mush. So, I’d throw the whole lunch away, and sit and watch my friends eat pizza and milkshakes (our school had a Pizza Hut in the cafeteria and it smelled so good) , and I think about how much I hated everyone, all thin and cute and eating junk. Then, I’d go home and take a diet pudding cup, load it up with marshmallows, chocolate chips and whatever garbage I could find, and sit on the floor and binge the thing. But I was losing weight so I was healthy, right? Healthy and pretty and whatever people thought I was supposed to be. That’s what Ed said. And I was in control of that tiny piece of life, even when it hurt me.
Needless to say when I went off Weight Watchers in college and could eat whatever I wanted, it all fell apart. I ate ALL the things.
I hate sharing food, especially if I’ve ordered it for myself. I absolutely hate it when I order a dessert and the server brings spoons for everyone. I often meal plan if I want dessert (my favorite) and so don’t order beverages or sides. I didn’t drink my friend’s margarita or eat their fries, why do they automatically get my dessert? It’s mine. I’m paying for it, I chose it, and it’s MINE. I won’t argue if they take a bite, but that old irrational anger swells up, and I can be silently mad for hours. It’s different, however, if we agree to share beforehand; then I’m fine. It’s the assumption that the item doesn’t belong to me that makes me upset. It’s not the food, it’s the control. It’s Ed in there, saying they’re eating it because I’m fat and don’t deserve to have it, and that they want me to be unhappy.
And that’s how it goes. When my life feels painful or chaotic, that old pull comes back, and I want the food. And I don’t want “diet food,” which is punishment and makes me sad, I want sweets and carbs and “forbidden” things. It’s taken years of reteaching, practice and failures to reorient my views on food, and to relinquish some control. I’m getting there, bit by bit. On the high days I’m fine. I eat healthy and Ed stays quiet. It’s the low days that trip me up. Finding other ways to get control are key. Stating my needs clearly is hard, but I’m getting better at it.
These are hard to write. It’s hard to admit how my mind turned on me and ravaged my body. I’m making progress, day by day. More to come, but I’ll end here. Please remember when you’re talking to someone about diets, before you say “just have willpower,” it may not be about willpower. It may be about pain, trauma, despair, or control. It’s not the food.
A reminder that I am on a program from my therapist, and I am not open to discussions of diets or “weight loss tools.” Ed loves it. I don’t.
Edge Pieces 