Food

When I was young, I was very small and skinny. Prone to illness, my mother put a lot of time and effort into feeding me and making sure I was eating enough to stay strong. I was doted on but also watched like a hawk, and winning the approval of my mother through how much I ate is one of the strongest memories of my early childhood.

My mother was a wonderful cook and I loved most of what she made, but I also know that my relationship with her and with food was deeply dysfunctional. I write this today knowing that my disordered eating and my use of food to block any and all emotions ties directly back to my childhood.

It is hard to explain it, but all I know is this: if I ate everything on my plate, my mother was happy and offered me more. She lavished praise on me and would sometimes even clap happily watching me eat. I can still see the ashtray and the smoke from her cigarette billowing upward as she jumped up from the table to spoon seconds onto my plate.

When I didn't eat what she made, or it was a dish I didn't particularly like, it was as if I'd destroyed her soul. She needed my validation as much as I needed her approval. It wasn't enough to eat what she cooked and thank her for the meal. It needed to be devoured; it needed to be effusively, repeatedly praised; it needed to be the best ever, every single time.

It was a game we played, and I, the performing monkey, could win love and affection by eating the right amount and saying the right words.

In a childhood that was often filled with pain, shame, and discomfort, food was a safe place.

Until it wasn't. When I was small or sickly, I could win affection by eating seconds or thirds, by yelping out screams of delight at the table.

But, when I was older and my body began changing, so did this dynamic.

My mom, still hungry for the validation, cooked and piled food onto my plate, and I still voiced my pleasure. But, seconds were fraught. It was good to ask for seconds but it was also bad. Seconds signaled pleasure and approval, but they also signaled gluttony and a lack of control.

The singularity of eating changed. It was no longer a simple transaction: she cooked, I ate, I praised, she savored it, I was loved. It became confused with judgment...my mother could no longer pile seconds on my plate without also looking at my stomach, at the roll of fat protruding over my pants. She hated the fat, judged it--me--relentlessly, but she was also desperate for the compliment.

And I was desperate for approval but also angry at myself (and her) for needing it so badly.

And thus the road was paved for disordered eating. For slowly and methodically gaining weight and facing judgment and pushing down anger and resentment with food.

Food has always been my everything. It is how I was loved.

I say that I love food and love eating, but I don't think that's exactly true. I am obsessed with food. It is what I think about almost every waking moment.

It is my everything.