Sunday, May 8, 2011

The world revolves around food...

Showers, happy hours, birthday parties, regular parties, work celebrations (rewards/treats), holidays, get togethers, reunions... what do they all have in common?  Food is always the focus.  Why is it that when people get together they always need to eat?  And it's rarely ever anything that isn't horrible for you.  Or if the food's okay, you still have the dessert to deal with (normally several that you 'have just got try').  

It's like putting an alcoholic in a bar.  Nothing will ever be a bigger trigger for purging.  The best option is to eat on my own and not eat at functions but it's like a major taboo to not eat when food is provided and everyone else is eating.  

General social situations are okay.  I'm getting pretty good at just knowing my limits and not letting people who have no idea the war in my head guilt me into eating things that I know I can't handle.  Family though... that's a whole other issue entirely.  

American culture fixates on food, but my family is over the top.  Food has always been the center of family time (extended especially).  Christmas is almost a solid week of constant food being made and kept out on the table.  If we're hanging out, then we're eating.  We go out to dinner, our tab is ridiculous. I have a tendency to stick out up north with all those guys.  I'm significantly thinner than the rest of my family and I can't eat the way they do and keep my head out of the toilet.  

I love LOVE spending time with my extended fam on my dad's side.  I'm going up this weekend and am really excited.  But unfortunately that happiness and excitement will always be paired with intense anxiety over the food battles and never ending war.  

Sometimes I wonder if my parents had stayed up north after college and I had grown up there, would I be 'normal' about food?  How much did growing up in the south and in two big cities (known for pretty blondes and cheerleaders) effect who I am?  Always comes down to nature vs nurture.  One of my favorite authors made an interesting point about why she became ED and said that no doubt it was about self destruction, but she had many different options and means and for some reason she chose ED.  Obviously she didn't have the answer to why, no one does.  I find it very interesting though.  How different would things have turned out if there had been slightly different circumstances.  And think about how worse it could have been!  Starving is numbing and in large doses induces varying degrees of mania.  Purging offers releif from anxiety and crisis mode.  I could get all this from a variety of uppers and downers (legal and not).  I could have been strung out on a plethora of dangerous substances by my teens.  Still could.  I've never not had access to these things.  So looking at it that way I'm glad I have some eating issues over substance ones.  

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