the anecdote to my life
Tumblr feels like the only platform where I can openly talk about my eating disorder so let’s go:
I can’t remember a time in my life where eating didn’t feel like a chore. Growing up skinny, I was always complement on my short and tiny stature. Doctors would ask me my eating habits and I would lie. My mother was always concerned and mentioned how little I could eat but doctors always shook their heads and told her all kids are picky eaters. I lived off the idea that my problem would go away one day as I got older. I’ve waited year after year and nothing has changed.
Although that’s not entirely true.
It’s easy to forget where we’ve started on our battles but it’s crucial to remember that change is possible and that although it comes slowly (and incredibly difficult), it does come.
Thinking back to my childhood, there were too many signs that something was very wrong I ignored.
To this day, I can’t really stand when my foods touch on my plate, but I don’t have to use several forks or even wipe it before moving to another food. I don’t feel the need to finish item per item on my plate, not wanting to mix tastes in my mouth. Now I can eat some chicken and a fry and have a sip of drink while some of the other is in my mouth. I still cut my food in tiny pieces, afraid of nerves in meat or food that might be hidden like onion in rice. But there are some foods that I have learned to love and depend on. Never in my childhood did I think one day I would enjoy a turkey sandwich with lettuce avocado and bacon and species in it, everything touching and mixed together in bread, but here I am asking for it every week.
There still is the trauma. Those foods I know I can never put near my mouth. Carrots, shrimp, most sauces. Experiences from frustrated parents who would sit with me for hours and hours at the table until I at least tried something. I remember feeling like the dinner table was a torture chamber, and match, and either them or I would win. Sneaking food in my napkin and going to the restroom three times, hiding it in my pockets, in my hands, even throwing it on the ground knowing my mom would find it when she cleaned. I still remember the yelling and the screaming and even the hitting. The force sometimes, shoving food in my mouth. Me throwing up and gagging. Crying. My parents crying. “Do you wanna go to the hospital?! So they can put a tube in your stomach? Is that what you want?” Or “you’ll just die from starvation if you keep this up. Wait till you’re older and you’re sick. You’ll get diabetes, become anemic, then you’ll wish you would have tried new things.” Crying myself to sleep (most night hungry but never wanting to eat food) living off nothing but very little rice and soda. Thinking I’d rather die then than grow up to be sick. How sad for a child to think that way.
As the time went on, my parents realized their tactics did nothing. I would rather take the beating, I would rather take the yelling. If they wanted to force food down my throat that was fine I would simply vomit and they’d have to clean it. I thank god my parents realized this scare tactic was not going to fix whatever was wrong with me.
My mom started to make separate meals for me. Something she had never done before. White rice without tomato or onion. If they are sea food, I got chicken. When they made taquitos, mom always left cooked chicken on the side, which I would refuse to eat rolled up in a warm tortilla. Tortilla was always on the side. Mom made sure my food wouldn’t touch on my plate and when the juice of the beans would leak onto my rice, she’d rather me eat the parts I wanted, and serve me more clean rice than force me to eat the black rice. My family changed. My dad would still tell me that I would get sick but I realize he was filled with so much fear that I would be. Slowly but surely, no one made a fuss in my house when I was the only person eating chicken and potatoes on a seperate plate, barley sipping the broth from vegetables soup making sure I never got a mouthful of pulp. They were just happy that I was eating, eating more and not going to bed starved day after day.
School was always hard. Mom made me lunch everyday of the week, either a pb and j with VERY little jelly which I’d usually wipe off and only eat for the after taste it left, or a grilled cheese. Every morning she made sure I ate some type of breakfast. Eggs were not my favorite, but I could tolerate them. She’d buy sweeter cereals for me. Eggos for me. She woke up every morning to make sure I ate breakfast and had lunch. She’d give me money in case I ever wanted to buy something. I never saw it then, but my family helped me grow so much. Never commenting when I’d gag when trying (or smelling or looking at) something new.
Family parties were always the worst. The new torture. “Wow that’s really all she eats? And you let her?!” “That wouldn’t slide in my house, my kid would eat it bc I would never make anything special just for them.” “Wow nat you don’t like _______?!” “Just try it, even the toddlers like it.” “Even the little kids eat better than you.” My parents felt for me. They might have been embarrassed to, but it became the norm that before family parties, I’d either eat a safe meal at home, or they’d buy me something to take to the party. I always feel like I was the most embarrassed, at 8 at 13 at 16 and even 18 years old, showing up to a family dinner either with KFC mashed potatoes and gravy, or having to say I was never hungry. The looks. The judgment. The whispers. Calling me out for just sitting at the table eating nothing but rice.
The worst of it was when my family and friends thought my eating habits were because I wanted to be skinny. I always wished to be thin, in a way most young girls do. I was never a calorie counter, I never forced myself to throw up, I never really freaked out when my parents were too tight on week and falling down the next. It was a symptom but not the cause.
The older I got, the more embarrassed I felt with friends. My best friend growing up knew “you’re just kinda picky, but that’s okay.” Going to her house and staying in her room when her family had dinner. She’d come over and sit at the table with my family. She’d watch me get a different meal. She’d watch me wipe my fork, seperate the food on my plate, pick and everything before I was able to put it in my mouth. If the chicken had a tiny piece of dark to it, it’d rip that part off. I realize now that true love and friendship doesn’t care about that. she’d eat what I’d leave on my plate. She’d eat her food as fast as my family and as everyone would get up to clear and clean the table, she’d sit right next to me for another 40 minutes if that’s what it took because she knew not only was I picky, but I was a slow eater. She’d eat the middle hearts of my chopped lettuce, she’d eat the large pieces of meat I’d cut out and never explained why I wouldn’t eat it. Maybe it was dirty with other food. Maybe it just looked funny. Never any questions or judgement.
College was tougher. Not having dinner with my family meant I was responsible to make sure I ate something during the day. School from morning to night, had me not eating meals for days at a time. Mom would always ask as soon as I got home “so what did you eat today”? There were many times where I would lie. Because I didn’t have an appetite. Because I didn’t want her to have to make me something at the end of the day. I could only go a few days before she’d made something and tell me I had to eat because she made it specifically for me. I’m thankful for that because I was always too stubborn to admit how much pain I would be in day after day from lack of food.
My experience with sexual and domestic abuse from my high scho boyfriend changed me forever. This new fear and anxiety and restlessness was what turned me more to drugs and alcohol. I remember taking random pills I would find in peoples houses. Developing and ulcer not only senior year of high school, but well into my freshman and sophomore year of college.
Treating my stomach pains with nothing but 5-7 Advil’s a day, 4-5 beers a night, and my weed vape pen. I was running from so much back then. This lifestyle caused me to bloat like crazy. Then came the obsessive eating. My safe foods became another drug to me. Eating a plate full of pasta and extra large turkey sandwiches. Three bags of chips a day. When the weight gain started, I fluctuated between 8 meals a day one week, to starving myself out for 5 days. The exhaustion and depression that came with it messed up my mental health. Stretch marks on my body, days without the strength to shower, skipping class for weeks at a time because my bed was all I could handle.
I’m still not sure how, but that urge started to go away. After 3-4 years, I decided to look into more treatment for my “picky eating” when I started to learn more information about selective eating disorder. Still only recognized in children and not adults, I felt the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders. I matched all the symptoms. The relation to OCD, the anxiety that came around being new foods, The extreme fatigue and anemia, and especially the gagging reflex which I always felt I have no control over. It is now defined as a wait restricted food intake disorder and I’m so glad to have it. 
All my life I’ve grown up telling myself that picky eating was just who I was and I would die one day from malnutrition or starvation or some other type of illness because I was always to “stubborn“ to try new food. It has brought me so much relief to learn how much of the population is affected from this eating disorder. That’s right, I was finally brave enough to tell myself that I DID HAVE AN EATING DISORDER. I wasn’t just a picky eater, I had an illness. That meant that the illness was not all I was, it’s not how I would have to live my life, but a condition that does have so much control over me. It is important to remind myself every day that I have a condition. And like most illnesses, there is treatment. We need support systems. We need to recognize that although we didn’t cause it, we have to control it. 
As I get older, this eating disorder still takes up too much of my time. It has stopped me from dating, stop me from going to family parties, stop me from going out to eat with friends. I worry the day I want to have a kid and I’ll be too weak and unhealthy to do so. And even if I could what example what I said to my kid. What would I cook?
I realize that although I’ve never told anyone directly, except maybe three friends about my eating disorder, everyone knows. For years I’ve been going out with my group and they have seen me eat one thing and sometimes nothing and they’ve seen me pick at my food and it took me so long to realize how they’ve never mentioned it and they always continue to invite me to go out to eat because surprisingly they enjoy my company. 
It’s important to me now to talk about this issue I’ve dealt with my whole life because I realize I’m not alone in having it and I’m not alone and suffering through it. I have friends who love me for me, parents who would do anything to see me eat as healthy as I possibly can, my brother who always lets me try his food and never says anything when I spit it out and when I try something I do end up liking he is as ecstatic as I am. Friends who would drive me to get my food and they get there’s because what I eat is not important to them. It will not define who I am. I just hope the people I choose to love in the future can feel the same way. That my future husband or wife will understand. That my future friends will. Most importantly, I hope that I can continue on this upward journey of trying new things with the people I feel safe with who give me patience and strength.
I have avoidant restrictive food intake disorder and Although I am ashamed of it most of the time, it’s part of me. Only I can resolve this. Only I have the strength to over come this fear. I realize I have accomplished so much over the years and how many new foods I eat now I would have never thought I could even try a couple years ago. Progress in not linear or quick. Progress is effort and strength. Progress is support and love. Progress is within me. I have an eating disorder, but I feel like I have the power to change. Im done keeping this secret a secret because I now have the strength to help myself and those who are just like me.
