WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2010
I Hate Food
Yes, I have said it. I hate food. I don't dislike the taste or eating. I actually dislike food itself because it's stressful to me. It does not actually bring me any comfort or pleasure. I wish I could sit down to a meal or snack and have it make me happy, have it satisfy me. It never really does however. My stomach might feel full, but I often feel as empty as my plate. I don't know what I just got out of the meal I ate.
Most people have families that grew and shared happiness around a meal and in the kitchen. It was a joyous family event to cook a big meal and sit down together and enjoy what they just created. They might sit at the table and converse about their day or at holidays share family stories. I would imagine food could be a great and happy thing, only I don't actually know what any of that is like.
In my home meal time meant stress. Mom was always slamming cabinets and cursing. It was always hurried. She cooked everything on HI to get it out on the table as fast as possible. Things would be boiling over and she'd be yelling at it. As I got older and was expected to help in the kitchen. I really didn't like to cook. I didn't like to be around all that craziness. It was loud and unbearable, even if I was only stirring gravy or noodles. I just wanted to hide in my room and wait for it to end! Holiday cooking, oh forget it! That was HOURS AND HOURS of Hell! And it would usually start days before with mom bitching at my dad about having to cook this big and perfect meal. To this day any time she is in the kitchen it is like this. Huffing and puffing and cursing. Making faces and throwing an attitude around. I can't stand it.
Now sitting down to a meal, again a nitemare. Mom would always have us sitting down and serving ourselves before she even bothered to sit at the table. I think sometimes she would stand in the kitchen and cry before coming to the table. We never spoke while we ate and we all ate as fast as we could to make sure the table was getting cleared and dishes were being done before my dad got up from the table. I don't know what the reason behind this was. If there was conversation it was usually my dad getting mad at my brother or me about something mom told him we had done. The stress was still the same if we went out to eat. We all sat there in silence. It was always a big deal to figure out what we wanted on the menu. Mom would freak out if the waiter came to ask us how we were doing before we knew what we wanted. We always ate in silence and shoveled it in again as fast as we could so we could leave. When I was 10 we were out having breakfast one morning and my dad hit me in the face from across the table to remove the fork from my hand and mouth. He proceeded to yell at me about how I was eating like a savage and then yelled at my mom about not teaching me how to eat properly. I didn't know that I was holding my fork wrong. No one ever told me any better. I was forced the rest of the day to eat with my hands like a baby since I didn't know how to use utensils.
I spent the first week of every month while I had braces eating alone at a different table. It was very painful to chew and my dad said it was disgusting to watch me eat. No one ever made me anything that was easy to chew. I would cry at the thought of having to eat. The pain was awful. Half the time I would just move things around my plate and not eat because I couldn't.
Holidays at family was much the same. Everyone getting bent out of shape about having to cook such a large meal. By the time everyone would sit down they were too exhausted from their ordeals to even look like they were enjoying what they were shoveling into their mouths. There were never compliments given about what had been cooked. Just words about how this or that could have been better. This is too dry, that is cold. Blah blah blah. My best holiday was Thanksgiving 2009 with Skip. It was just us, we made a small bird and some extras and watched Survivor on the computer at our kitchen table. There was no cursing, no stress. I never felt so much relief about a holiday in my life.
I even hate to fill my house with food because of the shopping trip. While it is better now, I still feel confused and I often don't really want to go. Chris and I always went with mom. We had to hold on to the cart and say nothing. Ask for nothing. She would march through the commissary like a crazy women with a list. We would get the end with our tongues dragging only to listen to her bitch about how much she had to spend to feed us. Chris and I were never involved with the shopping or planning. To this day I still struggle to understand what I am doing. Mom still freaks out about shopping. She still tells me that I am not able to shop for myself. But that's for other reasons that don't belong here.
So that's my lifetime of food pain in a nutshell. Dinner now is never stressful, but I still don't enjoy it the same way Skip does. Yes, it tastes great. Yes, I feel good to be sharing my table with him. But I still finish and stare at my empty plate and have no idea if I am satisfied. I eat fast so that I can just get it over with. I can have my plate cleared and rinsed in the washer before Skip is done with his first helping. He tastes every bit of food he eats and food makes him happy. I don't understand it. I don't cook on HI anymore and I don't worry about everything being perfectly coordinated at finish time. We never slam things or curse when we are cooking. And we never have a set time a meal has to be ready. But I still don't fully enjoy what we have created together. It really sucks.
And before now, I can say I never really thought about it
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