Date: Sept. 08, 2002 Time: 12:59 AM My current mood is: The Story of My ED Part 3: The Prequel (and read Part 2 1/2!) In the years growing up, food and weight have always been a major issue. One could even say it started when I was born, as I was born lactose intolerent(that's actually rare). For the first month that I was alive I cried day in and day out from being fed, finally my parents figured out that I could not digest milk, which was why I was throwing such a fit. See, food is evil! Hehe. Ok maybe this had nothing to do with it. For real though, weight was always an issue. My grandfather and aunt were Compulsive Overeaters, my aunt is probably around 350 pounds, no lie, she is morbidly obese. Her room is filled with various eating disorder and diet books. Lets put it this way, she actually TALKED to Richard Simmons on the phone, and was on one of his tv specials!! My grandfather being verbally abusive, had always called her fat, a pig, and plenty of very harsh names growing up and still does to this day, so I grew up hearing these things. I grew up hearing "don't ever let yourself get fat!" fairly often. My aunts weight was often the topic of discussion. My grandfather was pretty open about being addicted to food, it was all he ever talked about. It was odd, how he would proudly admit to eating 3 loaves a bread a week, and say how in love with food he is, yet 5 minutes later go on and on about what a fat pig lazy piece of shit my aunt is(as she's sitting right there). My aunt took the opposite route, when we'd go to her apartment, her fridge would have nothing but lettuce and diet coke. Right. I would always search her house since I was little, searching for where the "real" food was, cause I just KNEW she ate tons of junk food, I just wanted to prove it to myself. At meals infront of people she will only eat salad. I was given very mixed messeges about food. My grandfather would always give me insanely large amounts of candybars, then tell me not to eat it all at once. It would always confuse me why he would think that I WOULD eat it all at once. My aunt would constantly guilt trip me telling me my grandfather was so good to me "because he gives you candybars all the time, see??", that was pretty much the only thing she could say. Hmmm. When I'd sleep over my aunt's, it was a tradition that she'd always take us food shopping first. She'd say "Ok, now you can go pick out ANYTHING YOU WANT!!!", as if we were starved at home or something. It's kind of weird, she like kept trying to make us binge. My sister and I would just look at each other, and pick out cereal. She'd always prod us "You can get anything! Do you want cookies? Chocolate? Chips?". We really didn't care, but being kids we'd say yes, pick out all this junk food and end up not eating most of it. Looking back I think that was her way of getting binge food without feeling guilty, cause we'd end up leaving tons of junk food there. That would explain why she would constantly make us get so much. My mom always took great pains not to be like them as far as weight and food. She was the thin one. Growing up, my mom didn't want me to be like my aunt. Infact nobody did. For some reason it was assumed I could go either way...be normal, or become morbidly obese. Diet tips were sprinkled onto me (don't eat the yellow of eggs, let soup sit so you can scrape off the fat on top, never eat the skin on chicken, etc). My mom gave me talks about how once you get fat cells, no matter if you lose weight again, you'll always have them and it will be harder to stay thin, so it's better never to get fat at all, and things like how you should always suck in your stomach so it stays flatter. When I got chubby as lots of girls do during those wonderful puberty years, everyone thought it was happening, that I was gaining weight like my aunt had. I was reminded of this frequently. My grandfather started making remarks about my weight, leading to unexplained grabbing of my arm by my mom saying "We've got to go home now", she didn't want me to hear what he was saying. I recently looked at old psychiatric test of this time, and it says something to the effect that the psych. was concerned about the amount I talked about food, and that I had control issues about it...no idea why? I don't remember my views on food at that time. My mom... did she? Sometimes I ask that question. Did she have a problem? I don't think so, though she definitly had some issues with food/weight. She always made sure she was at a procise weight. She always seemed to be dieting. I remember for lunch, she'd pack half a sandwhich and a piece of fruit everyday. One day I mentioned it to my dad, and he seemed really surprised and asked her about it. I was confused, because I didn't realize it was supposed to be a secret. At holiday dinners she never ate. She was the cliche always up on her feet serving everyone while people kept telling her to sit down and eat type of mom. I don't remember when I started thinking I was fat. I know in 9th grade I thought I was fat, before that, I really have no idea. So basicly all through high school and probably earlier, I always had the idea that I was gross and overweight, though I was actually normal. Then again, most girls think this. I might also mention, that my sister was always considered "the thin one". No one ever thought she would be obese, it just wasn't assumed like it was with me. Gee, thanks a lot. So this is the background of my story. To Be Continued..... Leave a message Last Entry ~ Next Entry Enter email to occasionally get special or pointless updates: