I’m just going to warn you straight out. This post is crazy. And if you are one of those people who gets crazy reading about my crazy then you probably want to skip all the crazy and go straight to your therapist (do not pass Go, do not collect 200 xanax). Which is where I would be venting this nonsense if she hadn’t abandoned me for the prison system (sure, like people in prison need excellent therapists… oh, um, right.)
I hate food.
If there was a pill that I could take every day and never have to deal with eating actual comestibles (note to self: now there’s a fun word that doesn’t get used nearly enough!), I would take it in a heart beat and never look back.
Hunger feels like failure to me. (Which is probably the stupidest sentence I’ve ever written – and I’m the same girl who once wrote a 600 word post for a celeb site I can’t name about how Michelle William’s blousy shirt made her look pregnant. Newsflash: blousy shirts make all of us look pregnant. And I’m wearing one right now. Nope, not pregnant, just ate a huge lunch. Which brings me back to my point thereby negating the necessity of these parentheses.) Despite the fact that every human being on the planet gets hungry at least several times a day and it is a natural biological signal necessary for survival, I still feel like if I just had enough self mastery I would never get hungry. And if I never got hungry then I would never be held hostage by my growling tummy, staring down an unholy array of foods while mentally cataloging the nutritional pros and cons of each.
In the past I’ve dealt with this “paralysis by analysis” by just not eating. Going to bed with the growlies was preferable to trying to figure out if the organic chicken or non-organic tempeh was the lesser evil. (But one’s an animal product and I don’t eat animals! But the other one’s soy and soy gives me gas that clears a room faster than a wrapping paper fund raiser!) Nursing the ever ravenous Jelly Bean has, understandably, removed this option. Along with the fact that Lamaze breathing does zilch for labor pain, something else they never tell you in childbirth class is that lactating will make many of us as hungry as a popgut at a picnic. Hunger, when your boobs are responsible for feeding an exponentially growing human being, feels like a true emergency. I don’t care how many times Judith Beck tells me hunger is not an emergency, it still feels like code red.
So, unable to decide what an appropriate meal and caloric allotment should be, I procrastinate eating until I can’t put it off any more and then – because I’m so hungry – I eat something truly crappy. Like jelly beans. And as soon as I eat it, the guilt sets in. Really, it doesn’t need to be jelly beans or some other junk food to induce guilt. I feel guilty after eating raw spinach. I feel guilty after eating. Period. Allow 15 minutes or so for the sugar high to wear off and the guilt to peak and then the cycle starts all over again.
I am so tired of this cycle. I am so tired of caring what the scale says every morning. I’m so tired of reading nutritional labels like they’re the secret to world peace. I’m so tired of getting enthused about some new weight loss plan/tip/trick/non-diet/etc. and then realizing after I’ve invested time, money and energy into it that there is no one-shot cure. I’m so tired of wanting to shake anyone who tells me I look good and scream at them, “Can’t you see how ugly I am?!?” (I’m like one of those sad drunks at parties. But without the drunk. Or the party.) I’m so tired of crying my eyes out (in the original draft of this post I wrote “me eyes” – which if I’m going to be crazy, an Irish accent would be awesome, no?) over pants that don’t fit, shirts that don’t button and the weird fact that despite my feet not growing a centimeter bigger during my first four pregnancies, they seem to have enlarged by at least half a size from number five thereby making my lovely shoe collection painfully obsolete. (On second thought, that last one totally justifies a few tears.)
But mostly I’m tired of believing that if I just weighed XXX, I’d be happy.
I may be nutso – a fact I freely admit – but even I know that that isn’t true. Happiness is a choice. And every day I am choosing to make myself miserable over something so inconsequential as to be embarrassing. It makes me angry. How did I ever buy into this fallacy that I am my pants size? Who was the first person to tell me that I wasn’t good enough? And why did I ever believe them? And most importantly, if I can choose to believe this crap, can I just choose to unbelieve it? Can it possibly be that simple?
I have a daughter. A glorious, beautiful, perfect-just-as-she-is-even-though-she-chronically-reeks-like-barf baby girl. And I am her touchstone. No matter where we are, when anything novel happens her first instinct is to look at me. When her eyes lock on mine, I know what she’s doing. She’s reading me. If I’m scared, then she is too. If I’m happy and unconcerned than so is she. This trust. This responsibility. It’s so overwhelming; I don’t feel worthy. And yet it’s a gift to see myself through her eyes. To her I am the most beautiful creature in the world.
Can a mother who has a “complicated” relationship with food have a daughter who doesn’t? I’m not the only one asking that question. And yet none of us have answers. Our culture has been overtaken with a mass delusion my friend Dr. Jon calls “body fascism.” In an e-mail response to my post about Jessica Simpson he wrote, “I doubt it’s an original combination, but this preoccupation with image in our mad little world has many of the hallmarks of Nazi-like intolerance and bigotry. We’ve become obsessed with “ideals” to the rejection of common sense, leading to stereotyping and stupid intolerance, and to an eating-disordered world . Malnutrition isn’t just about starvation, it’s eating too much of the wrong things as well, and living without balance . Body Fascism rules – Sieg Hiel!”
I asked before if the solution was as simple as just choosing not to believe the thousands of negative messages I’m bombarded with on a daily basis. I think it might be. Unfortunately simple doesn’t mean easy.
I’ve asked you all before how to reconcile my need to eat with hatred of food. And I apologize for not listening when you shared all your secrets with me before. What is the answer? Therapy? Intuitive eating? A frontal lobotomy? Have you managed to change your relationship with food for the better? Please please tell me again. I’m listening this time.
If there was a pill that could totally replace eating, would you take it?
I also hate food. Its not the guilt but am just completely nauseated and disgusted by everything. I too wish I could take food pill and just be done with it. I am not overwieght or anorexic just have an extreme aversion to food. I force myself to eat and I hate it! I feel your pain and understand where you are coming from. I feel better knowing that I am not alone.
The problem here is that the answers people give you aren’t always what might work for you. I, too, have a hate relationship with food (like right at this intolerant moment I am battling my hunger cravings to not even touch food) and every answer I have read about that particular question of “how can I cure this?” Is said in such an unknown light.
The person who usually answers doesn’t know how the person with the problem feels. Those rare helpers in between who do understand does not even always give you an answer that solves all your problems. They are just tips, but not the solution.
I am not saying don’t try them, I’m saying that you shouldn’t follow only them and hope it works. You have the answer, it’s somewhere inside your mind. Maybe the willpower to state as a healthy image for your baby girl, or just the hardest part of loving your body like it is (which will indeed take a lot of work and a lot of willpower to create enough respect for food).
It’s a complicated, struggling road, but if you’re eager to fix this sticky psychological situation as your strong aversion to food, it will be easier to achieve.
I am insanely sorry that I couldn’t offer my own help for this – but I’m in the same boat. I, myself, have no idea how to get past or even over this, but the problem is that it might be exhausting and a horrible cycle, but I’m not even close to ready for any sort of recovery.
I really do apologize for not being able to help you with this and I don’t mean any offense, but try your hardest to overcome this, because my mother was anorexic and then, after having me, she lost control of her eating habits and made no effort to hide her distaste of food, but instead she bombarded me with her eating disorder. It lead to me having doubts about my own body and then, slowly but surely, to a full blown eating disorder.
Maybe you went through something similar, but know that this is not how I thought I would spend my childhood–constantly worrying about what food comes near my mouth, if any.
I hope, with all my heart, that you’ll find your golden answer. Someday, when I’m ready, I hope to find my own answer as well.
Good luck to you, I know that if you try hard enough, you’ll get through this (girls with eating disorders are actually really strong willed – that’s the truth, even if most of us refuse to believe it).
I know you’ll win this war and, deep down, I know that you know it too.
Xoxo
Rose
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS!!!!!!!!!! food is nothing to me and i absolutely HATE it!!!!!!!!!!! but of course doctors and so many other have scared me and forced me to eat…. sigh…. i’m 12 years old and i had anorexia but after a long almost a year now i have gained….4 pounds… yes 4 FREAKIN POUNDS!!! and people i know are always looking me up and down and asking me how i’m doing… UGH I HATE LIFE!!!! particularly food… anyway i feel your pain and i hope you know there are plenty of people out there who feel the same way!
if you hate food, there’s something seriously wrong with you.
Scipio… You’re a douchebag. Your mom wants her computer back.
Scipio… You’re an idiot. Your mom wants her computer back.
I don’t blame you for not liking food…years of cleaning up and caring for an autistic sibling has made me see food as just something that people open their big orfices (mouths) to shove down, and then eventually defecate it out and/or pass gas, etc. That and if you don’t have a good metabolism, you have to exercise your ass off to get rid of its effects. Especially if you have elevated grehlin levels, and eat out of stress.
If there was a way to meet minimum requirements by using some kind of pill or spray-shot, I’d totally be up for that.
I don’t think starving yourself is a good idea though, but I have felt many things similar in the past with the things you feel (Or what you felt when you posted this like 3 years ago)
I mean…jesus, on top of paying for something at a food store, you also pay in terms of its nutritional content.
The only reason something tastes good is because it has one or more of the following:
A. Alot of Carbohydrates/Sugars or Starches
B. Alot of Fat
C. Alot of Sodium
D. Artificial flavors and chemicals that’ll probably give us cancer 20 years from now
That’s why I also have a complicated view of it. If only we had some kind of implant that let us artificially control our metabolism, as well as filter out any bad nutritional contents, and even make it so that we don’t need to use the restroom. Cause I’m sick of getting gas or feeling bloated from certain foods, and I hear others get diarrhea or something from certain exotic food items.
Hell, it’d be interesting if we could be autotrophs in some form.
Good luck though with what you’re facing.
I understand completely about hating food. I was brought up by an anorexic mother who stuffed me, yet miraculously I never got fat as I had thin genes from my Dad’s side.
I detest cooking though, I was never allowed to use the cooker by my mother either and I also have IBS and lots of food allergies so some days I don’t really eat very much at all, I can manage a tiny muesli and a sandwich or portion of meat pie and that is about it. I am by and large healthy in my food choices but can’t eat large amounts of fruit and veg as they are terrible for my gut. Whisky and wine believe it or not calm my gt down big time and I also fill up with herb teas and fruit and vegetable juices. No milk products and no sugar.
When I was married my ex husband used to cook but I don’t enjoy any aspect of the fussing over food process whatever. I think I would probably die from the sugar content in a piece of chocolate. I have an acquaintance who like me is an only child and lives on their own. Neither of us can stand anything even vaguely domestic.
I so wish I could get to hate food. I have the problems of menopause coupled with being disabled. Although I do weights and push quite a bit, I still have to watch everything I eat. I am now obsessive about food. Although I eat mainly vegetables and a few pieces of fruit [mostly berries]make soup three times a week and juice twice per week, I still have trouble with weight gain. I am at least 18 lbs overweight and just cannot shift it.
I do so wish I could suddenly get an aversion to food. That way I could force the odd carrot down my neck once or twice per day. Once the weight dropped then I could add a few more things.
I hear what you are saying, and sympathise. However you are the mother of five lovely kids and surely cannot expect to be a sylph like teenager again. We do fill out a bit as grown women, especially when we have kids.
My biggest problem is that some of my family members are much slimmer than I but are older than me. Granted, they didn’t get ill for a year hence the weight gain] nor are they in a wheelchair, but I guess I am constantly aware that I’m bigger than I was [though not obese] and I hate myself. I detest my weakness [eating the odd bag of nuts or chocolate] I don’t eat pasta, rice or potato’ s anymore and very little bread.
What to do. Doc says there is nothing wrong with me, All tests came back negative. So, not eating hardly at all seems the only option now. Hence the wish to ‘hate food’.
Perhaps if you asked other mums, who you think are the ‘right’ size their measurements, and get the tape measure out and compare.
[do take your height into consideration] and maybe they are struggling too, you could help each other. Thanks for posting though, much appreciated.
I hate everyone who use to tell me i was too skinny i hate those who force me to drink ensure and stuff like that so i could out on weight. I fucking hate you. I hate the taste of fook i hate when is time to eat i hate any flavor i fucking hate chicken. I fucking hate feeling over weight now. I hate eating right. Fucking taste like shit. I wish i didnt had to eat ever.
If you love food more than a hot body…there’s something WRONG with You!
I hate food too. It makes me feel miserable, sick and bloated. Even the smallest amount. I’m only happy when I don’t eat but sometimes the growling just gets too much and I have to shut it up. When I eat my skin is dull and horrible, my body a balloon of water. I don’t eat unhealthy, I have a very clean diet, plant based only. Food has always done this to me, regardless of whether my diet was healthy or not. When I don’t eat, my skin glows and I feel fantastic, full of energy. I wish I never had hunger pangs, wish there was a magic pill that would deal with the eating part for the day without the dreaded symptoms that go with eating
I hate food too so much. It causes me anxiety because I know I need to eat to survive but if I could just take a pill and be done with it, that would be amazing. Everything about food is the worst–from cooking, eating, and cleaning it up. I don’t understand why people love it so much. I wish I was one of those people.