rituals and regret

when i said i was bad at keeping projects going, i wasn’t kidding.  the problem, i think, stems from the fact that i just don’t know what to say.  everything that i’ve experienced, i’ve experienced.  that is to say, it’s old hat and unlikely to be of any interest.

when i began my initial recovery back in june 2009, i had just started a new job working nights at petsmart.  i was also moving into a new apartment that, to be honest, was only a mile and a half closer to work; it was a 14-mile drive one-way, though, so the move really didn’t make any difference.  i just wanted a change of pace.  over the next year, i would come to hate that apartment and view it as a cage.  maybe i was projecting my own unhappiness into my living space, i don’t know.

anyway, on moving day my family came to help me, so that i wouldn’t have to rent a truck or anything.  and one thing that a few of them noticed was that i had a lot of food in my apartment.

to give some back story, i’d been laid off 3 months earlier from borders, and had taken to buying food in bulk as much as i could.  i also bought a lot of vegetables, especially carrots, and to this day i still feel a little weird about eating raw carrots…..  cereal was one of the only treats i allowed myself (eaten with about a tablespoon of powdered milk to roughly ¾ gallon of water and some sweet’n’low every morning).  so when cereal went on sale (10 for $10!), i stocked up!  but my grampa was amazed.

“who are you feeding?”  because obviously, it wasn’t me.

there’s a sort of…..primitive eating style i adopted when in the midst of starvation.  you’d think i’d never been taught basic table manners at all.  i ate with my fingers, i slurped my “soup” (hot water with salt and spices).  most embarrassingly, i think, is that i ate food scraps.  like, stems and peels—the kind of thing you throw away.  i don’t know why—sure, i’d been laid off and needed to watch my money, but really….. 

i was mortified to eat around people, and would become angry to the point of hostility if my food rituals were compromised or observed in any way.

i still feel ashamed about all that.  i feel ashamed about the way i behaved.  i just didn’t want anyone to know—chalk it up to the anorexic mentality, which is a mental health issue as much as it is a physical one.

i guess that’s all i’ve got for now.

more coming sooner rather than later, i hope.

shaina