A Stroll Down Memory Lane
I haven't known a day of being thin. I came out weighing 10 pounds 9 ounces and it was all uphill from there. I know that I am an emotional eater. If I get very upset I will get the "shakes" like a drug addict until I eat something. I immediately calm down. Food is my "drug" of choice.
This journey began when I was so young I barely remember. My mother and father were divorced when I was 4. My brother was 2. We lived with our father and numerous relatives. I don't hardly remember but we had limited visitation with our mother. The last time I saw her was when I was 6 and in the 1st grade. I have recently found out that a couple of my aunts got the courts to restrict her visits to supervised and we never saw her again (until I was in my early 30s). That is a story for another day that will also need to be dealt with.
So my love affair with food began. I hated school and missed nearly a month from crying so much. My aunt would pick me up from school when they called and gave me donuts and sweets. The sweets would calm me down and I quickly learned to eat to suppress my feelings. There was always plenty of food at my aunts while we lived there. I always felt like the outsider because she had three kids of her own. Food was always there for me.
When my father got into an arguement with my aunt and uncle they told him to move out. He took my brother and me with him. Nothing was ever told to us about why we had to move. The lady two doors down from my aunt's(my father's mistress I have since found out), would watch us after school. She wouldn't let us talk to our aunt and made us cross the street to keep us away from her. More feelings, like abandonment I guess. People just up and left my life with no reason explained. Just gone. Food took the place of the love that was gone. When we had our own apartment Dad would give us pizza, spaghetti, donuts, fast food, nothing but junk food. The pounds just piled on.
I weighed 135 in 5th grade and the school sent me to a special nutrition class with 3 other "fat" kids. Nothing like being singled out. I had just changed schools and was missing a lot of school again like when my mother was just gone. I really don't know what they were thinking. Food ended up being my only friend. It was always there when I needed it and wouldn't just disappear from my life.
More later.