madermouse's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5/20/02 Fear. It seems to be an emotion that I explore frequently on this journey. Sometimes I wonder how deeply one emotion can be explored....how many facets can FEAR really have? I remember the fear of being found out by my mother, when I snuck food in the middle of the night. I�d creep from my bedroom, cringing at the creak of floorboards, paralyzed by any unidentifiable sound, I�d try to hear over the �boom boom� of my own heartbeat. I�d open the fridge very quietly, painfully aware of the sound a cheese wrapper makes, the crinkle of paper around deli meat, the scraping of a screw top lid on a jar of grape jam... I�d perk my ears for any sign of her stirring awake. My concoctions were simple...some bread and cheese, a slice of bread & butter with sugar sprinkled on top, a sliver of sandwich meat. There was something so satisfying about my ventures to the kitchen at 3am. First, I knew it was a dangerous mission with the threat of being harshly disciplined hanging over my head. This was a mission that required skill and agility to pull off successfully. Secondly, it fed my emptiness somehow. Those nights when I managed to acquire a snack without getting caught always made me feel sated, drowsy, comfortable. Those were the nights I�d slip back into bed and drift off to sleep without bad dreams. Most of the time I�d get away with it. But occasionally I�d get spooked and shove everything haphazardly back into the cupboards and run back to my room. Then I�d lie awake in bed, wondering if the cheese was put back in the same crisper drawer, of if I�d accidently left sugar granules dusting the cupboard, or did I eat too much meat and would it be noticed in the morning? Sometimes I�d lie away for hours, dreading the morning, just waiting to be discovered and punished for my crime. As a teenager, I still feared being caught in situations where I was consuming food. After a night out with friends, my mom always made me come and kiss her on the cheek before going to bed....even if it was midnight and she was totally asleep in bed. I�m assuming, like a conscientious mothers, that she was actually sniffing my breath for alcohol or marijuana. But the truth is, the smell of ranch dressing was also a crime in my household. �Have you been eating tonight? I thought you went to the movies? What did you eat?� I�d simplify by saying, �Geez mom, I just had a few bites of a friend�s french fries. That�s all...� Sometimes she knew I was lying, but she didn�t really have the proof to convict me. Other times, I think she was just too tired to fight with me about it, and just let it go. When I became old enough to drive, I soon grew to fear my vehicle being seen (by my mother) in the parking lot of restaurants. This was when I discovered the beauty of the drive-thru. At Taco Bell, I could anonymously acquire enough food to feed a crowd, shell out $4 bucks, and drive away without being discovered. Thus drive-thru�s became my oasis in the desert of fear. While other teenagers were spending their money on tapes, clothes, and makeup - I was driving thru every fast food joint in town. It wasn�t until a friend working at Hardees said to me once, �You�re late! Aren�t you usually here by 8:00am?� that I realized that I might not be as �anonymous� as I thought. As I grew into a young adult, my fear continued - only in different ways. Moving away from the watchful eyes (and nose) of my mother changed things a bit. Yet I could still hear her voice in my head warning me against taking seconds or thirds or eating at night. But the college buffet table had me in a deadlock. Every day it was filled with some new �homestyle� cheese-laden casserole or fried chicken. Other days you could choose from burgers, spaghetti, cooked-to-order omelets, biscuits & gravy, bacon and eggs or desserts galore - you name it. It soon became an obsession. Afraid of looking like a pig, I�d often wrap food up in napkins at dinner and take them to my dorm room for later - where I could eat without being seen.. Feelings of guilt and fear and shame permeated my thoughts about food, and soon transferred to a feeling of not being accepted. In high school I always had a big group of friends, and my share of boyfriends. But I had trouble in college relating, and often felt alone. My roommate was a dumber-than-a-rock cowgirl, who�s main concern was having �alone time� in OUR dorm room with her boyfriend. And I lived on the dorm floor with the entire girls basketball team to boot. I was an outcast to them. I was a music major. They played sports for fun. I listened to alternative music and old 60's stuff. They listened to country and rap. I wrote poetry, studied theory, and took an English class for �fun�. They got just good enough grades so as to continue to receive their basketball scholarships. They all snickered at my weight, and made little comments about my trips to the cafeteria. I overheard one girl saying, �That Heather - she NEVER misses a meal!� Then they all laughed. I learned to avoid my dorm room, and spent a lot of my time in the library or at the music hall. I learned to skip 8:00am classes so I could take a shower in the locker room without being stared at. My weight skyrocketed, and my self-esteem plummeted. My first year of college I started doing heavy drugs, and ate. I ate to feel numb, I ate because it was one of my only comforts in this strange place. I ate because I was afraid that I wasn�t good enough, that all the things my mother told me were true. She said I would never find a man because I was fat. She said I�d never find a job because I was fat. She said that�s just the way the world is - discriminating against the obese - and it wasn�t fair but it was true. So far she had been right. The boys wouldn�t give me a second glance. Finding a job was proving difficult, and I found myself being afraid that my mom had been right all these years. Then I moved out of state. A thousand miles separated me and my mother and with it her voices disappeared completely. I explored my newfound freedom to eat like never before. The fear of being caught vanished, and I stopped eating in the middle of the night. I had a partner that loved to eat and encouraged me to break away from my feelings of guilt associated with food. I learned to consume quantities (even in front of others) without shame. I learned to relish hedonistic eating. Decadence became my middle name. I taught myself to cook - a passion which allowed me to not only feed others, but aid my own consumption as well. And so it went. For the first time in my life I felt that a gate had been opened, I walked thru, and never looked back. Well, not NEVER. My fear crept back into me slowly over the years. It started with little things. I noticed I had trouble fitting into a restaurant booth. I dismissed it. I noticed people staring at me and thought, �How rude!? What are they looking at!?� I found myself taking shortcuts in life. Like driving around a parking lot for 10 minutes until a spot closest to the door opened up, or dropping something on the floor and using my foot to �scoot� it towards me instead of just bending over to pick it up. I found myself sweeping the dust under the rug, dreading the stairs which lead to the laundry room, and feeling tired from a short trip to the mall. I sometimes canceled with friends because I knew I wouldn�t be able to physically deal with the walk involved. I found myself driving the car to the store - two blocks away. With each of these things, a little grain of fear was planted and nourished by my actions. I couldn�t say the exact moment which spurred me to become full-on afraid, but certain instances stand out in my memory. The moment that I grew out of Lane Bryant�s clothes was one of them. I remember just standing there, in a daze, and then sort of backing out of the store. I was in shock. But I told myself that the styles had changed, the sizes had become smaller, that it couldn�t be ME. I remember going into my favorite restaurant and being unable to slide into the booth. I remember buying a car according to which seatbelt would latch around me. I remember having to leave a theater in the middle of the movie when my hips and legs went numb from being pinched in the seat. I remember growing out of �The Avenue�....and they carried sizes 30/32. I remember searching for 3 months straight and being unable to find a wide enough shoe to accommodate my foot. I finally gave in and bought men�s shoes. I remember the fear (and pity) in my oldest friend�s eyes when she saw me for the first time in years. I remember my staph infection, being home-bound, and knowing what it must feel like to be trapped and alone. I remember being unable to wipe my own butt successfully. So my fear returned and thankfully it sparked my epiphany, which allowed me to drop 115 pounds. In doing so, I can now cross these things off my list and hope I never have to re-live any of them again. I wish I could put my fears to rest forever. But they seem to only shift and change and multiply into different types as I grow older. Now I eat in the middle of the night again, with guilt and shame for doing so. I�ve stayed off the scale for a week and I�m DEATHLY afraid that I�ve gained weight. I claim to see it in my face, I�m certain I can feel it in my clothes. (Or can I?) I know I haven�t been perfect, and that�s part of the problem. I�ve eaten with the reckless abandon that comes from the freedom from accountability. (i.e. the scale) I�m afraid of never losing again, of never finding the strength to do whatever it takes to move forward. I�m afraid of the obsessive thoughts which lead me to restrict, then overeat later on. I�m afraid that even with all this success, the only thing that�s changed is that the voice in my head isn�t my mother�s anymore. Now its mine. 2:13 p.m. - 5/20/02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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