"Blythe hoped she hadn't passed on any of her insecurities to Little Blythe"
This isn’t the easiest post I’m writing and it may, actually, be too self-indulgent. But it is a truth that I have to face when I am doing something so very major to my body. Why am I considering a physical solution to a problem that has its roots in my psychological make up? If I lose weight will I simply replace my addiction to food with other addictions? Why do I behave in the way I behave?
I know that by undertaking weight loss surgery I will need to deal with my ‘head-hunger’ as well as the physical hunger. I know that I have to closely examine my relationship with food. And I know that many of my over-eating behaviours have been with me my whole life. They serve or served a purpose – I’m just not sure what that purpose is. I am acutely aware that I have an addictive personality, my addictions may not be physical addictions but, they rumble on in the background just the same.
All my other diets have followed a similar pattern. I overeat, (usually under the guise of the ‘last supper syndrome’) and I tell myself that tomorrow will be the day. Tomorrow is the start of the rest of my life. Tomorrow will be the most that I will ever weigh again. Tomorrow I will be good. The ‘Last Supper’ phase can go on for days, weeks or even months. Then there will be a crisis, a hitting of rock bottom. Usually there will be a trigger – an important event that I know I must attend, but, need to look better for. Over the years these events have been extremely varied and, undoubtedly, often been a construct in my head. Because being thinner will make me better; better at college, better at work, a better friend. Ultimately, I equate weighing less with being a more successful human being.
So the diet starts, it may be with Weight Watchers, Slimming World, calorie controlled, The Atkins diet, food group elimination (because, of course, all of this weight is down to food intolerance, how stupid of me not to realise this!) or by stimulants such as slimming pills. The outcome is the same; I will lose weight – sometimes 2 stone and reach an ‘ideal’ weight, over more recent years losing 5 stone and still being no where near it. But at some point that thought will pop into my head, that craving, that urge and despite all the will in the world I give in. And not only do I give in but I give in in such spectacular style. The binges become eating marathons. Almost always in secret but, in recent years, they’ve even been in front of my boyfriend and friends. I’ve lost all sense of pride, all sense of perspective when it comes to food.
The binge turns into an eating pattern and the overeating continues with all weight being regained – and then some. This continues until the next trigger, the next rock-bottom phase and lo, the whole cycle starts again. I know this. So why can’t I stop? Has it always been like this?
As a child, for as long as I can remember, sweets were hidden. Family folk-lore states that, as young as six, I had learnt to scale the cupboards in the kitchen to find them. In fact, looking back, wherever they were hidden I would find them. I knew every inch of our house and exactly where to look. I was also a picky-eater as a child. In fact they used to worry that I didn’t eat enough. Meals were always a battle. I’ve read that people attribute the rise in obesity levels to the erosion of the family unit, children not eating at the table together with their parents. We ate at the table every night, dad, mum, my brother and I. Every night there was a fight to get me to eat vegetables, fish, meat, even the puddings! I have vivid memories of being force fed food. I would gag, heave and every heave would be followed by a bollocking or a smack on the head from my dad. If I could have controlled that heaving, believe me, I would have. On several occasions I was sick at the table. One of their favourite sayings was, “you’d eat it if it was a plate of Mars Bars” (to which I would always reply "no I wouldn't, I hate Mars Bars). All of my picky eating was attributed to my love of junk food (whether I’d eaten any that day or not) and was simply a manifestation of me being naughty.
So that was mealtimes at home. What about school dinners? Well I have never actually eaten a school dinner. Each lunchtime I would be picked up from school and fed at home. I don’t remember ever asking for this to happen and I know that I missed the playtimes. But, my brother, who was six years older than me had always come home and so did I. That was until 2 events happened in quick succession.
I think I was about 6, my brother had left my school to go the local comprehensive, when my dad’s business partner had a massive heart attack and died out of the blue. I remember seeing my dad sitting with his head in his hands, crying, but not much else. My mum, who had been a 70’s, stay-at-home mum, was forced to work with him full time. I now realise that we were on the brink of losing the small business and our modest house. The second event was when my mum’s sister was diagnosed with lung cancer (she was around 40 and had a mild learning disability). My aunt was given 3 months to live. My mum was her main carer. So, clearly, I couldn’t come home at lunchtimes any longer. Did I have school dinners? No. I was the first child to be allowed to take sandwiches, closely followed by Emma 'the diabetic girl'. We were not allowed to eat our sandwiches with the other children; instead we were segregated in the annex, on our own.
Within a few years, more and more kids were bringing sandwiches so I felt less like a freak. However, my aunt did not die. She continued to be very poorly and, between my mum caring for her and working fulltime, I was left to my own devices. This is not a sympathy exercise. Far from it, I had a very happy childhood. However, I’m working through when these over-eating patterns became established. I think I was in junior school, so I’d be 7½ when I was allowed to walk myself home from school. That would give me at least an hour with the house to myself. This is when I think the binge eating really started. My dad would always buy things from Makro or the ‘Cash and Carry’, so we would have several trade size boxes of crisps, kitkats, and biscuits. Of course these would be too bulky to hide so they would be locked under the stairs. I was an expert at finding that key! I remember eating packet after packet of crisps, hiding the wrappers so as not to give the game away.
I was 9 when my mum put me on a diet as she had entered me in a beauty pageant. To this day, I have no idea why she did this. It’s not as if I was a good looking kid. Far from it. I had terrible bucked teeth from my nightly thumb sucking, constantly had scabs on my knees as I was a real ‘tom-boy’ and had long, straggly, mousey hair. What was she thinking? The final humiliation was the fake tan on my legs. Actually, not on all of my legs, just the area between my knees and my ankles. This was the early 80’s. Fake tan was not the same product as it is now. I vividly remember this foul smelling, browny-yellow mousse being applied to my shins. I remember being in trouble for saying it looked like dog poo. The photos of the pageant highlight just what a poor decision that fake tan was. Oh, and I didn’t win either.
I think that my relationship with food was well and truly entrenched by the time I decided for myself at 13 to put myself on a strict 1000 calories a day diet. I didn’t have any opposition from my family, in fact, it was actively encouraged. Fat was bad, slim was good. I got treated to new clothes when I was slimmer, I got teased less by my brother (who, unknown to any of us, was himself in the grip of bulimia) and generally had positive reinforcements all round.
However, that was when my weight problems really started. I have spent the next 20 years going up and down weight wise.
Blimey, there was more there than I thought. I appreciate that I had a very happy childhood compared to most people. I had a mum, dad, a roof over my head and food (albeit too much!) in my belly. I don’t talk to my mum about the past really. She feels excessive guilt with very little grounding - she could do a PhD in guilt. And I’m not writing this as a way of blaming her, my dad or my brother for my childhood experiences. Far from it, (plus I’m not about to tell anyone I know about my blog), but I feel I need to consider my past and examine when, if not why, I have developed this relationship with food. My brother and I have a pathologically unhealthy relationship with food. Why? What purpose does my over-eating serve? Is it still serving the same purpose now and how am I going to understand my ‘head-hunger’?
I do worry that I may be making a mistake with the banding. I may come out of theatre and, instead of this being a journey of hope and recovery, it is the start of a whole world of trouble.
However, I’m still sticking to my pre-operative diet. I think I have had so many years of the ‘last supper’ syndrome that I don’t even feel like over-eating. I don’t seem to have the same anxiety when I think of food at the moment. I have managed not to over-eat this week during 2 potentially difficult situations, the first being a meal out for a colleague’s leaving do and the second being my birthday. Instead of having a cake for my birthday, I treated us to a nice, juicy steak with baked butternut squash. I thought I should have it one last time before the surgery.... what was that I was saying about last suppers, ho-hum.
4 days to go. In polite terms, I am bricking it. So thank you for the comments :)
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