kas2006

Fear of Food

Posted on 08/29/09, 11:53 am

Ever since I was small my mother got mad at me for eating what she considered too much, ie more than one pancake. One day she called me into her room and said, "So, are you just going to be a fat woman all your life?" I was only about 15 at the time. Everytime I would get enthused about a new recipe she would get mad at me because it had too much fat, ie adding nuts to yogurt. I am now in my 40's and deathly afraid of food. I went to a clinic for months but they couldn't help me. I go to the refrigerator and just stand there, fearing everything in it. I can't do healthy diets because they involve cooking and eating food, so I just live on diet drinks and crackers until I binge and then either purge or hate myself. I am 40 pounds overweight but I can't lose it and I am afraid my system is shutting down. My skin is dry and has started bleeding easily. I'm so scared, but I don't know what to do.

• Reply #1 09/19/09  10:36pm
  
  newrra
  how are you? Are you Ok?I feel sad because of my weight gain to, you are not alone, I understand, but lets try to eat a bit better ok? do you want to start a diet plan together?
• Reply #2 10/20/09  6:23am
  
  wickedwiz
  hi...gosh, can't help but wish i had a fear of food too..i such a food addict that people think i'm super wierd because i am always talking about it, and how i experiment (and they think the things i try are crazy...like sprinkling smoked salmon trout with sweetner!!! haha, i though it was pretty good, damnit? :)
  hmmmm, i don't fully understand thhe feelings that your mother created within in, about food and weight, but i can only try...my partner (who also has a ED) had her mother instill the same kind of thoughts in her head (as well as having a father who wouldn't let her leave the table until she had finished, he used to shout that she had to "CHEW IT, SWALLOW IT!!", and she wasn't allowed to leave the table until she had finished everything (and cold vegetables that had been chewed beyond belief tended to come back up, and she had to try force them down...which i think must have been really traumatic for a child who was really fussy about what she ate because she saw what her mother was restricing herself to and heard her mother talking about calories and fat (quite obsessively too!) and she soooo badly wanted mommy's attention, acceptance and affirmations of love that she has suffered since she was 5 (and now she is 48) from eating and food issues!! you are clearly not alone, the statistics around mothers who pass on their ED to their daughters is HECTIC...the time WILL come when you are no longer part of this statistic!! i am helping my partner with her food fear in a couple of ways....we try to make eating an experience rather than just a consuming of food because our bodies need it...we experment alot, and try to make our food LOOK good (lots of colour and displaying it on our plates in artful and fun ways...and we have tons of photos of the dishes we have made (probably kind of wierd for some but its helping us)...we take turns coming up with new meals/dishes that are healthy and pretty looking (i get mondays and she gets thursdays...hehe!) and we are constantly pushing the boundaries!! another thing of great importance is texture....we try to get lots of different kinds of texture involved too and this seems to help her alot (especially since she can not smell, and therefore only tastes salt, sweet and bitter!)...we also have what we call "rice cake" nights where we take out our 3 different kinds of cakes, and all the toppings we have (and over the last year we have find lots!! and they are super healthy too!!)and then we play!!! mixing and matching all sorts of things from....and we even have sweet options (like a spreading of sugar-free jam, 2 cut in half sugar-free marchmallows, a swirl of light custard sprinkled with a tble spoon of shredded bran cereal! :) yum :) you don't need to be ashamed of living on diet crackers, you are not the only one!!! just try to be a little braver with the toppings...and if you can express your creative side, the combinations can be endless, if you can manage to think out the box:)
  
  good luck, i hope that what i have written has not been too much for you :)

this is a group for people who are builimic or in recovery and also people with binge eating disorder