I WAS TAUGHT
TO MAKE FOOD MY DRUG OF CHOICE
I understand
the factors that made me overweight from a young age.
My late
mother was severely mentally ill and dad unspeakable things to me. A chaotic
and terrifying day was a good one.
A day of
having everything you loved dearly -- including trinkets your beloved late
grandfather gave you on his deathbed when you were nine – torn from your arms,
broken then burned in a ceremony of anger and draconian punishment, those were
the hard ones. And they sometimes outnumbered the “simply” torturous days of
chaos and agony.
When my mom
would come out of her fit of fear, anger and rage – she’d run to get her little
boy a big pizza.
When she
snapped out of it -- and realized she should not have told me I would be an
orphan because she was either fated to die within a year or would take her life
in front of me – she would bake a pie and feed me half of it.
After a
round where my mom, nearly psychotic, would attack me, pummel me – then lie and
tell my dad that I raised my hand to her, so he would beat me black and blue
when he got home from work – she would order a 4-piece fried chicken dinner
with huge breaded jo jo potatoes to some how make up for it.
When I went
years without seeing a museum, park, zoo, or play on a school field trip –
because her messed up mind felt I would be exposed to imagined death-causing
germs for leaving the classroom – she compensated my weeping (because of being
left out) with half bags of chips, pretzels and sugary sodas.
When I
became isolated from all friends – I was the only kid who never was allowed to host
sleep overs, or have visitors, or join a sports team – and considered a leper
to be made fun of, mom would feed me a half dozen big donuts from the in-store
bakery at the new super market.
From about
second grade on, you can see it in my school pictures. As my tummy outgrew its
little body, my eyes looked vacant, sad, mournful, hopeless.
Part 4, the final chapter, published in this blog on Sunday March 14
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