Out of the FOG

I've been making my way through Pete Walker's book and I was struck by his assertion that almost everyone that comes from a dysfunctional FOO has an eating disorder.

I don't know that I have a classic "eating disorder," but I've been diagnosed with "disordered eating." That may be a distinction without a lot of difference, but...

Personally thinking back over the course of my life I've never not had issues with food.

I've always been a very picky eater and had tons of anxiety around eating socially. I hated family meals as a child because of the pressure to try new things and eat things I didn't like.

One of the most traumatic experiences in my early childhood coincided with being forced to clean my plate every night by family friends. The actual horrible trauma of that period still just rolls emotionlessly off my back, but the memory of being forced to clean my plate is still kind-of painful.

It's taken me decades to break the compulsion to eat literally everything on my plate at every meal. I've learned to stop when I'm full most of the time. I still have a very hard time not finishing a drink.

For the record, my tiny BPD mom (like almost a foot shorter than I am) can still eat as much or more than I can if you put her in front of something she really likes. Neither of us is over or underweight though.

After the age of 5 I have rarely ever eaten 3 meals a day beyond occasionally (such as during early elementary school, or when visiting in-laws as an adult). If my mental health is good I'll usually eat 2 meals a day, though it's often only 1. If it's not it's sometimes none.

I eat when I'm hungry and have serious difficulty following set meal times. I'll have to eat when I'm not hungry and then get hungry again after I've already eaten if I try.

The other thing I just found towards the end of P.W.'s book is that he had an aversion to cooking. I have a SERIOUS aversion to cooking and have never eaten a healthy diet, in part because of this. My T has actually encouraged me to "fake it till I make it" and put serious energy into learning to cook for myself.

My BPD mother stopped cooking for me and pretty much gave up on trying to feed me at around age 5 or 6. I was a picky eater and she was sick of trying to cook food for two different people, so she stopped.

She'd keep food in the house and mostly provide the things I wanted, but I was on my own for feeding myself. She'd make me food from time to time if I asked, but it was always made abundantly clear that she was doing me a favor.

I literally lived several years of childhood eating almost nothing except breakfast cereals. That's still my go to comfort food. 

My father on the other hand when I stayed with him would literally make me whatever food I wanted and carry it out to me. I obviously had a very black and white experience.

I've often said, that I'd be happy to give up eating entirely if given the option. If I could hypothetically take 3 pills a day to be properly nourished in exchange for never being allowed or required to eat again I'd be first in line for that.

What is anyone else's experience(s) around food?

I swear I've literally heard the three pills a day comment from my DH. It was a major sticking point for years in our marriage when I'd sit down to make a list, ask what he wants, and he'd always reply without fail "I don't know." Finally, I stopped asking. For a while that meant leaving him to fend for himself since I was working fulltime and didn't cook regularly. But the last year or so it's meant I cook, two or three nights a week, a rotation of things he likes but never thinks to ask for or make for himself. It has mostly solved the issue. He also drinks at least one meal replacement shake per day to fuel his physical job.

I myself only eat about two meals per day, more when pregnant because of the calorie drain that goes into growing another person and also carrying my heavier self around. Otherwise, generally two.

I know traditional dietary guidelines recommend three square meals per day, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, blah blah blah. I tried for years to force myself to abide by it and then decided I was stressing too much. I then settled into what's called intermittent fasting. This means that there is typically a window of time during the day of eight hours or less in which food is consumed and the rest of the day it's just liquids. I'm happier doing that most of the time. Makes my gut healthier too. :blink:

I was that picky eater growing up. My recovering endad still talks about it. I swear for years I survived almost entirely off of ramen. Heck of a thing to fall back on. Your cereal was certainly better. But that was it. I'd choke down something for breakfast because I "had to" according to my parents who always thought I was too skinny, then a bland sandwich for lunch, and then whatever unappetizing thing uBPDm cooked for dinner (think overcooked cheap steak all the freaking time), or a bowl of ramen. But I had other issues with food as well. Two different types of food could not touch. Certain textures were entirely off the menu. And if I said I was done, don't push it or it'll all be revisited. My parents learned the hard way not to make me clean my plate. They had to clean up a number of messes until they got the message.

Took me years to realize I wasn't too skinny at all. I was just right. I was the size I needed to be, and by some strange magic, I always hang around right at that size. And in case you wondered, they were both always overweight... I think the size of the parent perhaps colors their view of the child. At least, where a disorder is concerned.

You mention an aversion to cooking, but what does your aversion look like? For me, it was handling raw meat. Once you've identified the specific aversion, which you probably already know, it becomes possible to find a way around it. In my case, that meant wearing prep gloves for raw meat. Honestly, it was also that I just didn't want to put in the work to do it. So, I bought an instant pot. Changed my cooking world forever. Dump in the stuff, start, eat. So nice.

Interesting!!!
Updh has a LOT of food issues, and like you, has expressed the wish "if he could just take a pill".
I LOVE food and the eating experience, and I'll try anything once. It's led to some serious fluff at one point because I used it to fill a void, but I'm ok now. Way less fluffy and better food relations, though I am battling depression still, and part of my version of depression is not eating at all. "Disordered eating". I drink plenty of fluids, but I don't eat for weeks at a stretch. I have enough leftover fluff to support this, but on top of the 45# I lost in a healthy way, I lost 20 more to depression. I might see my prepregnancy weight. I'm.....that's not how I wanted to get there. That wasn't even my GOAL. I was willing to concede to age and kids.
I've never done depression before; my default setting is sunshine and roses. The body really does keep score. (I've never read it).

Anyway, let me add in here that I have a bad taste in my mouth (LOL!!!) surrounding cooking. I LOATHE it. I am, by all accounts, REALLY good at it, but I just HATE it. I do it so my family can eat. I taught my children to do it. I tried to teach updh (bwahahaha!!!). I have lots of lovely cooking devices and pinterest pins and stuff that I make copious use of, but deep down, I hate it. My mother forced me to learn cooking and cleaning, and I never did it "right" (somewhere around here there is reference to the joke between myself and DD about not stirring correctly), and it's just ugly. I loathe both tasks. My mother is also an excellent cook. In some things updh thinks I am better, and that just burns up my mother! I do love to bake; so does she, updh thinks I am definitely the better baker and that steams her to death! I don't eat all the stuff I bake, I'd be on one of those shows. I give it to neighbors or take it to work. My boss and dear friend bakes too, we make people fluffy  She and I got a bunch of bananas recently and everyone at work but me got a loaf of banana bread. I said "what, have I been bad, or something?" She said make your own damn banana bread. I said "oh. Is that what that is. Never mind. I have 4 loaves at home!"

Updh gets weird about my giving away my baking and exactly who I give it to, but even he isn't going to eat all that. He gets sick of quick breads and stuff. I have a zillion prepped bananas and zucchinis and stuff in the freezer, for breads. Who cares if I give it away! It makes me happy and fosters nice neighborly relations.

I like to make food for people. Baking really, but I will make appetizers or snacks, too. Not cook fancy dinners ISH!! Bring something to a potluck, definitely. It's one of the ways I express love and caring. I guess in the old days I'd be a casserole bringer. Even when I was just a kid, I had these "famous brownies" that everyone demanded at their potlucks and bbqs and church dinners and such. I absolutely still have the recipe.

We laugh at work about how all of our conversations turn into food and booze, (from wastewater, mind you), and we have altered our interview questions to include ones about food.
Maybe we all get along so well because we're all the same kind of messed up.

My youngest brother had a similar dislike of eating. My parents used to physically spank him if he didn't eat whatever we had for dinner. After a few awful rounds of this, my uPDM eventually just bought him what he WOULD eat - mostly pop tarts and high protein shake mix.

I on the other hand was told at 7 years old that I was **fat** and had to attend children's weight watchers. To their credit, WW no longer supports a program for kids that young. Looking back at pictures, I wasn't fat. And also, I didn't shop for or cook my own food at 7, didn't really understand what changes I was supposed to make, got absolutely no support from my fat-shaming M, and I lost exactly zero weight. In fact I gained weight since I was actively growing at that time.  :stars:

I will add to this, uPDM is a terrible cook. And by terrible I mean dangerous. Very unsafe food handling habits. We regularly had low-grade food poisoning, ending up with our entire family taking turns vomiting in our one bathroom. :aaauuugh:

uPDM used to call this the "24-hour flu". After growing up and becoming fully responsible for my own food preparation I never had a single bout of the so called 24-hour flu.

Andeza:

First, you hit on a huge issue with your DH that I struggle with—the decisions! That's one of the worst parts of food for me. It's an inescapable daily obligation to pick something off of a limited list that my body feels like eating.

I'm absolutely terrible with decisions. Paradoxically, the more trivial it is the more I struggle with it. What to eat is a daily nightmare. It also leads to a lot of unhealthy and irresponsible choices.

I don't know your DH's mental health particulars (if any) but learning about the effect that PD parents have on their kid's decision making ability has been eye opening. Honestly the decision making might be the worst part.

As much as it's unfair to you, I think you've hit on a perfect solution. Honestly, if I was rich a personal chef would be one of the first things I'd get. If someone put healthy food in front of me (generated at random from things I'm comfortable eating) I'd be perfectly happy and would never complain.

I love cafeteria and hospital food as messed up as that is. Limited options of basic foods you can grab that have some decent health and nutrition work for me. I don't really like the overcooked till they're grey green beans, but they're a healthy vegetable and I'll put some on my plate and eat them if they're on offer.

I was thrilled to start reading about intermittent fasting! You mean I've actually been doing something healthy my whole life without even knowing it?! Amazing!

As far as picky eating textures are very relevant. I can't eat eggs because of the texture for example. I like meats, but I can't eat anything that has bones in it. I generally have a very weak sense of smell and indiscriminate palate, but there are certain things...

I cannot stand pickles. I do not understand the obsession people have of putting pickles in with sandwiches, no matter what you tell them! I've honestly gotten to the point where I tell people I'm allergic to them so they pay attention. If pickle juice gets on my sandwich I have to toss the whole thing out. I can't stop smelling and tasting it in every bite.

So I avoid vinegar because I never stop smelling it. Most things I quickly lose the ability to smell and they don't bother me anymore, so things that never go away for me drive me nuts. I'll stop there, but I could go on and on.

As far as my aversion to cooking it's a lot of things. But yes, I hate touching raw meat.

On the most basic level I deeply resent that I have to put so much time and effort into something I hate. I don't enjoy the results of the effort, so why am I bothering?

Beyond that I'm just not well suited to the endeavor. I have poor time management and organizational skills. I have poor memory for multiple details at once. I cannot successfully multitask. I don't make simple decisions easily (should I add more? How much?). Additionally I have a poor palate, so I'm not good at tasting things and adjusting as I go.

I'm a perfectionist with a loud inner critic not well suited to the task at hand. My measure of good food is whether I could convince myself that someone else made it.

I can bake with decent success, so I have started doing that some. That has rules and structure that I can follow. There is very little room for improvisation. You can make changes incrementally, but you don't worry about results until you're all done. Also I can look at the recipe 10 times to reassure myself that I read it right and refer back later if things go wrong. If you follow all the steps you get relative consistency.

Unfortunately, baked food tends to be the less healthy stuff. 

SparkStillLit:

Unfortunately the biggest beneficiary of any of my cooking or baking excess is my BPD mother—and I'm not ready to have anything to do with her again right now.

Thru the Rain:

At the end of the day it's hard to force a kid to eat.

We're blessed with two picky children. They eat a lot of goldfish and peanut butter crackers and things like that.

I made a rule for myself as an adult that I have to try anything once. I've tried some crazy stuff, but 99 times out of 100 I don't discover something new that I like to eat.

I may be too gentle on my own kids because of my own childhood, but they don't do well when you try to push them either. I don't push them because I remember what it feels like.

Yes, you have been doing something that works for you! Intermittent fasting isn't for everybody, but for some of us it is our natural preference. This is a good thing! It is a single building block from which to begin.

My Gma made the absolute best homegrown and pickled pickles I have ever had and I am, personally, a pickle fiend. But they ain't for everybody! They are also a recognized appetite suppressant (that vinegar that bugs you all day) and so you really ought not be eating them anyway. Not unless you are actively trying to lose weight. (Also, more for me, lol)

Now, something we discovered with DH, and it actually applied to me as well, was that we were both absolutely exhausted with regular American cuisine. Tired of all but a few favorite dishes, and so I scrapped all of it from my list. I make, instead, a handful of international dishes. Butter chicken on rice, tamales from scratch, green chili chicken with Spanish rice on tortillas, beef stroganoff with extra mushrooms etc. But hamburgers and overcooked steak are off the menu entirely. Just something to think about.

And no, liking cafeteria food is not weird. When I was in college I loved the ease and convenience of popping through the cafeteria, grabbing a quick meal, and then rushing off to the real focus. It takes the hard part out. The decision making process. It means all you have to do is get in line, shovel a pile on the plate, and then find somewhere to sit in peace and eat. You didn't cook it, you didn't clean up after it, and you didn't have to worry about what to pick because the options were limited.

I too prefer a straightforward recipe though. I will, frankly, avoid recipes that have super long ingredient lists (like more than eight things including spices) or ridiculous amounts of prep time and multiple steps. I don't want to dedicate a ton of time and effort to something that I will eat, enjoy once or twice, and then have to clean up after. So I have my list of easy stuff, including some that are thrown together in fifteen minutes-ish, and that's it. The toddler running around ensures I have my hands full with other things, after all. Tamales were a Christmas special... :wacko:

Personally, I don't consider it unfair though. It's just my way of helping DH through something that he struggles with and would otherwise avoid entirely by subsisting off mac and cheese and meal replacement shakes. Since I'm home with the kid all day I have time to research, plan, gather, and prepare. Makes sense in our situation. And I am always heartily thanked, and frequently the dishes are done for me as repayment, unless I beat him to them.

However, mentioning the smell thing... that might be a part of the problem. A great deal of taste is actually based in smell. So if your sense of smell is not functioning properly, you may simply not enjoy food properly. I have no idea if that is treatable or not... but if it were, it might go a long way to helping you. If you are not tasting food because of a physical limitation, then your "disordered eating" may be easier to fix than it looks like at first glance. I might recommend fielding the question to your regular doctor, not the therapist, and see if you can get any suggestions from them. You may be sent to an ENT. I had that darned covid way earlier this year, and I couldn't smell or taste for a while. Really does a number on your overall desire for food.

OMG, my wife and I are sick of every kind of food by now. We say to each other all the time that we're both sick of everything. She has some new dietary restrictions, so there's almost nothing left that we can both eat the same meal.

As far as you being burdened, I guess that's projection on my part. I have issues around that. My wife loves how grateful I am every time she cooks. She just doesn't know I feel guilty every time—probably add that to the list of things to work on.

My BPD mother as I said stopped cooking when I was very young and everything she cooked after that probably came with a guilt trip now that I think on it.

Also, I hate cooking so much that it's hard not to project it onto others that they're making a big sacrifice for me.

It's funny, visiting my wife's family is so different. My MIL will make leftovers when we arrive. It's a long trip. But her version of leftovers looks like what Thanksgiving looks like with my extended family to me. AND she apologizes that there's not more and it's only leftovers.

So yeah, issues lol.

My sense of smell probably does play into my sense of taste, but I probably wouldn't even want to change it if I could. My sense of smell works like everyone else's for the most part, I just lose the scent of things really quickly. I also miss subtle things, but I can smell everything important and usual.

I actually consider losing scents a blessing most of the time. I can scoop the cat litter with ease because I lose the smell quickly. I can always go and come back and regain scents, but they don't linger.

However, vinegar falls into a category of smells that I never lose. It drives me nuts. I can't stand smells that don't go away. That's abnormal to me so it's bothersome. I also have some attention issues, so I actually find scents that linger distracting because I can't filter them out.

As far as medical exams, I doubt there's anything treatable wrong anyway. I think it's genetic whatever it is. My father had what he describes as a terrible sense of smell when he was young. He hasn't had any sense of smell at all my entire life. He said one day he was just in a kitchen with burning toast and he realized he couldn't smell it anymore.

He's actually a fabulous cook and enjoys a huge variety of foods. It was always fun as a kid to visit and play the "find the rotten thing in the fridge for daddy" game.

He's always taken it in stride, but I feel bad sometimes when he gets reminded. It's easy to keep track of the fact that someone can't see or hear, but it's very easy to forget about sense of smell, because it just doesn't come up that often.

I basically consider my self very lucky to have what sense of smell I do have. My dad was much younger than I am now when he lost his. Mine has never really changed, and I still have it, so I'm content.

I have an overall healthy relationship with food.  I will at times eat too many carbs to relieve stress, but try not to because I am genetically on a road to diabetes.  My spouse is a yoyo dieter who abuses laxatives at times to loose weight and over exercises at times to loose or maintain weight to he can eat more junk food.  He has a very unhealthy relationship with eating.  One of the few ways his parents showed any love or affection was with food so this is perfectly understandable.  His mother was an anorexic.

My youngest daughter was super picky about food once she was old enough to talk.  It was horrible.  My spouse wanted to do the force to eat thing.  we would argue about this.  I put my food down and refused to bully my beutiful and brilliant and precocious child.  I decided to use wisdom I had heard in a parenting book on tape.  Raise up a child in the way of the Lord, according to their bent.   I decided to work with her and not against her.  At 4 she had her own drawer in the fridge and a shelf in a cabinet.  We bough things she liked and would eat.  If we ate someting she did not want or would not eat, she was allowed to substitute another item.

I insisted against my spouse that we needed to teach her to eat healthy not to eat like us.  as long as she left the house with a healthy eating habit my job as a mom was successful in this regard. 

as the got older she would fix her own meals.  They were strange and mostly uncooked but that was okay.  We had worked extensively on meal balancing and nutrition etc with toys and playing.  She would eat cheese and green beans and bread one meal, and canned sardines, crackers and cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks another.  Peanuts, and apple sauce and celery another.  Chocolate milk a bananna,and tomato soup another.  She learned to use the microwave, toaster, and to cook eggs and that added more items.  For years we went on this way then at some point she started trying new things.  She eventually started cooking even though she did not always eat what she cooked for the family.  She is not an expert backer and a gourmet cook at 16 and eats almost any cuisine.

I had know a girl at school who as an anorexic and it was so sad.  I could only imagine what the stresses in the home must have been because her sister was pretty off in other ways.  I did no want this for my kids and am glad I was able to learn from their problems.  I think of them and hope they grew up into a better situation.

There is no right or wrong way.  There are as many ways to eat healthy as there are people. I hope we can all find a way to eat healthy that also brings joy.  My girls and I are eating less meat and more beans and more organic foods and exploring more greens and such.  thisi s bring us joy and we are enjoying experimenting together.  A friend of mine is working as a farmer and is eating more raw foods and no dairy or wheat and this is making her happy.  I would not want her to try to force me into that, lol.

Its unfortunate that some much pd action revolves around food and the kitchen.  It can put emotional baggage on what should be a physical pleasure and a social joy and time of bonding. 

I hope that healing in this area can be found by all who needed it.

My experience with food has been that it was associated with comfort during times of abuse. I haven't been diagnosed with an eating disorder but I know that there are spectrums to this, binge eating being one. I could see myself at some points in my past falling in that category. I could also see falling into another categories of disordered eating as food was used by FOO and by PD partners to control and mold how I saw my body.

I have been exploring CPTSD lately and I've made the connection that food was used to condition me in different ways. I was a picky eater. Most kids can be but the way it was dealt with in my FOO was abusive. I have never been a 3 meals a day person.. I am not usually hungry first thing in the AM, yet having 3 meals was heavily enforced by FOO. I wasn't given choices (some FOO were controlling) or taught age appropriate things about food (some FOO were absent). If I complied to demands, I'd be rewarded with junk food by some. This conditioned me to be compliant and to fawn. Hopefully you get what I'm saying...

In another aspect, there was one time where I lived with someone in my FOO who made vile comments about my body when I was a preteen and similarly went into rages when I did eat or what I did in the kitchen. At 12, I ended up doing a lot of extreme dieting, skipping meals and became obsessive about calories and food labels. It wasn't until two years ago that I got a grip on it and stopped with all the dieting. Now I eat to fuel my body for what it needs each day and for weightlifting. I eat as much as I like and I don't read any labels or count calories. I enjoy all the stuff FOO said I should stay away from. I'm in the best physical shape of my life. And I realize after it all that I was just fine the way I was back then. :sadno:

In other ways, food was a source of comfort in times of distress. Without getting into too much, I got used to eating alone. When me and any PDs I've known have ate together, there was a lot of pressure to sit quietly, look down at the plate and finish what was there. Anything normal and the PDs would rage or give silent treatment. This happened too when we were in public and I'd look off in the distance. Sheer terror to experience. Now I only feel comfortable eating alone. It's slowly getting better but I do experience anxiety when I have to eat in front of others.

I hear you about eating alone PR. I almost always ate alone as a kid. I'd eat one or two meals a week with my dad and with other kids at school, but otherwise it was just me and the TV.

I still feel most relaxed when I eat in front of the TV. We try to eat together for the sake of the kids and my wife likes to eat at the table, but it's always a little bit uncomfortable for me.

Eating at a table means an extended family meal. Those only happened a few times a year, but were always big time anxiety for me.

The other thing I will say about eating alone and having other people watch me eat is that I'm a very slow eater. If I try to eat fast I get indigestion and still can't keep up with anyone else.

Literally everyone at any meal ever will be done before I am. It's embarrassing and stressful sometimes. Other people are ready to go when I'm still finishing. I have a lot of guilt about that as well.

I still amazes how much pd drama takes place around food and the kitchen.

I baby sat for a family when I was young.  There was only a scant amount of food in the fridge and cabinets in that house.  I was supposed to see the kid has lunch etc at times.  I lived in a house with a deep pantry becaise my mom did alot of shopping at a military commisary once a month and we bought fresh milk amd produce weekly at another grocery. 

This all seemed so strange that these affluent folks had no food in the house.  Once day i arrived and the father made a bid deal that we were going to eat pecans he had brought from out of town.  We placed newspapers all over the kitchen floor then brought the kids play table amd chairs in and covered ot with news papers also. Then the oaoer plate were placed and a carbage can was set out next to table.  Then the man out three pecans on each plate.  He did not gove us a nut cracker we had to crush them together in our hands meaning all that newspaper was to protect the house from two pecans each, unless we wanted to crush the third one with our teeth.

It was so over the top and weird.  I totally under stood why there was no food in the house to speak of.

All the kids in that home had major issues, like serious ones. So sad wuat these pds can do to those around them.

It's a bit of a memory flooding day. Around the food drama, I developed a distrust of sitting at a table to eat, to which my Dh resents me for now, because his family table eating was joyous and full of stories. I on the other hand developed fear around tables because it seemed like the absolute worst happened when the PD's had hypoglycemia at dinner time. This is when I witnessed violence as my father's hand whipped out and hit my sister in the face or my mother began to pick on my sister and soon the yelling and hitting and humiliations began full force. I was many years younger than my sister, just a little thing watching with huge eyes, and i think i have PTSD from it, which is why when i sit down to eat at a table I feel really tense even now. I haven't been able to get over it. We eat on the couch watching TV and I feel so bad about it.

Hepatica:

Does your DH really resent you? That sounds like something I'd convince myself of that wasn't actually true.

Could you have a talk about it if you haven't already?

Just feeling like your partner resents you for your needs and then feeling guilty every day for having DH do what has to be done to meet them feels very familiar.

I don't know that you can beat this emotionally, but maybe you can deconstruct it rationally at least.

It looks super transparent to me that it's all in your head, but you're also in your own head and I'm not.

This seems like something that would be super transparent to someone looking at me, but I'd still be stuck in my own head anyway, but maybe it's still good to hear.

Also, maybe you're enough further along that you can actually get a grip on something like this once you see it. I don't think I could where I'm at now, but maybe you can.

It does me absolutely no discernible good to hear that my partner puts up with me because she cares about me and that's what couples do. It does me no good to hear that things like this that feel huge to me are no big deal at all for her. But maybe repetition helps? Maybe people on here pointing it out as well helps?

I don't know, but here you are anyway.

I think I worded it not exactly how I think and believe. I don't think he resents me but he feels the loss. He's told me this and not in a mean way and I understand and agree with him. It is just one of the losses that come from the experience of a disordered and violent childhood. One of many and we grieve it together. We try to work on it by working with it. I have been sitting at the table more and sort of re-conditioning myself, by telling myself this will not be a place of danger. But man, it's hard. It's like a cat or dog that's experienced violence. There is this trailing fear that is intangible and no longer there. I didn't even pinpoint it until about five years ago. I just didn't like being at the table and didn't dig deep about what was causing the uneasiness. Now I know.

My Dh doesn't resent me. But I'm going to ask him now what he feels about it. I don't think he'd ever want to make me feel bad about it. Because he is kind and he feels sad about what I went thru as a little girl.

So you're right. Does he really resent me? No. I don't honestly think he does. But I sometimes resent the losses i still live with in the present that haunt me from the past and the kitchen table is a BIGGIE for me. It was the worst place in my old family home. Always full of conflict. A terrible place.

Now my house is a safe place. I am grateful that I can change the pattern the more I understand the past.

Quote from: IRedW77 on January 02, 2021, 09:42:04 PM
I hear you about eating alone PR. I almost always ate alone as a kid. I'd eat one or two meals a week with my dad and with other kids at school, but otherwise it was just me and the TV.

I still feel most relaxed when I eat in front of the TV. We try to eat together for the sake of the kids and my wife likes to eat at the table, but it's always a little bit uncomfortable for me.

Eating at a table means an extended family meal. Those only happened a few times a year, but were always big time anxiety for me.

The other thing I will say about eating alone and having other people watch me eat is that I'm a very slow eater. If I try to eat fast I get indigestion and still can't keep up with anyone else.

Literally everyone at any meal ever will be done before I am. It's embarrassing and stressful sometimes. Other people are ready to go when I'm still finishing. I have a lot of guilt about that as well.

Thanks for sharing this (and for creating this thread). It has helped me make many connections.  :)

I always felt a bit strange about preferring to eat alone with no understanding of why. I didn't think anyone else did that or preferred to do that. I feel embarrassed often on how fast or slow I eat. While I realize I am not alone in experiencing abuse, I seem to have surrounded myself around people who didn't get yelled at while eating as a child. So if I really enjoy something and eat it fast, I feel embarrassed to ask for seconds and if I eat super slow, I feel embarrassed and anxious that I have taken so long.

Hi P.R.

I'm glad for any help I might have given.

Your response also made me consider something I wasn't thinking about.

I always think of my issues around food as MY problem and feel 100% responsible. I am a picky eater. I made adults deal with that my entire childhood. I am a slow eater. I have issues around structured eating, etc.

I wasn't thinking about what kind of abuse I might have suffered that may have contributed to it all.

I know I was abandoned to my own devices as far as making my own food, but that always seemed fair. Part of that is because my BPD mom always told stories of getting flack from someone(s) at my school about what I was eating and how she righteously defended herself. She justified it for herself, for others, and for me on my behalf.

I realize that's ridiculous and that parents are supposed to keep feeding their kids.

I remember lots of anxiety around eating and extended family always trying to "fix" me at mealtimes. That was traumatic and stressful, but it didn't happen that often. That makes me question what happened to me on a regular basis that I don't remember.

I have one memory that reading your post made me reconceptualize.

I remember riding in the back seat of the car when I was between 3-5. We had just been to somewhere that had maple sugar candy. I was eating some in the back seat and complaining about it and BPD mom got pi**ed.

Dad was driving and she turned around in the passenger seat and ragingly said, "I just want to wring your neck". There's no emotional content, but the detail is otherwise vividly burned in. I imagine I was startled and scared, but I don't know for sure.

I just remember thinking, "you know I don't like maple sugar candy, we've been through this before. I wanted candy and this is gross and you know that." It was just another example of me being picky.

I obviously got a dramatic reaction there, and it was memorable. Were there other worse things that I don't remember? Were there lots of lesser episodes that I also don't remember?

I'd imagine that if she did that once she did it again more than once. Maybe the other times were worse or maybe less severe, but I'll bet they happened. It was obviously something that caused BPD mom frustration, and they don't hide frustration.

I just never associated that event with being yelled at about behavior with food until reading your mention of yelling. It definitely was about food.

Thank you for sharing the story IRed.  What I hear in the story is not about you being picky.  It is about you M not knowing or being even remotely interested in what you like to eat.  I had the same thing happen at times.  As an adult I am still discovering that I like things, but not the way FOO prepared foods, like fruit room temperature or oatmeal more creamy...no one took the time to help me try foods in other ways from what they liked, b/c parents are just too self-absorbed about what they like.  I bet that was a favorite candy of your mom?...

Food the way they eat it!!!! Ugh!!!
When I was young I hated meat. I used to chew and chew and chew and then spit out a dry wad, and there were fights and nonsense and carry on.
Well, I sure don't hate meat. I just hate it when it's cooked into shoe leather. I like it to be pretty much raw. Just sear the bacteria off the outside and hand it over.
Hot cereals. My grandmother made them delìcious and creamy with milk and honey and cinnamon. My mother insisted she made them the same way, but the texture was....gelatinous. like how updh eats them. BLECH!!!! Much stuff and nonsense over my refusal of that horrid texture.
I mean honestly, if you can't offer something any other way, and it's repulsive the way it is, why not just skip it. I ate other forms of cereal grains, and meats and proteins, as most kids do. Why not just leave it alone.
My son when young could not tolerate hot cereal type of things, nor smooth and chunky textures mixed together. No yougurt with fruit chunks mixed in, none of those Gerber Graduate foods. The textures HAD to be separated. So....that's what happened. No baby cereal. Finger foods. Smooth yogurt. Smooth foods. *shrug* He's fine. Not a picky eater. Never was. Now he's a teenager and I tease him, "STOP EATING!!!!!" Every time I find him, he's scrounging in the kitchen!!! He just laughs, holds something up, and says, "Can I fix this?"

C.

That's a good guess that would make sense, but no. It was maple sugar candy because we were at a maple syrup farm. That was one of my Dad's annual trips that we took every year when I was little. He's always liked annual traditions. It was also near my wonderful great-aunt's house. Even BPDm never had a bad word to say about her.

Maybe she was frustrated because it was his trip to his family. I have no idea. If I had to guess I'd say I asked for "candy" and that's what there was, so that's what I got. My kids do that all the time. We can't get things they don't have, but little kids don't understand that.


SSL

OMG the meat. I hated most meat when I was little. Like pot roast, ugh. I don't think it was my FOO necessarily. My dad is a great cook. His mother however, was not necessarily. She was a nurse and she'd cook meat until it was sterilized.

The chewing, and chewing, and chewing brings back very visceral memories for me. Chewing one bite for like 5 straight minutes while everyone around you eats like normal. No matter how much you chew it you physically can't get your little body to swallow it. Yeah, that was actually almost scary, because you'd practically choke yourself trying to swallow it.

Unfortunately I don't think my pickiness has much to do with how things were prepared. I wish it was that simple. I just do not like a wide variety of foods.

I try anything new that comes along unless it has something in it that I actively can't stand or makes me sick (like peppers). I actually enjoy seeking out new foods that are strange to me. I just do not like almost anything new I try.

As an adult I can force myself to eat certain things, but it's an act of will and not enjoyment.

There are some things that I never liked, such as steak, that do just need to be cooked differently, but it's a short list.

A lot of it when I was a kid was just fear. When I was about 17 I tried sour cream for the first time. I actually liked it and still do. Seriously though, what kid wants to eat something called "sour cream"? Some of it was fear of the unfamiliar as well.

We actually had a big triumph with my daughter tonight. Both my kids are very picky, but my daughter (as with so much of her personality) very much reminds me of me. Unfortunately I'm a bit overprotective of her pickiness because of it, but still..

We had some ice cream tonight because she wanted ice cream. She wanted McDonalds ice cream and they were out. I got frozen yogurt somewhere else instead. They only had one size so I just got one and planned to give her some of mine. I had fruit and Oreos added and didn't realize that they really mix it in.

She had dark blue and brown ice cream put in front of her instead of pure white and she would not touch it. My wife spent about 10 full minutes cajoling her to just taste it. It looked wrong so my daughter was just scared. She will not try anything she doesn't like the look of, which is pretty much anything unfamiliar.

Anyway, my wife kept her patience and my daughter eventually worked up her courage. I was and am so proud of both of them. Of course my daughter loved it once she tasted it. It's just getting past that fear.

I really hope that both my kids outgrow the pickiness. I'll lay down and die before I let either of them have any of the kind of baggage I have with food though.

IRed, It's so encouraging the hear how you are approaching food with your own children.  Wonderful.

I don't know that anyone in my ex's family had disordered eating. However, my late FIL's NPD did, I think, engage in some behaviors around food that I considered to be unfortunate. When the family went out to eat when my ex was a child, FIL would insist that everyone order steak. I'm not saying they didn't like steak, but they weren't given the option to make their own choices. FIL might have been a binge eater; he definitely was obese for much of his life. He would try to make my (and ex's) children eat certain things sometimes. I almost never did that at our home, and I didn't let relatives do it at their homes to my children, either.

I tell my two year old, "taste it, if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it." I'm not certain he entirely understands, but he's now very insistent on trying whatever I'm eating. And some things, he gets really excited for when he sees me cooking them.

I think it's a good practice to ask the child to try something, but if they don't like it they don't have to sit there and eat it. That's tantamount to torture in my eyes. Of course, many of us were not given that option. A pd parent plopped something unappetizing on our plate and commanded us to eat it. Blegh.

I remember the dang chewing now. Overcooked, thin, cheap steak from Walmart with no seasoning. Back in the day of the "pink slime." Could. Not. Get. It. Down. Both parents losing their minds over it. Oh well. UBPDm should have picked up a cookbook now and then.

Thank you C. I hope I'm on the right track. I'm optimistic that maybe the other night could be the beginning of a breakthrough with my daughter.

We've always offered her new things or a bite of whatever we're eating, but she's never taken to that well. If she doesn't know it she won't eat it.

If you hold a fork of food up to her she'll shake her head and wave her hands. When she was smaller and less rational and verbal she'd do that as a warning. If you tried a second or third time she'd start screaming.

Now we have much more debate and discussion. She'll start with "I don't like that." We tell her that she can't say that she doesn't like something she's never tasted. She can not want it, but she doesn't know she doesn't like it.

We will try engaging her in discussion about her feelings as to why she won't try something, but that usually devolves into her repeating "I can't" or "I don't." My wife got her down to "I'm scared" the other night and that helped get through it.

Her favorite lately for anything she doesn't want to do is "maybe later." 

My wife committed the other night and managed to wear her down to touching the food with her tongue—"you don't even have to put it in your mouth". It helped that we were 100% certain that she'd like it if we could get her to taste it.

I did get her to try ham by convincing her it tastes like bacon. She did eat it and said she liked it, but she only ate two bites and wouldn't eat any more.

She's done that with several things. "Try jelly, it tastes like jello." She tastes it and says, " I love it." I ask her if she wants some more, "no" or "maybe later" She's never eaten any of these foods again.

My dad got her to eat Jello when he visited a long time ago and now he has to make it every time she sees him. He also got her to eat carrots that same visit. She'll still eat those once in a great while.

I have no idea how he did it, but we were pretty floored when he got her to eat 2 new things in one meal. He hasn't gotten her to try anything new since, but it was fun once.

Our son is a bit better. 1 out of 20 forks he'll taste something. He's more likely to taste something my wife offers. He's learned to say "eww, gross" which is hilarious.

Food and children.  Complex and amusing.  Sounds like you guys are very much on track.  How great that you've helped your daughter recognize her feelings and validate her.  A couple of things that I've noticed worked for me and when I was in the early childhood field were a variation of exactly what you've done.  One, was to simply acknowledge that tastes change and increase as we get older.  My adult kids say that helped them because the greens they didn't like when young they really like now and they have told me they remember hearing that they would probably like that food once older.  I know that happened for me with a number of foods.  Another is to allow any form of interaction, so touching w/the tongue, even touching w/a finger because really the issue sounds like it is fear of something new.  I wonder if that happens in other areas with your daughter?  Anyway I can hear the joy in the meal times that your family is creating and that is worth more than any food item ever imho  :)

Wow. Reading all these stories has me feeling such compassion for you all.  Having daily struggles multiple times a day with bare-bones necessary self-care is about as pervasive as damage can be.

My FOO is also seriously messed up around food. My parents hoarded food and had an absolutely stuffed refrigerator at all times, then go out to eat on a whim and end up wasting a lot. My grandparents would force us to eat stale cake every time we visited. My mother would play the martyr at holidays making needlessly complicated dishes that were not bad at all, but not fantastic and certainly not our "favorites" that she always insisted they were. My father would also randomly decide to cook and would spend about five hours closeted in the kitchen making a simple soup. Watching the stockpot the whole time. He also criticized us in the kitchen so badly that I simply didn't try to do anything in the kitchen until I had my own apartment in college. My mother copes by getting fast food daily, at least as of when I went NC, and telling herself she's making good choices because she asks them to hold the bun on her Big Mac. My sister was subsisting on cereal and pop-tarts and had severe digestive issues. My other sister has yo-yo-Ed in and out of obesity.

I escaped these horrors by the grace of God with a healthier approach to food through learning on my own in college and as an opportunity to grow friendship. We were all broke and we all had to eat so we did a lot of simple budget cooking together in my crappy apartment and hung out playing games and living life. My love-starved self was nourished in every way through that time. (Even my husband first noticed me because I made a good chocolate cake!) So my kitchen and table full of friends is especially my happy place.

I have had various overt food triggers to work through. But I think the factors that helped me mostly escape are that I inherited a quick metabolism that allowed me to not have the weight issues my mother and heavier-built sister does, so a lot of the drama was deflected away from me. I was something of an observer and didn't internalize much of it. I was also the oldest so I got out while my parents were focused on the youngest one.

Call Me Cordelia,

Quote from: Call Me Cordelia on January 07, 2021, 10:26:24 AM
So my kitchen and table full of friends is especially my happy place.

I think that is so lovely and I wonder if I'll ever get to that place. That said, I was lucky as well when I left home and moved in with girlfriends when I attended uni. I learned a lot about healthy cooking by watching them. I also was really lucky to have a French room mate once who was so amazing with food, I observed with awe and learned so much. When I think about it, those little families of choice changed my life for the better. (There were a few bad room mates as well, but I don't dwell on them.)

This week I had a vivid memory of being brought to a restaurant with older sister, when I was probably only sixteen. She invited me and there were a few of her older friends as well. I was so so so filled with nerves I could not get the fork to my mouth, my hand was shaking so badly. I couldn't even get the water glass to my mouth. I barely ate anything. I look at that now with such a new awareness of how much the FOO table violence affected me. I hope that one day I will have that part healed and I will have that happy place you have. I yearn for that.

I read something one time that discussed the possibility that some people develope various taste/scent to varying degrees as compared to their peers when they are young chidren.  So in the same way some kids walk earlier ir later they may develope scent and tastes at different times.

The article also described that some individuals can be super tasters in some regards and may start out tasting the bitter aspects of veggies before they can smell or tastes the other aspects of the flavor.  So some veggies will seem entirely off putting.


Our picky eater challenges were a mix of super taster with texture issues.  Than goodness we made it through, all that remains in our food drama are my pdh's issues, and we just cook akd freeze his meals in advance so he can select an alternative of he does not like wuat we have planned.

He really seems to enjoy having his shelf in the freezer stocked with frozen dinners made just for him. I think he feels a since if security from it.

Quote from: 1footouttadefog on January 08, 2021, 11:23:41 AM

The article also described that some individuals can be super tasters in some regards and may start out tasting the bitter aspects of veggies before they can smell or tastes the other aspects of the flavor.  So some veggies will seem entirely off putting.

Our picky eater challenges were a mix of super taster with texture issues.

:yeahthat:

It's a bitter irony for me that while I generally have a terrible sense of smell and taste compared to others, I am also a super taster.

Grapefruit tastes absolutely horrible to me. It's a bitter citrus fruit, yes, but I taste something else most other people don't.

I get the bitter citrus, but I also get a strong flavor like earwax (if you've ever accidentally ingested that) or dandelion milk.

I cannot stand raw celery. It tastes awful. Most people think it's very mild, but I can actually open a fridge and smell raw celery in a closed bag. It has a odor kind of like patchouli. I've only ever met one other person that experiences this.

Mangos taste like pine needles and bitter awfulness with a hint of sweetness.

Also, I don't understand spicy food. If something is spicy I quickly lose the ability to taste anything but burning. Nothing else has any flavor. People have told me that hot spices are nuanced and complex, but I don't get that.

Interestingly I don't get much heat from wasabi. I once ate an entire sushi orders worth of wasabi in one bite on a bet. It gave me a bit of indigestion, and it wasn't a pleasant flavor, but it didn't linger and wasn't as hot as everyone acts like it is.

Food is weird.

I eat my way through grief and I've got to stop. 😔

I had another quick thought tonight.

I tend to like to eat the same meal over and over for a week or so, until I either don't enjoy it, or sometimes eat it past the point that I'm too full and then don't want it anymore.

I'll want it again eventually and go through the same pattern. I kind of do that with everything. It's all I want until it isn't.

Also, if I get one bad bite, like gristle in chicken, or a tiny chunk of bone in ground beef I'm done. I can't finish the rest of the meal because I can't get that one bite out of my head.

Sometimes an experience like this will haunt me off of a certain food for years.

Sometimes I'll have one particularly bad experience with food once and I'll have to shake it off forever. I ate one particular condiment once when I was a kid and then noticed mold in the bottle half way through the meal. I still have to shake that experience off with that condiment from time to time. No amount of subsequent positive experiences ever makes it completely go away.

I was actually thinking about this in terms of flashbacks. I've always carried past experiences with food into the present. Sometimes it's like I'm eating the meal I'm having, but also one I've had before.

I've eaten McDonald's cheeseburgers on and off over the years. It's a relatively consistent fast food item in that it hasn't changed in 50 years or whatever. Sometimes it's amazing, usually it's mediocre, sometimes it's just bad.

I find that when it's mediocre I often start thinking about when it's been bad, and then it's just bad and hard to eat.

I did a kind of science experiment tonight. I had a cheeseburger that was mediocre, but I tried to focus on eating them when I was a teenager and they were an amazing treat to me.

I was definitely able to bring that character of the past into the present. It was weird. I could stare off and think of eating with friends 25 years ago and what I was eating now was pretty good. Then my kids would say something and it'd break my concentration and it'd be mediocre again.

What does anyone think? Any of this familiar?

Sometimes if I get something really gross in a food, like a hair or a bug, I'm off it for...a very long time. If I do ever eat it again, I may think of the gross experience and it will put me back off.
I don't eat the same thing, though. Can't stand it. Oh, I'll have leftovers for lunch and that sort of thing, but the same thing for a week? FORGET IT. If I'm eating out, I'll have something new every time I go there until I've been through the whole menu and decided my favorites. (I'm noooooot very picky!!!) I TRY not to grab fast food, but I do have a terrible lech for this hole in the wall kind of fast Mexican place near work (I have yet to have gotten through the entire menu).

Haha SSL that is sooo different from how I am. At each place I like I have one thing that I'm going there for. If it's a place I really like there may be 2 or 3 things I'll rotate.

I have such big issues with decision making (most especially with food) that I need to be able to think in terms of I want X food so go to Y place.

Also I'm usually only looking for which place makes the best version of one of the few things I already like.

New idea around disordered eating - I have a really hard time allowing others to serve me food.  I always ask to serve myself and am very particular about how many fruits, veggies, etc. to make sure I "get enough".  To the point where I'll re-serve myself or give food served by others to someone else.  It's worse when I'm stressed.  I get so nervous and just cannot eat if it was served by someone else, even my spouse...

Usually I just accept it's the way I am and make sure to serve my own food.  I'm pretty sure this goes back to PD parent having all kinds of rules around food, what is "ok" (health), what is not, how much is ok, what is "bad", etc.  But today I wonder if I am too extreme...if this is a "flea"...I feel sad that I literally cannot eat food my spouse or other family member serves me...I get butterflies in my stomach and feel too anxious to eat it.  My spouse and kids understand, they don't serve me food.   But today I am wondering if I am being too extreme...

On the other hand I struggle w/weight and this is one of the ways I can control what and how much I eat of any food.

Thoughts?

We have never done the serving others thing since I left my childhood home... All meals are potluck style. Get your plate, get in line, get what and how much you want. Personally, I prefer that method, and you could make it the rule rather than the exception. It even works if there are only two people. I just finish cooking, holler "get your food" get mine and go.

Growing up my parents didn't seem to trust me to put food on my own plate. I can remember being in my teens and having a plate piled high shoved into my hands, and then their inevitable irritation when I wouldn't eat but perhaps half. With DS, who is too young to have a plate really, I just offer him food from my plate and make sure I go back for more if he makes a considerable dent.

Andeza,  That is absolutely the style of serving I prefer.  Stove to table, serve yourself.  I think I just like serving a loved one as a gesture and want to be able to receive as well, but really all people have unique dietary needs so self service is usually the best option outside of restaurants.  There are other ways to show love  :)

My uBPDw has had many eating problems. Bulimia as a young adult, difficulty swallowing (so that each small meal could take hours), bingeing, a constantly rotating set of restrictions based on little evidence. Before I heard about BPD I used to get annoyed with the slow eating, but now I am much more understanding, I hope.

I'm the opposite. My mother had about four things she would repeatedly make so I didn't get much variety as a child. But now I will eat anything. And if you've ever been to China, as I have a few times, you'll know what "everything" can encompass!