McStuffs-a-lot

Right, so.... wow.  I don't even know where to start this story.  It's very shameful and I can't believe I'm sharing it with the general public.  I mean, I don't even want to look you in the eye after this.  THAT sort of shameful.  But knowing my past, I'm not surprised.  Sadly.  I might have to go in hiding after this post 'cause I'll be too ashamed to even associate with anyone.

Well, I've already told you once my mother seemed to condone my constant eating.  It was never discouraged, berated (well, okay, it was from my stepfather in an abusive not-so-helpful way and would always tease me, but I digress).  My dad and step-mother had problems (read: concern) with it, most of the time, but I just think they didn't know how to help, encourage, undo what was otherwise being done back home (fyi, I would visit my dad every-other weekend until I was in college or so).  I just wasn't with them enough to get more positive influence.  My (half) sister and brother were and still both are of healthy weight.  They're thin.  I've always been the fat one in the family.  My parents carried a bit of extra weight when they were younger but the older they got, the more they've lost.  They're each thin, too.  So amidst a total of 6 immediate family members, I was the one that always stood out.  Felt it, too, despite my family accepting me for who (and what) I was anyways.

Tonight I went out for dinner at Montana's with my brother, his girlfriend, her 2 boys, and my step-mother.  Everyone had all-you-can-eat ribs.  I... didn't; just had a burger and a gihugeous dessert (that my brother had to help me eat).  So we got to telling stories about when we were kids.  I told K. I still tell the story of how we used to have pancake eating contests.  See, Saturday mornings were our equivalent to everyone else's Sunday mornings; family together, big breakfast, etc.  F. would be at the griddle just firing them away.  Silver-dollar pancakes, mostly.  So K. and I decided to have a contest to who could eat the most.  No word of a lie, each (silver dollar-ish) pancake my brother and I ate was topped with peanut butter, Nutella and maple syrup (it was fantastic and I still eat them that way to this day).  Know what number we stopped at?  30.  30 fucking pancakes.  EACH.  Sweet baby Jesus.

So that lead to another story F. started telling, about how once a year the parents would take us out for brunch buffet.  I was about.. 8 or 9 or so.  It was the year my brother finally started to learn to calm down and behave (he was ADHD severely as a kid).  And it was the year I decided I didn't want to eat anything at that buffet table - eggs, bacon, toast (I used to be a picky eater) - nothing - except chocolate pudding.  Chocolate fucking pudding.  And you know what I ate?  JUST the chocolate pudding.  Wanna know how many I ate? 30.  Thirty chocolate puddings (there's that magic number again).  Are you fucking kidding me?  I said aside tonight, not quite so facetiously, "I can't imagine why I have a sugar problem today".  I said, "Why the hell did you condone that?!"  Nope.  They were of the mentality that you do something enough to make you sick, you'll learn and you won't do it again.  The more it was talked about, the more I started to remember the day.

I'm disgusted.  Know what I wanna do right now?  Purge all the food I've eaten all day.  That's how disgusted.  I don't even want to look at food for the next 3 days.  This post up to this paragraph was difficult to write; I made a lot of excuses and procrastinated.  But, this is all about facing fears and being honest, so I have to write it.

When I was with the "I'm going to lose 10lbs by my birthday" mentality and I ate more than I cared to, remember that?  I had the same mentality and emotions coming back; the feeling of having to eat as if I was missing out on something.  I had to eat almost with a feeling of being in a rush (it's the best way I can articulate it).  Why?  I have absolutely no idea.  None.  Niente.  There's a school of thought/psychology-based theory that we eat more to develop protective "layers".  I definitely had reason to develop 'protective layers' when I was a kid, but now?  I have no excuse.  I'm in tune with myself, I'm conscious of the world around me, I don't have anyone in my life that isn't positive, supportive or affirming in some way.  What?  Is it just that old habits die hard?  I don't think it's that simple.  I think there's more behind it than that.  I just can't figure out what THAT is.  I wish I could because while the world may seem like this is normal, I feel about this big.

I'm going to go hang my head in shame, now.