Turning 30 is Bringing Up (capital I) Issues

I have become one of those women who hates her body. Though I'd argue that I have more justification for this hatred than skinny women I wouldn't wish this self-loathing on anyone, size 6, 8, 16, 24 or otherwise. I constantly think about how much I hate the physical part of myself. Perhaps it's fitting considering how overly fond I am of my mind but it's unpleasant nonetheless. The hating voice in my head has grown so strong that I've had to make the decision to do something about the cause of this deep inner displeasure with myself. My lifelong struggle with depression has never been easy but I've always coped with it relatively well because I've always been so fond of myself that I'd never do anything that would harm me or be permanently detrimental to me. But the fierce mood swings my depression causes coupled with a deep, constant self-loathing is not a pretty combination. Turning 30 has me feeling like an absolute failure for what I haven't accomplished yet in my life and all the ways I've screwed up and not lived up to my intellectual gifts, it's too much to hate the mere sight of myself in a mirror too.

I have to decrease my girth, I have to increase my health, I have to increase my activity level, I have to alter my sedentary lifestyle. I have to change my eating habits. So I've joined Weight Watchers online. Step one.

I also have to acknowledge that I have food issues and I have to deal with them. Step two. So I've been thinking far more than I'd like to about the way I eat, the relationship I have with food, what food means to me and how I got to be a woman with low self esteem, strong self-hatred, and a body worth hating.

Truthfully it didn't take that much thought to come to the core of my food issues. My old joke about Coke, love and a stepmother really sums it up. It's the other issues the core food issues bring up that are turning into a real bitch to deal with.

I was a very skinny child until around the 3rd grade. At that point my parents had been divorced two years, my father had been remarried for two years minus twenty days, my mother had attempted suicide over her boyfriend at the time while I slept in the next room and the custody arrangement was turned on its head. My father had married a woman different in every way from my rural, southern, protestant family that I loved fiercely and fiercely loved me. She was from the north, she was Irish catholic, she was from a family of 12 that weren't close at all, and she was a horrible cook with horrible taste in food. The food my skinny ass and all the other members of my family loved and ate was, for the most part, disgusting to her. It was "poor people food". Of course most of my family was poor but I realize now she was saying it was southern food and as such it was backwards and inferior just like she thought we were.

Before and during my parent's divorce I had basically lived with my grandma Bessie Mae (yes I said my grandma's name was Bessie Mae) and my aunt P. I ran around the farm all day with my cousin, playing in the barn, running in the fields, throwing rocks into the pond, climbing trees and hay lofts and having meals full of family and love. When my father got custody of me he was and would continue to work second shift in a factory for many years. Second shift ran from 3PM to 12AM. Guess who I saw most?

If my stepmother's family had any affection for one another they certainly didn't show it like my family did. I learned this quickly when she told me I couldn't spend more than a couple nights with my grandma every few weeks. "Fish and family spoil in three days" she said. We spent nights together alone at home when we could have been eating and socializing with my grandma, my aunts and my cousins. To my child's mind (and hell, my adult mind too) she took my mother's place (though be fair my mother was more than willing and ready to give it up), took my grandma away and then up and took my food.

She didn't cook ham, biscuits, home-canned vegetables, boiled potatoes, pies, or make sweet tea. She didn't grow watermelon in a garden. She didn't shuck corn or snap beans on the front porch. Her vegetables came from cans bought in the store (until she'd been there a few years and started freezing a small bit for herself), her meats were boring and bland, and her desserts were non-existent. And of course she had no need for Coke. We say now that to fight childhood obesity we need to take Cokes away from kids. But you know what all that taking away did for me? It made me want it more than anything. I didn't recognize then that food was the most physical manifestation of all the unhappy changes in my life, I do now. Food was an act of love in my family and my little body dealt with it just fine. Then food became an unpleasant necessity and then later a weapon of war and my relationship with it changed forever.

First there was the tomato soup battle were I sat at the kitchen table for four hours because I refused to eat absolutely repulsive-to-me tomato soup. Then there was the sneak attack of "of course I got pepperoni on the pizza because everyone likes pepperoni. Anyone who says they don't like pepperoni is just being difficult." And then I grew. I grew up and I grew out. I was heavy, thick, fat. I ate my stepmothers supposedly healthier food and I grew. Then when I got a bit older I ate the good food that I loved every chance I could. At school, at work, at grandma's. I bought Coke whenever possible and ending up working at a fried chicken shop. And yes I still grew.

But you know what? I was ok. I played basketball, softball, was in marching band and did my fair share of physical labor in the fields and in the barns. I was just shy of 5'11" and wore a size 16. Was I skinny? No. But was I really out of line for where a girl of my height and build should be? No. I was fine. I see that now. I really was fine. But no one in my house thought so. I was fat, my father was fat and something had to be done about it. So we did. We did the frozen shake diet, the all protein diet, the grapefuit juice diet, the whatever you can think of diet. Did it work? Of course not. What did happen was I got bigger. I hit size 18 before graduating high school. Looking back, I see that's really not so bad considering height, build, activity level, etc. My father offered to pay for me to go on the Nutri-System plan as my 18th birthday gift. I declined. I loved food and didn't want to go on some plan they took real food completely away from you. And besides, I still didn't hate myself much at that point.

So I went to college, all of my big self and did just fine with the ladies. I was cute, flirty, smart and apparently quite a catch. I messed around, fell in love, got my heart broken and fell in love again. All the while I was engaging in horrible eating habits that would follow me around until this day. I only ate things that I loved. If I couldn't have something that tasted really good to me I just wouldn't eat. Eating was a pleasure not a necessity. Eating was comfort and love so why on earth would I do it if it didn't taste good? So I ate a lot of sweets, drank a lot of Cokes, ate a lot of fast food and drank a lot of booze.

After I met B it didn't take her long to figure out how comforting food was to me. She learned to cook like my grandma (despite being a vegetarian at the time) and spoiled me rotten with it. It was and is heavenly. But we never dealt with the unhealthiness of my eating habits and eventually she adopted part of them with me. And then we both grew. I still take the grand prize for unhealthy eating habits and physical disappointment but neither of us are happy with our bodies. Neither of us are happy with the limitations our/my size puts on us. And as previously mentioned, I fucking hate my body. I hate the way it looks, the way it feels, and the false assumptions it gives other people about me. Everyone thinks fat people are lazy, less intelligent, unable to make a commitment, less desirable. Even fat people think that so says the scientific study that just came out.

My stepmother even told me once that the only reason I'm a lesbian is because I'm fat. Had I been skinny and therefore had men crawling all over me I wouldn't have been interested in women. Of course she didn't know that I kissed a girl (and knew my inclinations even before that) and loved it back when I was still a skinny little kid.

All of this...shit adds up to a grown up Michelle with serious food and eating issues. My tastes are skewed, my appetite large, my need for comfort in the form of edible goods enormous. I cannot make good food choices on the spot. I have to think about them and plan for all variables. I have to bargain and list and know that food is an option in case I get hungry. I have to have help thinking about and dealing with food. I never wanted to admit that before. I never could get with any health/food/weight loss program that had me thinking about food all the time. Portion sizes, fiber, five fruits and veggies, bigger breakfast, smaller dinner, planned out snacks. On all those plans you just thought about food all the goddamn time. I couldn't accept that I needed that. I just wanted to eat normally. No matter how fat I got I still just wanted to eat normally. I didn't and don't mind being fat. I think fat is my body's natural state. But not this fat. It really does interfere with something almost daily. Something small usually but sometimes not. Regardless I think about it every single day and then actively hate myself for it. I'm tired of hating myself, tired of feeling horrible reading online nearly everyday somebody's tirade against fat people, tired of knowing that long term health problems probably await me, tired of knowing that I'm more than likely to be passed over for a job because of my obesity than I am to be hired because of my intellegence and skill. So I have to recognize that I can't eat normally. I have to think about food a lot. I have to pay someone to help me think about it and make good food choices and changes. I need help.

So Weight Watchers. Yes, fucking Weight Watchers. I can skip any anti-feminist bullshit, I can eat anything in moderaton and they help me figure out what the fuck moderation is, how much I should be eating everyday, what I should be eating more of. I can also trade exercise for food on a limited scale. Fuck yes. If I'm going to ride the damn bike for 30 minutes then I'm getting that 3 point can of Coke for it.

Wish me luck, wish me well. Remind me in a month that I said that I plan to be on Weight Watchers for at least one year. Tell me that it's ok to combine these food issues with all the other issues I have with my childhood and my stepmother. Remind yourself Michelle that you're a grown up and it's time to let childhood shit go, lay claim to your own issues and make them better.

P.S. This is not something I ever want to talk about in person. So please don't bring it up. I know that's childish but what can I tell you? That's the way it is. If by some freak occurance I bring it up and want to discuss it ok! otherwise please let's only discuss here in the warm, loving arms of the internets.