Age 7-present: Food

The reason why this is locked is because somehow, for some reason, while I can talk about all things that aren't exactly the best that happened, while I can analyse and observe from a different perspective, become an outside observer of my own life, I cannot talk about this, not even to myself, no matter how hard I try. It's been this way since I was little, reading back my old journals and realising I've been trying to articulate this but could not. I laced it in code, a new alphabet, morse code, and rarely I said it direcly, but would default to immediately censoring myself.

So I hope I can explain it all here. I hope I can finally say all of this and not be ashamed for my insecurities.

This is so prevalent nowadays that I feel like having this insecurity just makes me one of many and removes all of my nuance, which I know isn't true,, but that's how I feel. Body image concerns. Most days I don't feel like I can live with this physical self for another day. I know I parade as someone who doesn't care about appearances, but I do, too much. I'm ashamed of it. This I can admit.

Here's something recent: the night before my English Paper 2 (Writing), I was panicking because I usually do uniform tryons + full exam run under exam conditions the day before and was contemplating on not eating again because of how uncomfortable I felt.

I feel guilty most times when I eat. It's not as bad as before. To paoint a picture on how much better it is now, here's how it was before: from ages 8-ish to 13, I used to weigh myself daily, but stopped and especially during lockdown, I used to only eat maybe 1-2 bites of every meal before shutting myself in her room again. I was happy about it. I paced in my room for hours every day. I used to write down everything I ate in a day in a book every day and limited food the next day if the previous day was too much (the max I set for myself was/is still 2-3 meals or 2 meals 1 drink).

My mom encourages all of this, yes, even up to this day. After not eating for a day/two or after skipping meals my mom would say things like, “wah 你就好咯，我都想要!" But I'm genuinely eating every day currently it’s just sometimes there’s guilt around it or sometimes I lose the energy to eat and recently there was a period where everything I ate was just so bland that I didn't want to eat at all and I would take maybe 1-2 bites and forfeit the whole meal (which I'm aware is a waste of food...), and sometimes I would skip one or two meals and the longest I've gone without eating recently only happened once this year (26hr).

I also remember one time in school whre Emilia kept saying she was hungry and was complaining about our school lunchtime being set too late and she said she couldn't focus on studying because of it. I said, "Doesn't the hunger keep you more alert so you focus better?" She said, "Hunger hurts." In the past I never really knew what hunger felt like (understood the feeling after 14). I guess that means I'm very privileged. I just eat, or I don't, and while I know food = glucose = fuel for brain, I genuinely believe that the pain from hunger aids focus. It keeps you alert, awake. It's good.

After the period of not eating, at 13-14, I actually began to binge a lot and it was sporadic and I honestly felt a lot of guilt around it but managed it w extreme exercise and also documented what I ate by recording myself eat instead of writing it down. This was funny to me because I remember one time in class the athletes were all discussing how much they workout every day, if they go to the gym etc. and somehow (though I am OBVIOUSLY not an athlete) it circled to me. One of them asked if I even workout. I said minimum 45 minutes daily, max 2 hours (obviously I've managed this a lot more recently, minimum 10-20min daily, max 1hr). They didn't believe me because it was more than them, and I found it amusing. They asked for my routine. But I can't even disclsoe my eating patterns, so how can I disclose my counter measures? I couldn't, and I never will.

So I guess it's subsided into just being a routine of restricting and feeling guilty about eating lately. It was especially bad during the binge period (13-14) and I remember I would just. How do I even describe this? It feels like wanting to rip my skin off completely and to just be a pile of bones. I wrote a "poem" (if I can even call it that... + the below are related snippets, the actual piece is way longe and covers many more topics I was struggling w) about this when I was 14, maybe it can describe the experience better:

so i hide in books.
i dont read,
they're plain.
so boring i could learn
to paint
the skies

if only i held my youth
held onto my flamboyance
my haughty demeanor mightve stayed
and with it a bigger head
a head filled with worthless angry thoughts i had no way to contain

if only i held my youth
knowing my limits and the height of the sky
the depth of the ground
the rage of thunder
the bloodshot eyes that were called you

smaller than this

just one person.

SCREAMING, WRITHING, CRYING.
just ONE PERSON.
just stop it.
really, stop.
stop
STOP.

smaller than this
smaller than this\smaller than this

i guess seven was happy
that nine never stayed
that it was alone for a time
for it was happy

ignore the words of the devil
except you wont know who is

ha\ha
ha
haha

why cant you die?
get lost.