Even though I felt I had a new lease on life due to my very deliberate change in identity, there were some things I couldn't control. The last husband and all of the hell that happened because of him left me with a lot of emotional scarring. Over this next year, a lot of that would begin to manifest.
This happened played a deeply significant role in my future struggles with obesity. As I have mentioned before, one of the control/abuse tactics of my mother's second husband involved a strict list of things I was allowed to eat. I was a fat kid and he didn't think I was sexy enough for him, so he wanted me to slim down. My weight had been a big issue in their marriage and I suffered a lot because of it. When someone is abusing you and trying to control every bite that you put in your mouth, you can do two things . . . you can submit to them and lose your will completely . . . or you can bide your time and then rebel when at all possible.
When we moved to the new town, I soon discovered there were some drastic changes in my living situation. The new stepfather was a bastard, but he was also a deeply, deeply lazy bastard, so that curbed a lot of his shit. My mother was usually working, most often two jobs. When she wasn't at work, she was drinking or asleep. We had a woman living with us (kind of randomly) who tended to babysit my brother.
All of this factored into me having a strange level of personal freedom. So long as I didn't bother anyone and I was home by the time it was dark, I could roam around the town as much as I wanted.
Now part of this was just basic willful neglect on the part of the adults. We lived fairly far away from the elementary school, but close enough that I could walk without too much difficulty. There were buses, but in case I haven't mentioned it, I loathed school buses and wanted to avoid them if possible. The first few days of school, Mom walked with me. After that, well, I guess she had other things to do and I was on my own. And if I could walk to school by myself, they really couldn't justify letting me walk around the rest of the town.
This freedom was delicious to me. Because I had to share a room with my brother, I really had no personal private space in the house. The best way for me to get away from everyone was just to stay out of the place as much as possible. And I did. I would walk everywhere in that town. I would visit friends. I would play in the park. I would walk by the older houses and enjoy their architecture. These hours alone were rather joyful for me.
They were not, however, the best part of this new freedom. See, there was a convenience store a few blocks from my house. It sold the usual convenience store foods . . . corn dogs, burritos, pizza pockets, etc. These foods became, and I am not exaggerating here, THE BEST THING about my life.
See, after several years of my eating being a matter of pain and cruelty, I had developed a very real kind of Food Anarchy Complex. There was nothing more important or joyful to me that walking into that store, buying my dollar's worth of toxic food, and eating it in secret. To me, those high fat, horrible for you treats were the most delightful things I had ever tasted. I would buy them and then walk outside of the store, swing around to the alley, and eat them where no one could watch me.
The secrecy was a big part of the enjoyment. I felt like I was getting away with something, pulling some major coup on the universe, because I was eating this and no one knew. It was my food, my decision, and I was able to do it with no one hitting me or screaming at me or otherwise punishing me.
After I would eat the secret food, I would feel this rush of pure bliss coursing through my body. My mind, ever a strange little place, had chosen to reinforce the secret eating by rewarding me with happy brain chemicals. That, of course, became the best part.
And thus, I transcended from a little girl with a bit of a weight problem into a full-on food addict. When things would get too stressful or when I just needed to rearrange my brain chemistry, I would eat something in secret. It became my way of coping with the hell around me. The more unhappy I am in a situation or the more miserable I feel during the day, the more I will eat.
You know, even now, the biggest thing I struggle with is secret eating. I honestly worry more about that than I do about the number of calories or whatever I eat in a day. The calories can eventually be worked off. The fat can eventually be worked off. But the joy and elation I feel from secret eating is harder to shake, because, quite frankly, there is nothing else in my life that compares to it.
And if you're in my life, don't be offended by that statement. It isn't to say I don't love you. I do. It isn't to say I don't have fun with you. I do. And I've felt the rush of happy brain chemicals from other things as well. The first time I completed Nano I felt deep accomplishment. When I got my scholarships to college, I felt deep accomplishment. Hell, when I can pull myself up from a chair using muscles instead of my hands, I feel deep accomplishment. It's an awesome feeling.
I have to be honest though, it doesn't compare to the rush after secret eating. Love doesn't. Happiness doesn't. Nothing does. Secret eating is freedom and comfort and safety and sneakiness and pure out defiance and total happiness. There have been times that it was the savior of both my sanity and my life.
As I am in this place where I'm trying to carve out a healthy lifestyle, this is the hardest part of the struggle for me. Walking is painful. Doing steps is rough. But nothing is as difficult as forcing myself not to go get The Secret Piece of Pie or the Secret Expensive Ass Coffee. Every time I manage to resist it, I remind myself I am doing the right thing.
And every time I remind myself of this, a fourth grade version of me whispers back that "doing the right thing" is total bullshit.
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