Any person who has experienced a meal with me at some point in his or her life is probably aware that I do not share food. I will slap your hand away, yell at you, or even not speak to you for a day or two. I fully understand that this makes me sound like an egocentric brat, but the reasons behind it are much greater than sheer self-absorption.
In middle school and part of high school, I suffered from EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). I could not be diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa because I maintained a somewhat “normal” Body Mass Index nor could I be diagnosed with Bulimia Nervosa because I had a fear of purging. I had no biological or genetic predisposition to an eating disorder; rather, my OCD manifested in an obsession with controlling my food intake. For this reason, my eating disorder was extremely different than most cases. Because it was an anxiety induced illness, years of therapy helped me to break this obsession.
If you picture the typical eating disorder, which is often accompanied by depression and isolation, mine was the complete opposite. Anyone who knew me during the time of my eating disorder will agree that it was extremely unsettling to watch how happy I was while being so obviously sick. The less I weighed and the more I restricted, I felt more empowered and in control, which fed my OCD more and more. I planned my daily food intake down to the last detail. I even used to subtract calories from gum and mints. For me, it was like a puzzle that at the end of the day I was proud of myself for solving.
Due to this meticulous counting and planning, I did not share food with anyone. My food was my food because it was all I had. If I didn’t consume the exact amount of calories that I intended to, that meant that I was no longer in control. If someone took a bite of my pasta, I recalculated my entire day’s eating schedule. I would never go to friend’s houses for dinner and often would not eat anything my parents made because I wasn’t able to get the exact calorie count. Instead, I lived off of lean cuisines and protein bars. I also would not go to restaurants if they didn’t have their calorie count listed online. I remember going to Bertucci's and ordering a side of grilled chicken and broccoli as my meal, which I believe totaled to 170 calories.
As I mentioned before, through years of therapy and an extremely emotional confrontation with my best friend to whom I owe the world, I recovered. I no longer suffer from an eating disorder but when I go through something stressful, I always have to fight my instinct to restrict my food, my symbol of control. However, as proud of my progress as I am, I don’t think that I will ever be able to shake the inability to share food. I no longer count everything I eat but when someone eats something that belongs to me, I instinctively feel that my entire life is now out of order. I try to explain this to people very early upon meeting them because I want people to understand why I yell at them if they take a french fry. I feel extremely lucky to have amazing friends and family who all treat this issue seriously when I tell them.
Who would have thought that crying when someone eats an animal cracker can have roots to an eating disorder and severe OCD? No one, of course. And I would never blame anyone if they didn’t know this about me. However, just let this article be a lesson that there is often a lot more to people than you can see at the surface. People’s behaviors or qualities are rarely exactly as they seem upon first glance. With the stigma surrounding mental illness in today’s society, there is truly no way of knowing what anyone is going through. I am an extremely open person (arguably to a fault according to my greatest critics a.k.a. my friends), but not everyone is. Have an open mind and try to be tolerant of people’s dissimilarities.
