I have given some thought to what I feel has contributed towards my comfort eating and have previously written some things down. I now feel the time has come to share these thoughts on my blog, even though they are quite personal. Warning - this post will be quite long, so go and make yourself a cuppa tea, grab a packet of digestives and get comfortable before progressing.
Comfort eating, death of a dream:- the early beginnings.
I have given some thought to the beginnings of my comfort eating, or at least where I think the beginnings are at the moment. I want to discuss what happened, how I felt and how I associate comfort eating to those things.
To start from before the beginning I have to record that I have always had a sweet tooth and it wasn't hard to motivate me to eat sweets and so forth. I suppose I had a predisposition to sweet things and my comfort eating is perhaps as a result of that weakness. Had things gone differently for me then this weakness would not have developed into what it is today. But things did happen and we cannot dwell on the 'what ifs'.
The beginning starts when I am aged 14 and I discover a small hole at the top of my bottom crack, which shouldn't, by any stretch, be there. This hole was a pilonidal sinus which is common in hairy men who sit down a lot (often known as 'drivers bum'). How I managed to develop this problem has always been a mystery but just one of those things I guess. A pilonidal sinus is essentially an ingrown hair gone wrong. The hair ingrows and a small hole forms which is like a small cavern which fills up with liquid. These things do not go away by themselves, they just burrow in deeper. A small operation is needed to excise the hole. The wound is left open and new tissue grows back and eventually heals up after about a month to six weeks depending on the size.
I was scheduled for my operation when I was 14 and I had to see the district nurse everyday to have the wound packed with a material which encouraged growth. To fast forward a bit the operation was not successful and I didn't heal. I was scheduled for another operation, then another, then another. I had 4 operations over 4 years. The final one was performed by a different surgeon and was successful.
So, what should have been a minor operation with up to 6 weeks to fully recover, actually turned into a 4 year prolonged saga. Given I was 14 when this all started and 17 when it was over, it interrupted both my GCSE's and my A Levels, not to mention interrupting the normal progress of a teenager in a senstive age range.
As I had a wound at the top of my bottom crack, it was uncomfortable to sit down, and especially for any length of time. It was difficult to walk long distances and full blown sports or exercise was simply not possible. The pain would affect my concentration and school was difficult to sustain. I had large chunks off school at the beginning of each operation and then my attendance was a bit sketchy with me having a few short days when I couldn't cope any longer. There was always a discomfort, always a background pain. I had to visit the nurses regularly to have it packed and lots of trips to doctors and hospital and so forth. These are just some of the physical things I was dealing with.
For my GCSE's the school had to apply to the examination boards for special consideration for me as my physical condition would affect my exams (as I couldn't comfortably sit down for 3 hours) and also my coursework as I had missed a significant amount of school. It disrupted my A Levels but to a lesser degree (I missed an interim Law GCSE). By the time I sat my A Level exams I was finally fully recovered.
It was a decidedly difficult time. I was trying to lead a normal teenage life and it was curtailed by this. There are two things associated with this time which relates to my comfort eating and lack of motivation to exercise. No. 1 is my school friends at that time and No. 2 is the sport issue. I will take one at a time.
1. My school friends. I was part of a group of girls at school and even though I was always a bit different and a bit on the edge of the group, we always got on well and they were my security at school. For my first operation I received a certain amount of sympathy and support. What you could expect from 14 year old girls I suppose. This was fine and I appreciated it. However, the more operations I had, the less sympathetic they were. Nobody was keeping my seat warm so to speak and my frequent absence from school led to me being even more on the outside of the group. When I was at school it seemed all ok and I don't think I really put my finger on anything out of the ordinary as such. But their absence in my life when I was out of school was really quite obvious to me.
One day I received a phone call from one of my friends and she told me that the others had been talking about me and how they thought I was being pathetic and stupid as I was wasting valuable time out of school in our GCSE year. They were scornful of me and thought I was freeloading. This was very upsetting for me. I was already upset that there was no support, no interest in me, but to then receive this report was a complete dagger to the chest. I was dumbfounded that they had not given a single thought as to what I was actually going through, as if this was something I wanted and was taking advantage of it. I was 16 at this point and just had my 3rd operation.
I suppose looking back as an adult I could say that at aged 16 these girls wouldn't really be capable of lateral thinking and compassion. And I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised, but you tend to expect others to be the same as you - I was a mature 16 year old and capable of thinking about others, putting myself in others shoes and of compassion.
To me I couldn't believe how selfish they were, how ignorant and how callous they were. These were supposed to be my FRIENDS. People who cared, who look out for each other. But I slipped through the net and nobody caught me. And all they could do was to criticise me for being sick.
I felt completely rejected by my school friends and felt quite lonely. I did have other friends - my church friends - who loved and cared for me throughout my operations and they are my true friends. And it goes without saying that my family were always there for me. So I wasn't completely without support or friends but this loss of my school friends was still a significant blow when peers and friendships are so important at that age. I thought they cared for me, thought I meant something to them.
I didn't confront any of them about this. When I was at school I still sat with them, spent time with them, but I was an outsider from their perspective and also from mine. The mental distance grew and grew.
I felt betrayed by them; when I needed them the most they were not there. My role in the group had always been a supportive shoulder, a confidant, the one they turned to in turmoil, the security, the empathiser. But when the tables were turned and I was in need, nobody stepped up to the plate for me.
It is said that a crisis always shows your true friends. I was in personal crisis and my girls were shown up for what they truly were. And disappointingly, it wasn't what I expected. My true friends, my church friends, were there and I still love them very much and still friends 15 years later. They did help to ease this transition with my school friends but it was still hard.
2. Sports/Exercise. I was a sporty person (believe it or not!), and loved PE and team games. I even chose PE as a GCSE. This sinus put a stop to pretty much all exercise, even walking. This affected my GCSE a lot as half of the PE exam was practical and as I couldn't participate at all, my teachers had to guess my skill and submit that to the exam board.
I was a keen sprinter and was one of the best in my year. I was that annoying person who could turn their hand to most sports and be quite good. I was the one who was always entered into nearly every sports day event. I loved it. I was in football teams, netball teams etc..
I had an ambition to compete in the olympics and it was something I was keen on and convinced I would do. I wanted to compete as an athlete in the 100 and 200 metre sprints and maybe long jump as well as that was another favourite of mine. I am not convinced that I would have made that dream come true, but I would have tried and then perhaps failed in the normal way, or perhaps even made it. But life intervened and the dream died a slow death over a couple of years. I knew I would never make it after 2 operations had gone by as I was then very unfit and starting to put on weight and not had any training in the most important years. It was gutting to know I'd never make it and all because of the stupid sinus which my surgeon couldn't get rid of.
But it wasn't just the death of the olympic dream that bothered me, but the whole inactivity thing. I loved sport and games and I simply couldn't do them anymore. It was torture to watch others play the games and participate. It was made worse by the fact that I had PE lessons regularly as I had opted for that GCSE. As I couldn't participate I was always called on to help set up or referee. I had to watch everyone else doing what I so badly wanted to do.
I remember one particular instance with sharp definition. We were in the trampolining module. I loved trampolining and I was good at it. It was another sport I wanted to get more into. So each lesson we would be trampolining. I had to be involved to be on the edges in case someone fell. I had never felt such a desire to do something so badly and equally felt so gutted that I couldn't do it. Each bounce, each person, it was soul destroying to watch it..so soul destroying.
A part of me died then, during that whole time. I lost any and all motivation to exercise, to get into sports. It disappeared and I can't find it anymore. Something was taken away from me and I found it very hard to come to terms with that loss.
Both of these reasons contributed towards my turn to food for comfort. There was also the practical side - I wasn't exercising and so it was inevitable that I would put weight on. It was in these 4 years that I developed my comfort eating. I felt betrayed, rejected and lonely because of my school friends and one of my true joys was taken away from me. What was left to do but sit around and eat. It made me feel better.
I associate comfort eating with rejection, loneliness and grief. I was grieving over many things during those 4 years. Over my adult years it has become a habit and I rely on eating in any and all times of stress. It is always constant, never failing me, always there and it can never be taken away from me.
I suppose I have not fully come to terms with the whole thing. Why it had to happen like it did, why me, how it could have been different. It still seems all very unfair.
Now it may seem like these are mountains out of mole-hills.... I suffered no great tradegy - I had some good friends, a whole family who loved me, and all I experienced was some disillusionment about some teenage girlfriends and coped with inactivity and lack of exercise for a few years.... viewed through someone elses eyes I can see how these things may appear trivial or hardly something to cry home to mummy about - suck it up and get over it.... but viewed through my eyes... my emotions... my perspective.... it was something in my life which left its mark. Another person may have come out of the same experiences without any scarring... but I will not deny how I feel about it, that it did leave a mark and that even if it seems pathetic to some, it was most important to me.
I do not profess to have suffered any worse than the next person... but each person has a different story.. and this is mine.
Signing off.
Signing off.
