Stress and Control

Under stress I stop eating, or restrict when and what I will eat. This phenomenon is exacerbated when I happen to be living under my parent’s roof, where I’ll actually start skipping meals. There is something soothing about the pain of hunger and the martyrdom of abstaining. Like this small measure of control, and self-inflicted punishment realigns my world and makes the uncontrollable aspects of my life bearable.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be an anorexic since I don’t follow a strict regime of calorie counting, over-exercising and complete forfeiture of food everyday of my life. This is an infrequent habit that can last anywhere from a day, to the record 3 months of last summer while the stalking began and then took over my life. Perhaps I’m just in denial surrounding the whole thing, but eating and I have had an uneasy relationship since I was 8 years old. I didn’t realize it until last year, but I can actually pinpoint the day that I began to feel incredibly self-conscious and even shameful when eating infront of other people. However, that’s a story for another day.