I Don't Have an Eating Disorder. Riiiiight.

Wow, talk about fooling yourself.

Recently I was at a church gathering where I was 'lucky' enough to be used as an example. My friend (who also happens to lead the group) was talking about the power of words at that point and happened to mention my dislike of certain words. I dislike food words. (For the record I also really like certain 'odd' words, mostly words with a 'hard' sound to them) And not just any food words mind you. I dislike words that describe food in a positive manner.I mean, what ever happened to just saying 'This tastes good'? It's perfectly adequate. Why the need for all this 'tasty' (*shudder* my least favorite by the way) and 'delicious' and what have you. Don't get me wrong I'm all for expressing yourself and I can be very picky about word choice in other matters but with food... let's just call it 'good' and leave it along, shall we?

Now for the longest time my response to the question 'Why?' re:my dislike of positive food words has been 'I don't know, I just don't. You'd think I had an eating disorder or something -insert laugh here-' Makes sense, I suppose, if you're trying to throw someone off your trail, right? Except I wasn't. I was totally serious, totally genuine. And the other day I sat there thinking the same thing 'I don't know, I just don't. You'd think I had a ...' HELLO! How many times did I throw up just yesterday (I actually can't tell you... about half a dozen I'd say, give or take... there was some major binging going on)?? How often do I engage in such behaviors as purging (a binge does not have to be involved) or other compensatory methods? How often do I restrict? Are you freaking kidding me?

Now in my defense I'm neither that dense nor am I in that much denial; not completely anyway. This is the most of any of this sort of behavior I have EVER engaged in. Not even the initial episode when I first started University was this bad. Not even close(makes sense; bulimia, which is what this first started out as, often doesn't make an appearance until the persons late teens/early twenties and most of these things start off slowly). And once I stopped I very rarely engaged in any sort of ED behavior over the next six or seven years(nothing huge anyway, I know I 'flirted' with it throughout that time period). So I just figured it had simply been a 'phase'. 'Everyone experiments in college', right? My 'experiment' had been with inappropriate means of weight loss; it wasn't an eating disorder, it was a phase. It wasn't until these last couple years that I decided maybe I was wrong (though if I am to be honest it is probably more recent still that I finally admitted that I could fit the criteria for an ED).

It was actually yesterday that I realized the other day that my dislike of such words actually began about the same time as everything else did. So it has been with me all along, has it not? Oh sure, it has mostly lain dormant these past few years. A binge and purge there, knowingly taking in a few less calories than I should here; and a strange dislike of all but the most mundane words to describe food in a positive manner.

Interesting.