I had a break today where I wasn’t allowed to eat.
And it brought me back to the week I spent at my father‘s house last fall sick where he refused to take me to the hospital. Told me I was being dramatic and that I wouldn’t die from a tummy ache. I didn’t eat that week. I lost 40lbs that fall.
Or when I lived with him and worked 70 hours a week and the few times I cooked he ate everything with no remorse. So I stopped cooking and only ate takeout because it was the only way I knew there would be food. And he told me to stop wasting my money and that I would die because I was fat.
Or when he went on vacation, and I was between jobs and had $20 in my bank account. And he left no money for food. So I lived on kraft mac and cheese and my ex who made like $12 an hour and supported herself fed me.
Or as a kid at my mother’s house where she was always on a diet. She told me I could never diet like her, that I didn’t have the willpower.
When I came home after crew and microwaved mac and cheese she screamed at me for waking her up. I mostly ate stauffers mac and cheese. She bought it for me. She would make dinner for herself and my brother and never leave me any leftovers.
Or in the summers when she was working (she was always working) her office was below the kitchen. And if I came to get food she would scream at me for interrupting her. So I’d sneak down the stairs to grab candy or a granola bar, anything.
So when you ask why a woman who grew up in a wealthy suburb and graduated from Wharton had food insecurity.
Now you know why.
Laughs and Lobotomies 