Food is my enemy

People don’t believe me when I say it is hard for me to eat.  How can it be hard for me to eat?  Then I spend a few days at their house and they then know, I just don’t eat.  And as many have said anorexics are obsessed with food.  I’d rather not ever have to think about it again.  Unfortunately for me that isn’t how life works. Not getting hungry is very real to me and in my case I have a biological DNA mutation that messes with changing food to energy.  That said the supreme anorexia I went through in high school and college was more about control although when you don’t get hungry or if you eat it makes you sick then why eat?  Some anorexics drop to extremely low weights such as 75 pounds. I was 95 pounds after surgery.  That was low enough for me to know the difference between functional and no energy.  I have a very rare cancer. The DNA mutation that interferes with digestion also allows tumors to grow throughout the abdomin even to the heart, lungs and brain.  That said, the loss of weight would have killed me after this operation more than anything they did to during surgery.  The body can’t work without fuel.  If the body isn’t given food then it steals from other organs and can literally eat itself.   I still have eating issues at age 54.  I was able to gain back 15 of the pounds I lost during surgery. Although I’m not “normal” weight I weigh enough to feel “normal”.  Anorexia is such a mixture of physiology and psychology it is impossible to untangle the two.  It helps if you have a confident, outside observer.  Not one allowed to control what you eat or how you feel but can see when things have really gone astray.  My husband does that for me.  Will know when I’ve put in extra effort or remind me that I can’t “miss an opportunity to eat.”

Cathy Sherman Freeman, WT GIST / Paraganglioma, Carney Dyad Cancer, SDHB germline mutation, Book written:  A Disney Childhood