I hate eating with people. For me, it is a private bodily function that I have to do to survive. I don’t understand why it is a social event. I don’t like people seeing me eat. It feels embarrassing and I don’t like seeing others eating. Without even trying, I won’t look at others when they eat.
I wish I could get over it, but that would be like telling someone to get over being embarrassed about pooping in public. I wouldn’t want to poop in front of people and I wouldn’t want to see someone poop in front of me.
I feel comfortable eating with my husband, but that’s because I feel comfortable doing anything and everything with my husband. There’s no secrets with him. And yet, I hardly ever see him eat. He’s the person that I eat with the most and yet when we eat, I don’t look at him.
I think about the Last Supper and how Jesus gathered the apostles together to share a meal, but He also gathered them together to wash their feet and to pray. I just wonder if this feeling I have is a preference or a fear. If it is a preference, then I need to find some way to accept myself as I am idiosyncrasies and all. If it is a fear, then I need to find some way to deal with it.
If I am being really honest with myself, I really want it to be a fear so that I can force myself to be like everyone else. However, the truth is I have always just felt weird about food. It’s an OCD thing. I think one of the reasons I do so well with food tracking and sticking to a diet plan is that those things give me a sense of control over my food. They give me a plan on how to deal with my food choices and they actually reduce the stress I feel about food.
I don’t think anyone understood that along with leaving my family’s control for the first time when I went to stay in the college dorm, I also had to deal with eating on my own. We didn’t have a kitchen in our dorm rooms. So, my only choices were to have snacks that I kept in my room or to go to the cafeteria for my meals. Three times a day, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew that I was going to have to figure out what to do about eating. It was the first time in my life that I made any type of decision by myself about what I was going to eat without anyone else’s input. Most people might think it was a good thing, but it wasn’t. I felt scared, stressed out, and overwhelmed. I felt like someone took me and threw me in the middle of a pool without teaching me how to swim. I already felt weird about food and every time I walked into the cafeteria, I just wanted to run away and cry.
I learned and got through it. I found a way. I still find a way today. I feel good about my relationship with food. I’m not scared about the food choices like I was. I can go into a grocery store. I can order at a restaurant. I just don’t like eating in front of people or seeing people eating. I have OCD and there’s nothing wrong with that. God, please help me to accept myself the way that I am.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
