Mourning my friend, food

Part of my pre-op work was to watch a series of mind prep videos and complete the homework.  One of the homework assignments had me write a letter to food.  It is personal, but I am going to share it.

Dear Food,

You have been both my friend, and my enemy for my whole life. When I was a little kid, I did not see enough of you. You would show up from time to time in the form of care packages from the church, but you were almost always bland and tasteless. To spend time with you at school, I had to get in a special line and everyone would look at me funny.  It was easy to keep my distance from you then because you were not who I wanted you to be.

As I got older, I went to work in fast food restaurants like so many other teenagers. I found out that you were not the boring substance that I thought you were.  When I bit into you in the form of a Big Mac, you exploded into flavor and I couldn’t get enough of you.  I gobbled you down so quickly that there was plenty of room for another before I started feeling full.  I looked forward to going to work each day so I could spend time with you.

You didn’t cause any problems for me in those days. You made me strong and athletic. You helped muscles to grow, where once there were none. You helped me be noticed both on the field, and off.  I was on the top of the world. I thought that you were going to be my friend for life.

When I got injured and couldn’t play sports anymore, you were still there for me.  For a while, it seemed like I could still spend the same amount of time with you and not see any ill effects.  You hid your true colors from me.  You were sneaky, and before I knew it, you had robbed me of my firm, toned body.  Of course it wasn’t your fault entirely.  I was there too. I could have pushed you away, but I didn’t.  I was weak and dependent on you.  The happiness that I experienced made me forget about the bad times.

Food, this relationship has to change.  I know that I can never push you completely out of my life.  You will always have a special place in my heart.  It is just that I have to think about myself now.  I have to put myself first.  I can no longer plan my days around spending time with you.  I have to stop looking for new and exciting places to find you.  I will always love you, but we have to stop seeing so much of each other.  

Thanks for sharing this.  It's very powerful.

I'm about 3 1/2 weeks post-op and to be honest, I am struggling a bit with food.  The learning curve has been steep fo sho.  I constantly need to remind myself to slow down, chew and wait between bites.  Yesterday I had some broccoli get stuck (didn't chew it enough) and that was VERY unpleasant for about 4 hours.  But even when I manage to eat mindfully, I don't feel satisfied.  I mean, I'm satisfied as far as physically not being able to eat anymore, but mentally I feel kind of down.  Just like, "well, I guess that's it for now".  I'm thinking I need to work on making myself OK with the 'new normal'.

Oh yes, I remember this feeling well.  Sitting at the table and actually shedding tears and feeling very sad over the loss of food.  When you're used to using food to ease every emotion and push down all feelings, it's quite the trip to have that ripped away suddenly.  

I hope you're working with a therapist because although you may get past the "mourning period", you'll naturally want to revert back to using food for how it makes you feel...or not feel as the case may be.   Get some good coping skills learned now.  

Interesting and important topic.   I sort of went through this before my surgery since i had to wait quite awhile to get the surgery.  I kept having these little waves of anxiety wondering how I would be able to stand giving up the ability to eat whatever i wanted as a source of comfort.  but I dealt with this by reminding myself of all the great dinners, cookies and pig outs i had had during my life and decided i was ready to move on from that.  i was 58 years old and might have felt differently had I been younger.

Anyway, I now tell myself I have made a new deal.  The new deal is that I traded in the right to eat cookies and junk food in exchange for good health, the ability to do the things I want to do, and probably 10 years more life.    The old deal was that I gave up my health and wellbeing in exchange for the ability to eat cookies and junk.   So i remind myself that this new deal is a better one and I am lucky to have been able to reverse the old deal.  

So when you mourn loss of food, remind yourself what you get in return. it gets easier and once you get to real food, its far easier.   diane

It gets better :) When you can eat solids, you will get satisfied quickly!.. You will be full, and not want anything else or you will get sick..