Eating as a chore, eating for enjoyment

Author: Fiona, mid-20s with anorexia and autism

Suffering from anorexia means 24/7 you have a voice in your head telling you less less less. Less food, less enjoyment time, less weight, less of a person. More exercise, more business, more work, more control. It’s a violent contradiction that causes my head to feel in a storm. 

Food to me isn’t what it is to my mum, or my dad, or my friends. Food to someone with an eating disorder, isn’t just food. That’s a really hard concept to understand. 

A few years ago I managed to find the vocabulary which, for me, described the different stages of my relationship with food.

Food as a chore.

Food as food. 

In my good days, food is food. Its is enjoyable, it is relaxing, it is fun. It is social and tasty. 

In my bad days, food is a chore. It is merely a tick on my list of things I had to do in a day. 

Food has been a chore for me for many years, and it reflect my recovery. When I was in hospital, food was the chore I had to do to get out. I hated it, I hated the anxiety it caused, the distress it evoked. I hated eating, I hated the dining room I hated supervision, I hated it. But I did it because I had to. 

When I got out of hospital, food was a chore to stay out of hospital. I ate my meal plan because I needed to stay out of hospital. I wanted to go to uni, so I had to eat more food to be allowed by my treatment team. When I stared uni, I had to keep eating my meal plan, or I would’ve been stopped from going to uni. 

Last year, my recovery went well. Food became an enjoyment. I enjoyed the taste, I enjoyed the company. It was social, it was going out for dinner and choosing what I thought sounded tasty. That for me was momentous.