I am paying the price of a lot of bad choices that I’ve made throughout my life. One of the results of which was developing Type 2 Diabetes. The nerves are slowly dying in my feet making it difficult for me to walk. Now this is starting to happen in my bladder causing incontinence and I am only 48 years old. I also seem to have issues with developing blood clots so I will be on blood thinners for the rest of my life. All of these issues happened as a result of developing a very unhealthy relationship to food. I am going to share the experience in the hope that it may help someone in time to prevent this from happening to them.
When I was a pre-teen through my teenage years and into my 30s, my father would berate me about my weight and my eating habits without helping me to develop healthy ones. He would use mental, verbal, and emotional abuse. The end result would be me sneaking unhealthy food and hiding it. I would also eat quickly so that it would be consumed before he could discover it. This was in effect serious eating disorder. My father was warned by psychiatrists and psychologists to cease this behavior because it would be destructive and ultimately cause more harm than good. But he knew better and ignored the experts.
The net result is where I am today in a hospital bed, quite sick, and facing a future fraught with uncertainty. I used unhealthy food as medicine to cope with anxiety, sadness, depression; I even ate when happy. In the end it poisoned me. The ultimate irony is I grew out of a lot of the other childhood problems that I had. I might have never developed this eating disorder if it had not been for my father. He could not leave well enough alone.
Now I am left with nothing but hatred remaining for the man. I finally had the courage to tell him a couple of weeks ago that I never want to speak to him again. I blocked his phone number and I will never speak to him again. I no longer care if that makes me an ogre. The man has dementia and is facing a court hearing where he will be most likely declared non compos mentis. And I am cheering this disposition on because I believe he roundly deserves this fate for what he has caused me.
I fear I may never be able to have intercourse again because of the nerve damage I’ve experienced. I worry that I may never sleep another night without the worry of incontinence. My girlfriend did not sign up to be my caretaker; nor do I want her to assume that role. The urological medications that can be used to potentially treat the incontinence might cause heart issues or other serious side effects. I signed up to be my girlfriend’s rock. I brought her out of a bad situation in Pennsylvania because I realized what a good person she is and I quickly fell for her because of the pure goodness she has.
If you think you have an eating disorder, please, please get help immediately. I shared my story above not to get sympathy but to tell you what you might face later in life if you don’t get help. Please do not make the mistakes that I’ve made. Now I am effectively a 48 year old in a 75 year old man’s body. I may meet with a slow progression of future problems as nerves die or become less effective. If I can leave the world with one thing, then remember that food has the potential to be a double-edged sword. It can be both a poison and healing substance. If you have an eating disorder, food has become a poison. You may still have time to make it nourishing and healing.
I will leave you with this final thought. We only have a finite number of years to live. Therefore we need to try to make these years the very best ones possible.