Thinness

I don't have a whole lot to say today. I'll be alone tomorrow in the open space. The colleague beside me is on leave, the others will be partaking in the same exercises as Hopoe & co., it will be only me and the civilian guy who teaches me how to manage those folders I am taking care of. He's fat, breathes heavily, but isn't any creepy. He just smells a little, but I assume it's because he might have some trouble taking care of himself. I have a feeling the guy is either divorced or has never been with a woman before. He just… doesn't look like a Don Juan, though he's not ugly.

I think this is going to do me good. For once, alone time. Finally, some quiet. My team and the colleagues in my office aren't annoying one bit, but to be constantly with this many people wears down on my nerves. Plus going to the mess, as shared meals with people have been a stressful thing for me ever since I had an abusive frenemy back in 2018. For four years I was completely unable to eat in a restaurant (even on my own), for six I would never sit down to eat. Always eat standing up so I can run outside, or maybe to the toilet. 

But it's not just about that, it's about one time when I had caught norovirus just a year before and I tried to make myself ingest dinner, only to retch on the table, and have my mom get annoyed at me because I guess she was tense, too. It was the first shot. What finished me off was the other bitch. 

I remember I would constantly feel sick and poop a whole bunch in her presence, have diarrhea that was definitely not from any sickness, and be unable to eat past a few bites. How once, I accidentally spilled korma sauce on the bed in London and she got mad at me. I apologized fearfully. "It's not to me that you should say sorry. It's to the host!". 

Her voice filled my ears and put my heart in a deadlocked claw. That trip to London was the first when I really caught an abusive glimpse of her. The first one, in Marseille, was amazing. But somewhere in between, I'm not sure why, something changed. 

Eight years later, I'm still talking about it.

To think that this long after everything is over, I've still not been able to eat with others the same again. I made a whole lot of progress with my ex, and with the team I love back when we were having our daily lunches together even if my appetite was always killed by how overexcited I'd get on the inside when Hopoe was in the picture, but still. 

What I'm most afraid of about public eating isn't so much the meal. It's throwing up. I am emetophobic, though I'm much, much less afraid of letting it out if I'm alone, but I'm especially spooked by public vomiting or even just someone seeing me vomit. Might have to do with the fact that when I remember vomiting as a small child, I felt chaos around me, my parents panicking or overreacting. Of course I guess my mom would say that it didn't happen, but there's probably a huge reason as to why it stresses me out so damn much to be anywhere near anyone when I puke. It's so bad that I can sometimes, especially when particularly stressed out, take antiemetics before meals so I'm sure to shut down the vomiting center in my brain and not have it come up.

It's throwing up, but also: it's being unable to escape. It's the feeling of food filling my stomach, and that surge of anxiety. Oh damn. What if it comes up? I'll have nowhere to go. Fuck. I'm stuck here. I can't show that I'm not feeling well. People will notice. Oh god. I hope no one notices. Am I pale? Do I look sick? Oh god. I have to hide. Not gonna vomit, not gonna vomit, why would you, you do this every 8-9 years or so, that's not a common thing for you. I can't escape. Fuck. I'm trapped. I'M TRAPPED HERE. FUCK. 

So I like to eat alone. If I eat alone, I can exit at any moment. I can run away. I often find that I haven't eaten enough or that I definitely could've filled myself more but there are times when the anxiety is too high. 

But at the same time… I want to be able to enjoy shared meals without this underlying fear. Without feeling my throat becoming sensitive and fearing I might gag or throw up right after eating. Which never happened, by the way, save for that one time I was actually sick.

Hopoe loves cooking. Loves eating, too. I just…

I wonder if someday, she could fill me up with delicious food. Heard she's good at it. For sure I would try, too, to make her favourite meals, but if she wants to show her love by feeding me, she entirely should.

Maybe this could put some meat back on my scrawny bones. Okay, maybe not scrawny, but I'm thin-boned and my BMI is slightly in the underweight range (18.1). I'm petite and I get swept away by currents at the pool. Might be a sign that… 

I should eat.