What's it like to have normal eating habits?

I genuinely want to know. Nparents controlled food, the thing you need to stay alive and grow up healthy, in such a subtle way.

I need help gaining perspective here. I'm going to list some things, please tell me if this normal or not.

⚫ For my whole life, I've never had an adequate breakfast. After starting secondary school I don't think I ever had breakfast. Nmum thought having a piece of toast with orange juice was sufficient. I felt sick every morning for years.

⚫Ndad would make me paranoid about everything. He would often find hair in food or a crumb or something that bothered him and make a dramatic scene. He'd then tell us we couldn't eat that food. This mainly happened when eating at other people's homes. If it was at home with Nmum's cooking, he would become psychotic and start screaming and verbally abuse Nmum.

⚫This might be a Muslim thing but eating gelatin is forbidden for whatever reason. As a kid I was addicted to candy and nfamily would always point out if sweets were 'halal'. In my childhood I remember looking for certain food additives or e numbers in the ingredients list on the packet, apparently I was not allowed to eat anything with 'E471'... This is pissing me off now because I've never believed in religion so it was just a way to control me and alienate me from non muslim people.

⚫There was never anywhere to eat. I'm used to balancing plates on my lap and having snacks instead of meals so I can get it over with. When I was a teenager I questioned Nparents about why we didn't have a dining table in our living room like normal people. They were furious. To prove some kind of point, Nmum set up this broken table in the corner of the room that was dirty and not comfortable to sit at. No one used it so she won. Ndad ended up setting up a computer there so he could gamble more easily.

⚫Nmum cooked everything. She would only make curry with flatbread. I had that one meal with only slight variations for most of my life. Nparents didn't encourage eating fruits or vegetables. The only other food I would eat would be things Nmum put in my lunchbox like crisps, chocolate, sandwiches with white bread, orange juice. I'm starting to believe eating the same things for years has made me depressed and apathetic towards food. Whenever I eat at a restaurant I get some kind of high, so many flavours and the setting is a hundreds times better than being at home having dinner.

⚫This is important and I know it's messed up my body. No one knows about nutrition!! And Nparents refuse to learn eventhough they are suffering with health problems because of their ignorance. They are intelligent people but it's too bad they use their intelligence to manipulate and destroy lives instead of bettering their own and caring about their children's health. I have osteoporosis, I'm 22. GC sister complains about aching bones all the time and she thinks it's normal because Nmum has the same issues (she is 19, Nmum is 44). It's like they want to be miserable so people will feel sorry for them. Can you believe all the years of pain from malnutrition could have been avoided if Nmum actually cooked something that wasn't curry?

⚫Which leads me on to the next point. Nmum under fed GC sister and I. I feel like I needed a lot more food anyway because I was a very tall child. But she was so strict with buying junk food and outside of the meals she made and no breakfast, I was definitely not getting enough food. I started becoming underweight when I was 11. I am still underweight now. I only reached a healthy weight earlier this year and now I have lost all that weight again because of.....Nmum!! Yay! Fuck her.

Ok, so this was a pretty long read and there's much more, I could write a book about this. I just want to know what normal is. I have no structure, no routine. It's almost 7pm and I haven't ate anything yet. I make food for myself now because Nmum is crazy and actually can't cook well. I have to use the kitchen after she goes to bed at 11pm because she dominates that area all day and pisses me off. She is killing me and I am letting her. The only way I know I'm eating enough food is by counting calories and I know that is not helping anymore, it's actually depressing logging in food and realising I only reach 1000 calories a day. Nparents have discouraged healthy eating behaviours my whole life and I've felt like it's my fault I have a weird eating disorder now, like I can't be a healthy normal person. I am going to an ed specialist in a few months but until then I can't afford to lose anymore weight.

Thank you for reading.

Submitted December 24, 2016 at 01:52PM by 0berry http://ift.tt/2hUgr1u