Dear ninibee:

1. “For one, I was a VERY picky and anxious about food. I had extreme food aversion and OCD like behaviors. This was difficult for my family”-

-at whatever age you displayed anxiety regarding food, before that age, you were emotionally injured in context of food and eating. I will give you an example from my own life: when my mother was pregnant with me she was anorexic/ bulimic, so her pregnancy hardly showed. As a (smaller size) baby she tried to breastfeed me with large amounts of breast milk, way more food than I was used to in her womb, so as a baby, I kept my mouth shut. She later told me that as a result of me refusing breastfeeding, her milk stayed in her breasts and she suffered a painful infection. Question: was I a problematic baby for refusing too much breast milk; In other words, what came first: her underfeeding me before birth or my instinct to reject excess milk?

Something happened to you that resulted in you having anxiety regarding food and being picky. It was difficult for your family in a similar way that it was difficult for my mother to not have her breastmilk used. But what came first?

If I was not underfed as an unborn baby, I would have consumed more breastmilk after birth. If you were not VERY traumatized somehow in the context of food, you would have turned out to be “VERY picky and anxious about food”.

2. “Also, other kids’ parents complained about me and often did not want me being friends with their children. I am not exactly sure why”-

-did you hear those parents complain about you, or did you hear your mother telling you that other parents complained about you? If the only parent you heard with your own ears complaining about you is your mother, then I am suspecting she was .. the only parent who complained about you. I suspect this because it is not a loving act of a mother to relay others’ complaints to her daughter without telling her why they complained (“I am not exactly sure why”), and therefore without guiding her daughter to change specific behaviors. So I figure she told you what she told you so to hurt your feelings.

3. “I also cried a lot, would go to the school nurse for made-up reasons, find ways and excuses to get out of normal school activities”-

– you cried a lot because you suffered a lot, made to suffer and/ or not helped when you suffered. I don’t know if it is true that you made up reasons to go to the nurse. You probably didn’t have the correct words and diagnoses to label the misery that you experienced, so you didn’t ask to go to the nurse with the correct terminology.

4. “I am always very nervous about eating leftovers… so I could see that it was an okay thing to do and likely nothing bad would happen”-

– when you were a child, someone (your mother?) scared you regarding eating leftovers. Let’s say you ate leftovers one day and she screamed at you hysterically, saying something like:  are you crazy eating this leftover? It was out of the frig for hours, probably has lots of germs in it, why did you do that? Now I have to take you to the hospital and my day is ruined!

Again, from my personal experience: my mother scared me about not eating all  that’s on my plate, saying that if I leave anything behind, it will spoil (even if the leftover is in the frig for a day!), and that would be a terrible thing because she works so hard for the food she buys. Decades later, when I see leftover in the frig, I get scared and feel the urgent need to eat it before it gets spoiled. I assure you that if my mother didn’t scare me this way, I would have no problems with leftover in the frig.

anita