anorexia

I went to the hospital when I was four, because I wasn't eating. My dad always told me he suspected that I was anorexic because my mom had left. But I finally remembered why. Well, it's not really a conscious "why," because I was four and because anorexia isn't like that. Maybe some forms are. But for me, and as far as I've read, it's not something you think about, like "hey, you know what sounds awesome? Not eating. Maybe then I'll get the attention I deserve." Food just becomes sand. Flavours don't exist. Everything is grey. Nothing has animation. I do not wish to eat because I am not hungry.

I've always remembered the feeling, but never the cause (as I write this a part of me is trying to escape, it feels like I have a fever or I'm underwater, and my ears are ringing high pitched, and I feel nauseous). I realized that (I'm so scared of writing this, it's so stupid!) that that that my dad, my dad never paid attention to me. There. It doesn't sound like a big deal. My mom left so I already felt unsure of myself. My dad didn't hold me, didn't comfort me, didn't talk to me very often. I remember all the times he talked to me and I loved them, I loved him, I clung onto those moments. I thought it was normal, to be four and live in a silent home. My dad was usually drunk. He drank and sat and stared, or watched television or typed.

There were other people, but no one who gave me the nourishing communication and love I desired: there was my aunt, who molested me, and my babysitter, who was insane. My mom was gone and my dad never spoke. Sometimes I'd get angry and once I hit him and he shut himself in his room until I apologized. I was crying so hard he couldn't hear me.

I always thought my dad was my friend, my saviour from dark places. When I was a little older, after the divorce, and my mom would yell at me and hit me, and I wished I was dead, I would remember my dad and I thought he would save me. I told him this later, when I was 17 or 18, I said "I have to tell you, I'm mad at you because you never saved me." And he was very defensive, snapping that he did, that I had no idea what he went through blah blah blah. Both of my parents love the "you have no idea what I went through" "defence". It's insulting, to assume that one's child isn't paying attention, for one thing. It always hurt my feelings that they thought I never watched them. I was always watching. And for another thing, my parents are two of the most self-centered, whiny people I have ever known. It was impossible to live in their home and not know their most intimate business. My mother told me everything, well, yelled me everything. And my dad told me things I never wanted to know as a teenager, about his sex life, or his genitals, or hormone levels.

It took me a few months away from them to realize that I was still a child, as a teenager. I always thought I was so grown up. I blamed myself for most of their shortcomings.

It's only now that I'm realizing how damaging my relationship with my father was. I knew my mom was abusive, because I had adults who told me, and because it was much more tangible; I could tell which actions of hers had made me feel humilated, dirty, miserable. Worthless. But with my dad, I thought it was all me.

I have to write this down because if I don't, I don't think of it, and then I forget it. I want to remember, because I need to live.