Oh Quacka, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel sorry for me. I just told those stories for your amusement more than anything. They are just so absurd. These are not things I would really divulge outside this forum. I assume we’re all here because we have some kind of ‘issues’ with food.

No, my brother has no food issues but he did practice 5:2 for quite a while as he was worried about our paternal family history of diabetes. We discovered in our forties that we both essentially eat anything except beetroot which makes both of us gag. Quite interesting considering we have lived most of our lives in different continents; could that be genetic?

I carried that food baggage around for decades. I still have an urge to reach over to another table in a restaurant and finish their wasted food (obviously I would never do it but how can anyone order a muffin and then just leave the whole thing behind? – at least take it for later!). I always say I’m still the same person I always was wrt food was but I now have the tools to deal with it. And, exactly as you said in your previous post, 5:2 has taught me about portion control and that hunger is OK. Good, even. It seems I will always need IF as a crutch as I’m obviously unable to maintain this low weight on a daily basis without it. But it seems a small price to pay to be a healthy weight for the rest of my days.

Your grandparents had a tough time surviving in Greece and Australia in those early days. Eeew, those fish eyes! Good thing Turn’s sister wasn’t their child. My parents grew up in the war and, although they came from very different socio-economic backgrounds, not wasting things was a common theme. In my later years, I did ask my mother why they made me sit there for hours staring at that awful cabbage instead of simply substituting something I would eat like peas and she explained that they just didn’t know any better – they only knew it was ‘good for me’ and were worried about my skinny little frame and finicky eating habits.

Anyway, enough about me but I’d love to continue this theme if there are any more stories out there ….

I had an extremely strict upbringing and as well as having bad food experiences growing up, I also suffered other very traumatic experiences/incidences which I won’t go into here.

Mum was a good basic cook and exceptional at cakes and baking and I have fond memories of her baking, although I was never allowed to help, just watch, as things had to be done a certain way when mum baked, but of course I was expected to help with the dishes.

My Dad was a very strict man, who believed a womans place was in the home so my mum never worked, she was not allowed to have a drivers license, we had to ask permission to use the tv or radio (which was usually denied), everything had to revolve around my father and how he expected the household to be which was quiet, spick and span tidy, everything laid out for him etc. He never lifted a finger inside the house – he demanded to be waited on hand and foot – and he was.

I was the youngest and the four siblings and mealtimes with my father filled me with fear. Strict table manners were always upheld and we had to ask permission to leave the table once we’d finished eating and had a spotless plate with ‘Please Dad may I leave the table please’ – don’t ask my why we had to say please twice but we did.

He expected the plate to be clean, and by clean, I mean not a spec of food or a mark anywhere to be seen. I can still see and hear him scraping and cleaning his plate spotless with his own ‘special’ cutlery which no one else was allowed to use – a bone handled set. The knife would bend as he pushed it around the plate getting every single spec of food off the plate.

When I was younger, I could only eat small portions, I got full easily. And I really disliked meat, I hated the taste and the texture, Dad liked his meat cooked until it became as tough a leather which made it even worse.

So, like others on this forum, I was made to sit there until I had cleared my plate, and it was spotlessly clean. I could be sitting there for hours putting minute pieces of food in my mouth trying to get it down when I was full – I wasn’t refusing the food I was simply full because I was given a portion that was far greater than what I could possibly eat. But Dad saw this as food waste and we must never waste food – giving me a smaller portion just wasn’t an option in his world.

While sitting for hours eating minute pieces of cold food wasn’t pleasant, the worst experience for me was when I was served meat. No matter how smaller piece I cut and put into my mouth and how much I chewed it, I just couldn’t swallow it. It would go around and around in my mouth until it became a disgusting ball of hard mush. This angered my father to no end and made him irate when I had no option but to take the ball out of my mouth and put it back on the plate. And the fat made me gag. Dad relished eating the fat from meat and expected everyone else to eat it too.

When the meat eating, or non-meat eating episodes would occur, Dad would rise from his chair and walk slowly to the kitchen pantry where he kept a jockeys crop horse whip hanging behind the pantry door. I’d get a whack across the back with the whip and then of course I would cry, which would make him more irate so he’d hit me again. Then he would make me put more food in my mouth, by which point I would be sobbing uncontrollably, and my only options were to either choke or spit out the food. Of course, the latter always occurred because I couldn’t swallow, so I would then be given several more cracks with the whip and sent straight to bed. Mum was forbidden to comfort me and I’d be left on my own until the following morning when nothing would be said about the night before.

This was a regular occurrence from about the age of 5 until late primary school. Every day when I got home from school, I’d ask mum what was for tea, if it was something like spaghetti bog or soup, I would jump for joy but if it was a meal that contained a piece of meat the terror would set in and I’d be a bag of nerves waiting for 5pm tea time. None of my sibling received this treatment as they had no issues clearing their plate.

About 7 years ago I sought help from a psychologist to help me work through my childhood trauma which I had held inside for almost 45 years. I had what I can only describe as a breakdown one morning, so I finally reached out for help – best thing I ever did and I should have done it a lot sooner, it would have saved me quite a few decades of being totally screwed up that’s for sure.

It was discovered during those sessions, which had never occurred to me before, that I have absolutely no memories at all of my siblings being at home when I was younger. I remember me being at home growing up but no memory of them being there with me. Of course they were there, but I cannot remember anything at all about us being together, doing anything together. I can only remember them as adults, after their school years. Strange.

I haven’t had any contact with any of my siblings for years now. Even when Mr GDay passed away I didn’t hear from any of them. For them I guess it’s easier to shut me out and pretend I don’t exist rather than believe and accept the actions of the past. Hence the story I told recently about seeing my brother for the first time in years where he just grunted at me and kept on walking as well as his removal of photos of me and Miss GDay from mums nursing home room.

But I don’t stress about them or the past anymore, I just let them be how they choose to be, and I think I’m better off without them in my life anyway. When Mum passes the funeral is going to be an interesting event, won’t it.

Anyway, probably more said than what I should have on here but I do find it therapeutic to put pen to paper so to speak. A big part of my healing was, and still is, journaling, I do it most days and it can be quite interesting to go back and read my thoughts from the past as well as a great way to track how far I’ve come.

Way past my bedtime, so good night all.