Some of my earliest memories of food & the nightmare that continued into adulthood;

At four years old, sitting on the stairway with my two brothers watching my parents fight. We were moving, packing boxes everywhere. My mother was telling my father as soon as she could she would leave him someday. This was a big turning point in my life, it was the end of my innocence and my childhood. My two younger brothers weren't old enough to understand what was happening. My mother had declared war. She soothed us by taking us to the store and we each got to pick our own cereal. My youngest brother picked BooBerry. Andy picked Count Chocola. I picked the pink one (for girls) Frankenberry. I ate the whole box.

I was with my friend (actually the only other girl in my neighborhood....I hated her). I was probably seven or eight. We were at her church (my family did not attend). We had made crafts & now it was lunchtime. There was a wonderful punch and sandwhiches I had never had before. I loved it......I asked for seconds. The woman I asked acted like a had said I wanted to cut her head off. She said if there was any left after everyone had had some then maybe.

Halloween, we always netted a ton of candy. We lived in a neighborhood of 365 houses and we hit everyone. Our father was on the board and so we were treated different. We got special candy, full size candybars from those in the know. The candy was so voluminous. We kept our own candy but froze the chocolate. We had unregulated access to all our candy.

For years we grew pumpkins in the backyard. They grew like weeds in the Virginia soil. Our freezer was packed with pumpkin pies, the only thing mom knew to make with pumpkins.

Christmases.......mom baked a dozen kinds of cookies, several dozen of each kind. Most were frozen.......I ate a lot of foods frozen from this early training.

We were poor and on a strict budget for food. There was never enough meat. The only vegetables we ever saw was corn on the cob & canned veggies. We lived on potatoes & ketchup. The only food we had in abundance in our household was ice cream. Dad worked part time at the Highs down the street. Apparently we lived off of the ice cream he stole.

Mom taught us all how to read & write before kindergarten. She taught us to write our names by spelling them out on our sandwhiches........in ketchup. We had to know our names to get the right sandwhich. I started asking for the long form of my name to be written.

I was on a self imposed diet. I was a preteen. My mom had gotten McDonalds for the family, I froze my food knowing someday I would be off this diet. One night I literally felt insane. If I didn't eat the food in the freezer (sandwhich, sundae, fries) I would die. I called mom at work (she had left Dad by now & was working) and explained to her how wrong I felt and that I needed to eat this food. My mom was nonplussed, "so eat it" she said. Even then in my own way I was trying to explain how wrong I felt inside regarding food.

I was in Pennsylvania visiting relatives. There was a hayride which should have been pleasurable. The truck was on a steep hill and tilted and I was on the side that was tilting down. A kid started making fun of me for being fat. My brother came to my rescue. I don't remember eating that day.

I was 14 and on summer vacation....waiting for high school to start. I was dieting.....I was eating 1 can of string beans or 1 can of chicken noodle soup a day. I sat in the house with a heavy wool blanket around my shoulders, huddled over my precious food. I did not want anyone to talk to me while I ate. I did not want them interrupting my communion with the only thing I loved.

Still 14 and at the beach. It was over 100 degrees outside & the sun was directly overhead. I was laying on the blanket with half of it wrapped around me. I was freezing and could not warm up.

I was standing in the vacation house my Dad had rented. He was holding me down and forcing food down my throat to make me eat. At least he recognized I had a problem (although anorexia was not a word in the American vocabulary at the time). Unfortunately his method of force feeding me did not serve me well. I did start to eat again, more than I had ever eaten before.

I was a teen and old enough to walk to the local Highs. Most of my peers went to buy cigarrettes & soda. I went to by ciggarettes, four times the amount of soda, and large amounts of food. At first I worked a paper route to be able to get ready money. I would collect from a few houses before we went out and then never pay the paper. Sometimes I would steal from my mother. Then I started to go into various schemes. When a friends mother had to throw out thousands of chocolate bars that were past their expiration date at her work she kept them. I made it a daily practice to steal hundreds of bars from her (which cost me nothing) and sold them at school for a dollar a bar. The chocolate tasted horrible of course, dry and gritty. But I didn't eat it, I used the money to buy large amounts of food after school. Every day I would get a huge sub (18" long) filled with pepperoni & meats. By the time I finished putting the works on the thing had more calories than any human would need to eat all day. But still I also had 4-5 candy bars, slurpees, potato salad, & a 6 pack of mountain dew in the bottles. This was my "snack" after lunch at school and before supper. The lady who made the sandwhiches got to know me very well as she made them everyday for me. A red headed Irish woman, I saw her more than my own mother at the time.

I was now in my 20's & severely obese. I weighed upwards of 400 lbs, probably closer to 450 but that is a guess as the largest scale I knew of went to 400 lbs. I would come home from work and beg my youngest brother (who was now a teen) to go to the 7-11 for me & buy me my usual. A 6 pack of mountain dew (nectar of the gods!) 5 candy bars & a dozen doughnuts. Those would be my desserts after a large supper. We would usually get a 2 for 1 deal for pizza.......2 huge pizzas for $10. I & my brother Andy would practically eat 1 apiece with my youngest brother grapping a couple of slices.

I was living on my own. I was still huge and I could barely walk. I had to go up 2 flights of stairs to my apartment. By the time I made it up after a day of work I literally couldn't move. I didn't have enough energy to cook or clean. Maggots were the only visitors in my apartment when, out of desperation I would cook a box of spaghetti because I was starving and had no money. The leftovers sat & till the fat white squirming things came. The entire apartment smelled sour. I had broken the toilet with my fat ass. There was 3 inches of water in the bottom of the tub due to a drain clog which I was unable to bend over & fix. By this time I was in my mid twenties, walking with a cane. Thank God I had credit cards & there was a new delivery service. They would pick up food from one of fourty restaurants & bring it to your house. They would stop at two for an extra $5. It was charged on the credit card so what was the big deal?? I got at least two meals, usually 3 or 4, from 2 restaurants most nights until the credit cards were all charged up. I ended up going bankrupt, and losing the apartment.

There was to be a get together in the bosses office on the 3rd floor. I was too heavy to walk upstairs but I was required to go. So about 1/2 hr before the time I made my way upstairs. I made it up there....but then the boss wasn't ready to have the get together. I had no choice but to stay until he was going to have it as I knew I could not make it up the stairs once again. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Later that day my boss came downstairs to talk to me. He said he needed to talk to me. He said I had to get my shit together, I was too fat to climb the stairs. I was mortified and turned to more food to ease the pain.

I had that job for 81/2 years. Did I mention that we had all the free sodas we could drink while we worked? I went through at least a couple of sixpacks of canned mountain dews a day, and then stole some for home.

This is enough memories to last me for today. Is there any question I am a compulsive overeater and a food addict?