My relationship with eating

Anyone who knows me will probably tell you that my one greatest love in life (apart from Taylor Swift) is food. I have quite a big appetite and I will never say no if you are offering me something edible. In saying that, I’ve found as I get older I have a more complicated relationship with eating as a result of my disability.

I have always struggled with using cutlery and up until the age of maybe nine or ten I always had an adult help feed me. It never really bothered me much, although in the first few years of primary I had an assistant who was infamously terrifying and because she had to feed me it meant I would always have to sit at the table with all the naughty children which I don’t think is very fair looking back. Once the school had finally taken mercy on me and given me a nicer assistant, the friends I had at primary school never raised an eyebrow at my assistant sitting beside me feeding me but when I got to secondary school it became something I was much more aware of. Secondary school (as you may know if you have read pretty much anything I’ve ever written about it) was not a great place for me. I was always very hyper aware of my disability and in the beginning I would get quite frustrated when I needed an assistant with me to eat my lunch. I felt like everyone was staring at me and judging me for needing help (even though I’m fairly sure nobody was caring that much about my eating arrangements). Despite this, I knew I needed help as while I ate independently (for the most part) at home, it was important that I didn’t get food on my uniform as I was sure that even the slightest food stain on my clothes would make me look “more disabled”. As I got older and an old friend of mine who’d fallen out with all her old friends had decided to hang around with me at lunchtimes, I began to eat more independently at school. This was partially because she has an extremely foul mouth and it would’ve been unfair to subject a member of staff to that and because we’d somehow blagged a classroom that we were allowed to eat in at lunchtimes. Eating in a separate room really helped my confidence in feeding myself as nobody was around to see if I dropped anything or if I had food on my face. My friend is also very used to my disability so if I ever were to need help with something, she would happily help and it never had to be a big deal. I even remember asking her if she minded and she just said that she helped all her friends in different ways and that this was much the same as helping a friend do anything else, which I think is such a profound and sweet way of putting it.

This past year I think my anxiety around eating in front of people got a bit worse as I was in this wonderful advanced higher English class and the teacher, who was such an angel, would bring us in snacks and tea for during class. I found myself feeling nervous to eat in front of the other girls (as I had no friends and saw them as prime candidates), when I did eat the biscuits I would take extra care in not letting a crum slip from my mouth. It makes me quite sad looking back that I took such concern eating in front of them. In saying that, I still get really nervous eating around new people (it doesn’t stop me, because nothing comes between me and food) and I am quite insecure about the way I chew.

My relationship with eating has come to my attention recently because I am going to my prom in a few weeks, where I’ll have to sit and eat a full course meal with people from my class. I hadn’t thought about it much until my pastoral care teacher asked me if I’d be okay to eat without help as the teachers would be sitting at another table. There’s something about eating in front of these people who I haven’t really seen since leaving school that is giving me so much anxiety and even though I know this is the last time I will ever see them, it’s genuinely been on my mind for weeks. Eating in front of these people at prom combined with eating in my prom dress which doesn’t handle stains very well is a major stressor for me. Despite seeing how trivial the issue is, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. My mother is a big believer that I should be taking specialised cutlery with me everywhere which is theoretically very smart but considering my organisation skills, would probably take me years to get into the routine of doing. It is amusing though, the thought of everyone with their lipglosses in their bags and me with my knife, fork, spoon and plate guard. Even with the specialised cutlery, I don’t think I’m the neatest eater and there’s of course still a hint of embarrassment at having all these things just to eat a meal. In my writing, I always try to present a shameless and proud version of myself but I think it’s valuable to share times like these when I do feel insecure.

I hope that in the future I can talk about overcoming this insecurity about eating, perhaps it is just a feature of my teenage years and I will reread this in a few years and feel unable to relate to it – who knows? But I think sharing my relationship with how I eat is important. I think it also humanises me as a disabled person and shows that we often know when the way we do things doesn’t look like the way able-bodied people do them. Eating is a great pleasure and privilege in life, nothing should take away from it.