in keeping with the whole introspection thing...

Last week I found a new follower when I signed in to look at my blog.
And he's one of the more amazing people I've 'met' online. He has depression and other things going on, and writes about it.

He's really good (utterly amazing) at self analysis, and has caused me to step back and do a little analysis of my own about myself.

You can find Med here.

After writing the post about the incipient hoarding and dredging up the memories that led to my compulsive collection of shirts, I've been looking around me at other things I have.

And I've run smack into a wall of conclusion that I didn't see... didn't want to see, and don't really like seeing. But there it is. And because of that big wallI in the center of my existence, everything else I look at is secondary.

Wall in the center of my existence = elephant in the room.

I hoard all kinds of things. Many of those things aren't objects at all, but they're baggage just the same.

You may have figured out that we didn't have a lot of extra when I was a kid.
I am not an expert money manager, and have made and continue to make mistakes in taking care of our finances, but my kids have always had more than enough things to wear, even when we were at our poorest, there's always been enough food for everyone, and I've tried really, really hard to foster their creativity by having all kinds of art supplies and crafty stuff and things for them to get their hands on.

I never had enough to eat as a kid. There were some really weird things done with food in our home while I was growing up. The stuff we craved as kids was rarely purchased, so when it was, we would eat a whole box of cereal between the three of us. As fast as we could shovel it in. Because if you didn't, you wouldn't get ANY. There were rarely leftovers. Usually not enough of whatever it was to even get seconds. My parents had foods that were for them only. They were always "on a diet" and so the instant breakfast or the milk or bananas or the grapes or whatever were off limits to the kids.

This wasn't necessarily because we were poor, because we really weren't. We just had really bad management going on. My mom always bought the smallest package of everything, from toilet paper to toothpaste and coffee and macaroni. She never 'got' the lesson of buying a larger size at a slightly higher price, but having it average out as less per pound or ounce or serving by buying the economy size.

So now I hoard food. Not only in my cupboards and in containers here and there, but on my body. I can't eat 'just one' of anything. I have to eat favorite foods until they're gone. I can't bear to leave one for later, because part of me knows it won't be there when I go back.

When I moved in with my grandparents and didn't have to compete with the rest of a pack for food, I still had the 'eat it all' habit. But it was good... I was active, still growing, and burned off all the crap I gorged on.

It's not anywhere near the same now. Not only am I pretty inactive due to injuries and pain and pain and pain, I am no longer getting taller. I don't burn off the stuff I eat.

And I am not a nuts and twigs and little bits of gravel eater, either. Don't give me a fucking lettuce leaf with some veggie paste in it and call it a meal. Don't fill a plate with fruit and suggest that it would be a good meal for me, either.

Give me a goddamn piece of chicken or steak and some rice.

Actually, I could eat that and do okay. It's the sugar that does me in.
That, and I don't seem to have an off button when I eat.

This post was pretty hard to write, too.
I wonder what other stuff will spew from the volcano of my past?

Ha, makes my past sound like a big zit.