Since the age of 13, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with food. Before that age, it was just a love-love relationship. I was the third of four daughters and my bi-polar mother later told me that as long as I had a bottle of formula in my mouth, I would stay in the playpen all day and not disturb her. She would often go into bouts of depression and with other children to care for, leaving me in a playpen was the best she could do. She said I was the “angel” who gave her no trouble. Consequently, I learned to self-soothe with food. The end result was that I a chubby teenager. Not fat, just a bit chubby.

I learned to hate food when my mother took me to my first Weight Watcher's meeting at the age of 13. Food became the enemy. There was "good" food and "bad" food. The problem for me was that the bad foods were the ones I used to cope with my mother’s constant attempts at suicide and manic moods. Eating became solely about losing weight or being off a diet and binging. The pleasure of eating was gone. Food and eating became my emotional jailer. I was either good or bad, fat or thin, hungry or full. Moderation evaporated and pain, sadness, emptiness were it’s replacement. It would be many years before I examined my relationship with food and eating, and to this day, I am still learning more.

My goal in taking this writing class, is to find a further balance and even joy around food. I never baked too much for fear of eating what I baked. I didn’t really cook with spices, because I needed my food to be bland so I wouldn't overeat, so I am looking forward to continuing the new friendship I have made with food and eating. Thank you for offering this workshop.