Back when I started to be abused I was in a boarding school and worked in the kitchen helping the Chef. So plenty of free cigarettes and extra food. I was a skinny tennis playing boy of 12 who could eat.
I used to creep down at dawn and steal bread and jam from the teachers dining room that had been laid out the night before. A couple of slices and leaving no evidence behind. I was never caught. This isn’t some confession, I didn’t know until recently. Week or so ago. Something has undone, something is letting me see and remember things I had no idea I knew.
The bread and jam is a weird one, I wasn’t hungry, I had access to enough food. Given that it was the Chef who was abusing me it might have been some kind of revenge, but tame if it was. Maybe it was a small thing from a powerless child to get away with.
Looking back it would have made more sense to slide one of his large kitchen knives between his ribs. That is probably harder than it looks to do smoothly, not everything in the movies is real. If it was my bat signal would have had a response by now.
Maybe my abuse placed a complicated little knot in the core of me. By the time I was married at aged 25 I was normal to slim, I could fit into my wife’s size ten jeans and never gave any thought to my body.
Something was off though, I could just eat cereal for longer than was helpful. I could dabble with eating something a lot and then drop it and never go near it again. I hated any comments on my appearance. When I say hated I just filtered it out, my jaw would tighten and it was if I had pressed skip and it just bypassed whatever it was they had said.
My wife could tell across a room by the look on my face if had been complimented, that shirt makes your eyes look great, your looking so tanned at the moment, looking great give me a hug, great my two favourite things.
There was never an eating disorder but there was something, it was if I was toying with the idea seeing if it was a fit. Maybe I was just too lazy to do it properly or maybe I just liked eating and couldn’t bear to give it up altogether.
Now that I am older and I no longer work much, there is no need for bright lights or photo shoots or worrying about how you look this week. A combination of various things meant I added a bit of weight. Then I discovered something, nobody touches you. Im heavier and older. I mean we are not talking people recoiling at the sight of me. Just not the man I was. Humans finally leave me alone.
Men are not predatory or flirting, women don’t laugh and toss their hair. Im ok with it, well I think there is maybe a happy medium and I could do with walking some of this off.
If it wasn’t revenge and it wasn’t an eating disorder. What was it? A small cry for help. Just trying any means possible to signal distress. Something was definitely off I just never quite worked out what it was.
a blog less ordinary 