My Mother, My Dictator: Starvation

I don't know what form of control my mother was trying to have by starving me. Maybe it was to keep me physically weak so I couldn't fight back.
I can do nothing but compare this to a dictatorship. Holodomor

In this first picture I was 13 years old.


I was forced into a state of Anorexia. I could not eat a full plate of food. Part of it was because the food was denied, part of it I had such a low self-esteem of myself at times I wouldn't allow myself to eat, and part because my stomach was used to such small amounts.

In this second picture I was 18. (prom)


I was a size 3. I did not reach a hundred pounds until I was in college. There is nothing glamorous about being a size 3. It is a miserable state of existence.

In high school and after I moved back home from college my mother let me have Little Debbie's for breakfast. Now these snack cakes are considered a single serving when eating two. I was only allowed to eat one of them. I would get in trouble if I wanted to snack on one in the afternoon, because she didn't want me to eat them all.

A typical day might be a Little Debbie snack cake for breakfast, a cup of noodle for lunch, and two Taco Bell chicken gorditas and a side of rice for dinner.



I learned the best way to save money for buying stuff was to go with out food. The less we spent on food, the more clothes we could buy. I was later told by my father (who stood by and let this happen) that he was giving her $1,200 a month for groceries. It certainly wasn't going to feeding me.

My father only allowed me $5 a week for lunch. Even though this was in the
1990s, that didn't go very far then. A chicken sandwich for lunch one day, and fries the next. I had to be careful, because the chicken sandwich cost $1.25. So I could only spend 75 cents some days.

When my parents separated and headed down the road for divorce, I became the sole income for my mother. I was working 14 hour days at one point. I would cash my check and hand all of it over to her. I would then receive a small amount for gas money. Sometimes I would take the money, spend a couple of dollars at Jack-in-the-Box on the bacon cheddar potato wedges, and hope she wouldn't find out.