I’m about to go off to college, and my mom is getting on my case for not coming up with a list of foods I’d like to eat before I go.
I appreciate my mom for wanting to baby me this last week, but I just don’t want to eat any of her cooking.

You see, I used anorexic. And throughout my eating disorder and recovery, my mom would always be nitpicking about my food intake. I was never eating “enough”; and when I was eating “enough”, it was never the “right” foods.
Even now, two years later, while I have maintained a fairly stable weight (59 kilos at 168 cm), and am at the healthiest, liveliest, and happiest I’ve been since middle school, my mother still scrutinizes and analyzes every. Single. Bite. I take. Food is no longer enjoyable to me; with every bite I take I wonder if my mother will approve of my food choice (“There aren’t enough carbohydrates on your plate”) or if she will say anything acrid and stinging (“Oh look, there you go with your stupid vegan cookies again”). Food has become a constant source of conflict and depression for me, something that has not happened since my anorexia days.

I don’t want my mother to make any special dishes for me, because inevitably, I won’t eat “enough” of it or “pick” at it and nobody will be happy in the end.

Note: I do realize my mother just cares about me and is terrified that I’ll go down that path of disordered eating again. But this IS a place to confess… So I’m just letting out my feelings.