Stress-Eating

The reason why I don’t deserve happiness all boils down to the machine of avarice that is my appetite. I think this to myself as I masticate on a chocolate bar in quick, miserable bites with what I assume is a frown of concentration on my face, which frown being present not at all because I loathe the experience, but as a reaction to the incredible shamelessness I feel for indulging in what is exactly making me pack on the pounds. The chocolate bar as expected, was an impulse buy. I have been scouring the grocery aisles with the purest of intentions, seeking to buy fruits and vegetables to rectify my unhealthy choices but the pull of temptation was fiendishly hard to resist. I found myself in the candy aisle, the variegated assortment of sweets in shiny wrapping pervaded my vision to the point that I questioned the futility of my initial intention of buying plant products, insisting to my cowardly self that I never liked the taste of apples anyway until I gave in and grabbed a fistful of chocolate bars. This experience was cathartic for me, especially given that the last few days or so have been the most toilsome in all of my university experience. I was in the midst of writing my undergraduate thesis about two dead white men whose philosophy I admire and liked to pretend that I came up with to spur my already dwindling self-pride upon finding myself lost in the wilderness of college life surrounded by apes who are trying with all their might to tear down my defences. It isn’t easy adjusting to the real world if you grew up privileged; the verity of human atrociousness— at the very least of those belonging to the uncouth class, makes for a Hobbesian situation wherein life at the behest of these beasts is nasty, brutish, and often short. My encounters with people outside of home have been a rather unpleasant experience even way back in childhood. Being a rotund child proved to be the most cardinal of all sins especially when the other children in school are vertically and prandially challenged. Against my will I became the butt of their bullying, the apple of their evil eyes, and the subject of their crosshairs all because I was different physically. Indeed, the world of children is as brutal as that of the jungle, and even as I grew up, the world of adults have proven to be worse. Among the many things I regret, and I do regret a lot of my decisions, the passivity with which I half-faced my oppressor deems to be the most detrimental. Fighting back was not in the itinerary of things found in my chest of defences and I allowed life to weave its cruel thread into my fate. Prior to the bullying, I was a happy child with nary a worry in the world, the halcyon days of innocence clouded by the distance that I now cease to believe that it even existed at all. In those days, I’d sit by my grandmother’s lap and listen to her stories, with the thought of the world as one big adventure waiting for me. How pathetic to have this yoke of illusion broken by a bunch of bed-wetters! How unfortunate it is to have had what is supposed to be the golden days of childhood tainted by constant bullying and oppression! But I have digressed too much. Here I am, still munching on a goddamned chocolate bar, and avoiding my responsibilities. I was supposed to do two chapters of my thesis today but so far have only managed half a paragraph before giving up entirely. The deadline of submission is creeping up on me but I have resigned from all hope that I will finish this on time. The idea that I won’t be able to graduate alongside my classmates is an honour for me. I never belonged with their roster. In a cackle of hyenas, I was the lone wolf, the deviant, an aberration from their otherwise perfect little world of puerile inanity. I could not care less not being in their graduation pictures as the sight of their sneering faces is forever etched in my memories, or at least until I am able to focus all my energy on other, more important things, including finishing my thesis. However, I’m afraid that I have eaten the last of my chocolate bar and feel the urge to have more. Gluttony is a deadly sin which I have to atone for. My impulsive nature begs for copious amounts of food during emotionally-charged binge-eating sessions that I then wash down with a bottle of fizzy, sweet soda. The last few days, as I have mentioned earlier, have pushed me to the edge of my appetite as if eating is the only hanging thread in the frayed ends of my sanity. My weight is the biggest (forgive the pun) problem I have carried in my entire life. My relationship with food is like a shady deal wherein the liabilities have far outweighed (again, forgive the pun!) the benefits. I have turned to food almost every time something stressful arises, from childhood bullying to this current situation of writing my thesis. Provided this information, and looking at myself in the mirror, that must have been a gargantuan set of stresses to trigger that much eating to incur that much weight. Or perhaps I am merely justifying my greed with a sob story. There is also the possibility that I am a victim of circumstance, that my poor psychological make-up is such that comfort comes only with prandial satiety. If it is the former, let the heavens strike me with lightning that I leave no carbon footprint as memory of my avarice; but if it is the latter, let God Almighty have mercy on me and lend me a hand to whisk me away from this predicament. The clock is ticking, and the cursor on my laptop is blinking, waiting for me to type the next paragraph. I am still craving for more chocolate as I run the tip of my tongue on my front teeth where I could still taste the remnants of caramel and other artificial sweeteners. I get up from my seat to get dressed, hoping that a change of clothing will get my blood pumped to complete my tasks—but it didn’t. Instead, I got dressed, counted my money, went downstairs, and headed to the store to buy more chocolates enough to give me diabetes. Sometimes, one has to get his priorities straight, and if calming my strained senses happens to be the main thing I’m concerned about at the moment, let me get fat. So be it. I regret a lot of things in my life, again, as I’ve said—let me regret this decision another day, but not today.