My son let it spill to my mother that he and his brother and I went to eat for my youngest son's birthday.  Which I hate him sharing ANY info about our lives with her, as she will take it and whine that she wans't invited, etc. blah blah blah.  But he added "Oh and mom didn't eat anything and had to sit and watch us eat."  

Oh I was livid.  I turned to him and whispered "SHUTUP!"  He felt so horrible, but I wasn't angry with him, I just felt humiliated.  

See, my mom has abused me for my entire life because I don't like to eat in public.  I have severe panic attacks about it and always have.  YET she will drag me to restaurants in order to abuse me about it.  She will humiliate me and pick on me and make fun of me.  And that's the only reason she ever wanted me to go with her.  She could have taken my kids alone out to eat, but no, she always put me on the spot and forced me to go.  And I always went.  I shouldn't have, but I did.  

"But you shouldn't put yourself in a position to be abused!"  No, she shouldn't have abused me.  And tell that a severely anxious person who has agoraphobia who can't be home alone.  And tell that to a codependent person who used to think she couldn't live without her mother (funny, I don't even remember what the felt like).  I had my reasons why I always went with.  I sometimes felt fine and could eat.  And I never knew how I'd feel until I got there.  

But that's not why I didn't eat this time.  I didn't eat because I couldn't.  I can't eat normal food.  Ever since my sickness almost a year ago I can't a large amount of different food and/or spices.  I can't eat fruit at all (other than blueberries).  I can't eat acidic, spicy, or tangy foods.  I can't eat tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic.  I can finally eat celery again.  Something happened to my stomach when I got bacterial food poisoning and covid together.  My stomach, my mouth, my throat, my tongue, my bladder, and urethra.  They are all severely irritated and can't handle many foods.  So, we went to a ramen place and I just had white rice.  It was okay.  I could barely eat that due to my anxiety, but I couldn't even order anything to take home.  I feel bad, my son's birthday and I had to sit and watch them eat (well, we all were chatting, so it was okay).  

And then my son just let it all spill out of his mouth to my mother.  I don't get why we do that (I mean, it's ADHD).  I do the same thing sometimes, but I've learned with my mom to keep my mouth shut.  So, now, I have to say "We don't tell grandma about what we did today!"  And they both agree "I know, Mom!"  That way it helps to keep him from accidently not thinking and just saying stuff to her.  

My mom is NOT my safe person.  She's not anyone's safe person.  She's conniving and abusive.  My son is at the point in life where he sometimes forgets this. I used to be at that point, too.  But it took me a few years to finally get to a safe space with her, where I say nothing at all about anything in my life.  He will get there one day, too, but by then, her memory will be shot, so it won't matter. 

Growing up, I had a complicated relationship with food.  I loved sweets.  Too much.  And my mom would regularly make these weird-ass (but tasty) chocolate chip cookies constantly.  And I would gorge myself on them.  And she would shame me for it.  I also liked to stir my ice cream to make soft serve, and she would tell me how gross it was.  She also made tons of food I hated.  On purpose knowing I hated it.  Like steak.  She made that every single Saturday.  She never made me anything else to eat instead.  She knew I despised steak.  And how she made it.  I hated roast.  Which is what we had every Sunday.  Friday was fish, something I also didn't really like.  She would make Hamburger Helper at least once a week.  Also, she made "braised beef" which was literally just ground hamburger (with a side of mashed potatoes and corn).  Mashed potatoes were ALWAYS out of the box.  And corn was always canned (yuck!).  She sometimes made hamburgers and once in a great while she made tacos, which were my favorite.  OMFG the tuna casserole....talk about barf in a casserole dish!  Her hamburgers were always HUGE in the middle and skinny on the sides.  They tasted like shit (she would put onion soup mix in them).  Her cooking was the quintessential 1950's TV dinner on a plate style of meals.  Boring.  Bland.  Gross.  Oh and Encor meals!  Those were a once a week thing.  Veal Parmigiana, canned potatoes and canned asparagus.  Veal.  Which was nasty.  Eventually they switched to chicken and that was better.  

I ate the same things, every single week, for years and years and years on end.  Hardly anything made from scratch.  Most things were out of a box or a can.  It was like eating your food rations rather than home cooked meals.  I, myself, didn't learn how to actually cook until I was almost 30 and I became vegetarian.  Which pissed off my mom.  

Growing up, I was told "Eat it or starve."  So I chose starving most days.  I went to school so hungry that I was on the verge of puking every single day before lunch (because I had the late lunch).  I got a PB&J for lunch every single day.  Which only spiked my blood sugar and sent me crashing when school let out.  My snacks were all sugar based.  I was actually hungry, but she fed me more sugar.  Then dinner came and it was nasty old food again, which I hardly ate.  So, I became extremely addicted to carbs and sugar growing up, and it fucked with my blood sugar.  And at age 18, I started passing out.

I also started a cycle of not eating when I turned 15, because all that sugar caught up with me (and my weight) and my mom started shaming because we had to buy me size 12 clothing in middle school and supposedly that was a big deal (we had to shop in the PLUS section! OMG!).  My mom is fat.  Remember that. 

So, I never really ate my dinners, unless she actually gave me something I liked.  And so I filled up constantly on junk all day.  And by the time breakfast came around, I felt so horribly sick from not eating the night before and then I'd be super fucked up until lunch.  Sometimes I had good lunches, but they were rare.  Like after Thanksgiving I would get turkey sandwiches.  Those would sustain me.  But other than that, I just got sugar laden crap.  

Have you heard of second breakfasts amongst the hobbits?  Well my mother had second dinners.  Every single night at midnight she would get out of bed and an entire second dinner.  Corn on the cob.  More chicken.  More potatoes. Or whatever we had that night.  I, on other hand, would only join her when it was corn on the cob, but anything I never wanted.  I was hungry (though she would feed me ice cream before bed almost every night...like HEAPING bowls for the both of us), but I didn't want more of food I didn't like at dinner time.  I wasn't allowed to eat cereal or and a sandwich or anything.  It was dinner or nothing. One time, she actually served me my dinner the next day for breakfast, a la Mommie Dearest style (he favorite movie).  

When she got custody of her stepdaughters after their father died (the kids were the same ages as my kids), those two girls were and thin as rails.  But literally only after a few months with my mother (like six) both girls became hefty.  Like, the one girl had never been anything but skinny in her life.  How did she do it?  She was like that old witch in Stephen King's "Thinner" except her magical power was grazing your face the the back of her nasty fingers while saying "fatter".  And just like that BOOM, you're fat.  She did it to me and now to two other girls.  So, obviously it wasn't us.  The only common denominator here was her and her carb/sugar loading diets she feeds to children.  

The kids were lucky to go back with their mother (though, so was my family) and now neither one of them is chubby (not like being chubby is wrong, it just shows that wasn't their body types).  

My mother is the voodoo priestess of sugar and fatness.  And apparently, my blood sugar issues.  

Not only that, growing up, I used to have to sit at the dinner table while my parents smacked each other.  It used to make my stomach turn, which why eating usually makes me want to vomit, esp. in public.  They would drag me to a dimly lit restaurant (which used to fuck with my eyes, I hated it so much) and would be drunk off their asses and make me watch them eat (because I refused to eat, because I never knew what they were going to do next).  So they are to blame for this issue I have with eating in public.  And yet, my mother would harass me, shame me, humiliate me, and pick on me for it every single time.  

And this is why I don't let my mother anywhere near me when it comes to food.

Before we moved in here, I was better.  I could eat in burger joints.  I could sometimes eat in restaurants.  I was getting over some of my issues with food.  BUT THEN we moved in here and it ALL came rushing back.  Why?  Because of her.  She somehow thought this was my childhood home and she was going to call all the shots and she was going use her time at the dinner table to drive me back to every single eating disorder and food issue I had thought I was over.  I got to the point that dinner time was sooooooo anxiety inducing, I had stopped eating.  Again.  

So, I made a decision: I was going to eat in my room.  But she made a HUGE deal about that and got my family to shame for me it.  Not that they knew what they were doing.  No, they were like "Why are you being like this??  Grandma is making it hell for all of us!"  And my food issues got even worse.  But I held my ground.  I refused to eat with her.  

Then, my prayers were answered: her doc wanted to do surgery on her foot and I forced them to put her into rehab.  And for four months, I created a life where her life and our lives were separate.  She now had to eat alone.  And all of her cat paraphrenia was in her room.  All of her decor was in her room.  I replaced her curtains and the shower curtain with my own.  I removed her from my life, because I was going to end up in the looney bin if I didn't.  

She did not like it, and she pushed back, but no longer did I have to eat at table with her.  Hell, I didn't have to eat at a table at all (it gives me PTSD).  I no longer had to put up with anyone remarking on why I was eating what I was eating or when I was eating it or why I wasn't eating a certain thing or "what is wrong with my cooking?" if I didn't clean my plate.  All of that stress was gone.  

And it has been for three years.  But I still can't eat in restaurants anymore.  Even if I could eat what's on their menu, I still want to barf when the food is placed in front of me.  Even when it's just a plate of steamed white rice (which was the only thing on the menu I knew I could eat).  And that she stole from me.  I was doing better.  I was healing.  And she stopped that from happening and sent me backwards.  I will work on it again, but not until my mouth and stomach are healed.  For now, I will just have to live with it.  

So, that's why I was upset that he told her.  I wasn't angry, I just was freaking out.  She didn't say anything though.  But you know she was thinking it.  

Anyways, I hope I am better one day so I can take my kids out for a family dinner with all four of us and I will be able to eat again.  Even if it's just at a our local burger joint (though, I may try that soon).  

God.  I can't wait until she's in a home and I can work on my own BS again without the anxiety of her mucking it all up.  One day.