I think I'm a torture survivor

[Being Honest]

There are parts of this that may seem silly or unrelated at first, so please read the whole thing...

To put this story in context, I want to point out that I have rheumatoid arthritis, my mother has BPD, and my father and older brother are both on the autistic spectrum.

The reason my RA is important for this story is because recent studies have linked RA with a bacteria found in beef and dairy products. This bacteria appears to be the "on switch" for the disease and it appears that if a person with a genetic predisposition to RA never eats beef or dairy, they will never get the disease. However, at this time, there is only a logical case and anecdotal evidence to suggest cutting beef and dairy will help anyone who already has the disease. For some reason, the studies simply haven't been performed yet. Furthermore, it is rare but not unheard of for people with RA to have an extreme aversion to the taste and smell of beef, particularly hamburger. In my personal case, I was able to put on muscle for the first time when I went vegetarian 17 years ago. I put on 20 pounds of muscle in the first year. A few years ago, I ate some by accident and  my arm swelled up shortly afterwards in a way that, frankly, it hadn't done since before I went vegetarian.

Now that I've said that... In case you didn't get this, I hate hamburgers. To me, they are as unpleasant as vomit or feces. I was okay with hamburger if it was heavily spiced like in taco meat or spaghetti sauce, but eating hamburgers or hamburger pizza was something I have always refused to do.

For some reason, the fact I hate them has always angered my mother to the extreme. This isn't normal levels of anger, but something far more intense. I've sometimes speculated that she may have associated picky eating with my brother's autism and thought on some irrational, gut level that she could prevent the issue by not tolerating such things in me. (I'm not on the autistic spectrum, if you're wondering.)

Though I guess I should also point out that she has never tolerated "picky eating" from me in any form, including once flipping out in public because I didn't want margarine on a toasted peanut butter sandwich...

Anyway... When I was three years old, she started refusing to cook for me and told me I would have to cook for myself and clean up the mess afterwards. I thought this was fair and have cooked most of my own meals every since. She thought I would just give up because of the inconvenience and start eating hamburgers, but that didn't happen.

Over the course of two or three years, she tried many tricks to try to get me to eat them. It started with mild punishments and insults.Then, one day, when I was 4 or 5, she took me to a mom-and-pop restaurant and ordered me a hamburger despite my objections. She'd assured me that the hamburgers there were different and I would surely like them if I tried them. She also said I could stop eating if I didn't like it, so I agreed to try one. When I took that first bite, it tasted just like every other hamburger and I said I didn't want to keep eating. My mother then started shouting and intentionally making a scene so that everyone would look at us. She shouted that I should be ashamed. I think her goal from the beginning was to publicly shame me so I would give in out of embarrassment, but I shouted back that she knew I didn't like hamburgers, that I had warned her not to order one for me, and that the only person with anything to be ashamed of was her.

At another point, my parents took me to Pizza Hut without my siblings and told me they were going to order a meat lovers pizza without hamburger. I was already highly suspicious because, growing up, my family rarely ate out at restaurants other than McDonalds and Burger King, so Pizza Hut was a treat and the fact they would take me without my siblings set off alarms. I was the least favorite child ( to put mildly) and I knew my parents would never give me something special like this unless they were up to something. My mother then proceeded to order a meat lovers pizza without requesting no hamburger. Having figured out what was going on, I pointed out that they'd neglected to request no hamburger as soon as the waitress left. My mother then said that she'd made a mistake and would go up to correct it. She then walked over to where the restrooms were (where I could still see her) and stood in front of them for a couple of minutes before returning, and insisting the order had been corrected. I pointed out that she hadn't talked to anyone, but she assured me she had and I'd just missed it. When the pizza came, it had hamburger on it (of course), and I tried to hide my laughter at just how insulting this was to my intelligence. My mother assured me that it was not hamburger but sausage. I took a bite, and it was definitely hamburger. I pulled everything off the pizza, and my dinner for the night wound up being crust with sauce on it. My parents were very unhappy that I'd seen through their trick. When they got home, they didn't want to talk about it. However, the following morning, my mother told my siblings a lie that I had eaten the pizza with hamburger and loved it and then threw a fit when they revealed it had hamburger on it. She said I was crazy and in denial of reality and that I had false memories. She encouraged my siblings to mock me for my alleged mental illness. I was told of my mental problems over and over again. I was mocked endlessly by my entire family. After a while, even though I clearly remembered what had really happened, I started to wonder if I might be crazy.

Then, when I was 5 or 6, I was made to get up early in the morning. I don't remember for sure, but let's say 7 a.m. I was not allowed to eat breakfast. My family went on a road trip. At noon, my parents pulled into a McDonald's or a Burger King and told me "You can eat a hamburger or you can starve." I said I'd rather starve. I sat and watched while my family ate and then got ice cream, and I got to hear my mother rant about how wonderful my siblings were and how bad I was. My siblings were told not to feel sorry for me and encouraged to make fun of me.

At, 3 p.m. or so, my parents again took us to a hamburger restaurant and told me "You can eat a hamburger or you can starve." I again chose starvation. They repeated this every three hours or so, while dropping hints that I would die and that I deserved it.
They made me afraid for my life, while also indicating they didn't care.

Oh... There's one more detail I should point out. In addition to RA, I also had an immune deficiency until puberty and doctors weren't expecting me to live very long. Letting me go without food for a day was highly dangerous and likely could've resulted in my death and my parents were aware of it. So, those hints I might die, were not mere scare tactics, which would have been cruel enough.They literally risked my life so they could win a petty argument.

Late in the night, I finally said that I would eat a hamburger. However, my mother told me that it was too late. She said they weren't even going to let me eat a hamburger unless I first made a series of confessions. I had to confess that I actually loved the taste of hamburgers and had been lying the whole time. Next, I had to confess that the reason I was lying was part of a strange power play. When I made those false confessions (crying my eyes out the whole time), my mother said it wasn't enough. Only after I'd humiliated my self and begged and begged and begged and begged, did she finally let me eat something that I hated. My mother acted like she was doing me a favor I didn't deserve, saying it was "against (her) better judgement" to let me eat (let me live). As I ate it, I continued to cry. I thought I was going to vomit, not only because it tasted so bad, but because of what I'd had to go through to get it.

A few days or weeks later, they did it to me a second time. At noon, when they took me to the restaurant, my mother said with a big smile, "But you admitted you like hamburgers."

I replied, "I lied because I was afraid for my life but I realize I'd rather just die."

We didn't get back until very late at night. Throughout the day and the evening, my mother kept telling my siblings, "He's choosing this. If he dies, it's his fault."

I went to bed, and waited for a few hours before sneaking up to the kitchen. When I got there, my mother was sitting in a chair waiting just to make sure I didn't get food, knowing it would likely mean my death.

She said she knew I would eventually try to sneak food and she wasn't going to let me eat. So I begged again, and this time, she let me eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"It's against my better judgement..."

To this day, I can't hear any variation of the phrases "hunger is the best sauce" or "you're just not hungry enough" without wanting to hurt people. I go into a kind of fight or flight response where I really have to fight to not go violent. I have never assaulted anyone over this, but my heart races and I am honestly ready to kill and maim when people say things like that.

My siblings watched all of it, and to this day, I think they are still on my parents' side and would call it a self-inflicted problem.

[Turkish]

My mom used to go to a Straw Pizza place near our home. It was a restaurant unlike modern to go Pizza Huts. When she adopted me at 2.4 years of age, I'd only eat hot dogs. O refused to eat pizza. She told me later that she took me into rue bathroom (at 3 or 4?) Pulled down my pants and spanked me because I refused to eat pizza. I remember going there, but not that particular incident.

She used to make spaghetti, and by the time I was 7, I loved it.  Previous to that, no. She'd plant me in my chair with a TV tray and wouldn't let me leave until I ate. Despite being only 47 now, I have good memories of The Late Show with Johnny Carson.  I would fall asleep and face plant into my plate of un-eaten spaghetti, a 4 and 5 year old around midnight. My mom thought it was funny.

When I was a teenager and "eating her out of house and home" (despite the fact that we were basically homeless at that point), she'd tell me she was sorry that she was so rigid when I was younger, as I ate cold tamales out of a can, scraping off the congealed grease.

My only thought years later was "what the  was wrong with you?" And I didn't have food allergies like you.  I can't imagine what that was like, being shamed and actually being made sick by a parent with no empathy. 

[JNChell]

Abuse via food. What you described is awful. My experiences are different from your’s but not eating what was in front of me had consequences. Even if the food made me gag. I would have to sit there with my plate while mom did the dishes and be berated and cussed at. Often times hit for not eating. I remember one road trip with the family. I had to pee really bad. I told my parents and my dad said that we weren’t stopping. Long story short, I peed my pants. We stopped at the next rest stop with a burger joint. Had to do the walk of shame into the restaurant.

What your parents did is wrong. They placed you in a no win situation. I’m sorry for that.

[Jareth89]

@BeingHonest Which bacteria in food is this that you are referring to? I know a bit about recent research into autoimmunity but i'm interested and curious what this bacteria was? A paper was written recently about how antibiotics cured Lupus patients (the bacteria had translocated from the gut into the body and this caused an immune system reaction...abx removed the bacteria and the immune response).

You may find it interesting that arsenicals were used in the not too distant past in human medicine to cure a variety of medical complaints that are 'incurable' today - including autoimmune diseases. I guess we now know why - arsenic is an antibiotic and bacteria do not develop resistance to it.

[Jareth89]

@BeingHonest Which bacteria in food is this that you are referring to? I know a bit about recent research into autoimmunity but i'm interested and curious what this bacteria was? A paper was written recently about how antibiotics cured Lupus patients (the bacteria had translocated from the gut into the body and this caused an immune system reaction...abx removed the bacteria and the immune response).

You may find it interesting that arsenicals were used in the not too distant past in human medicine to cure a variety of medical complaints that are 'incurable' today - including autoimmune diseases. I guess we now know why - arsenic is an antibiotic and bacteria do not develop resistance to it.

The bacteria was enterococcus by the way, not 'mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis', and as mentioned previously the autoimmunity presented as Lupus. However, I think that the autoimmune response depends on your own predisposition and it's likely that the same bacteria triggers a different response in patients. It's known that there is an overgrowth of bacteria in the gut with autoimmunity and it's this overgrowth that causes the gut barrier breakdown.

[Being Honest]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180130123743.htm

[Maya L]

Wow. No wonder you are a vegetarian now. That was some scary stuff! Just terrible trauma.

I too was told to eat something once by my father and his partner or else I would not get any other food. I really did not want to eat this thing, she would never force her own kids to eat anything. I was also terrified of her, and we were just the family on an island with no other people at the time. I ate it even though I really did not want to. This happened again, almost the same situation and I refused to eat. I´m glad that I stood up for myself that time even though I was scared.

I'm impressed by your resistance.

You came out on the other side winning, even if they "won" few battles here and there, you won by surviving.