Fear, Food and Chopsticks

This weekend I went with my boyfriend for a traditional Chinese meal. Since I said yes to an offer of a business trip to China six weeks ago, time has flown and what was just a blip on the horizon is not right up in my face. And I’m scared. A little excited, but mainly scared. This was my plan for exposure-style therapy; confront your fears and they become less… well… fearsome.

Having opted for hot pot on the advice of someone in the know, we entered the fairly drab, unremarkable restaurant and were presented with a hot plate. On top of this, a young girl placed a bowl of boiling flavoured stock. I think she asked me what we wanted this stock to be, but I was kind of flustered and chose the least fish-like. We filled a bowl with sauces we didn’t recognise. (He thought the garlic was sugar.) We chose bits of food that looked vaguely familiar from the buffet to put in the pot. And noodles (I know where I am with a noodle).

I ate on auto-pilot at first, hoping that the eat-first, think-later strategy might serve me best. I guess it did for a moment or two, before the flutters in my stomach grew and the tickly sting of tears rose behind my eyes. Two or three panic-breaths escaped my mouth. My boyfriend looked anxious and disappointed (I think he was getting ready to have to leave in his head). One lone tear crept down my right cheek, almost invisible through the steam clouds round our heads.

In that moment, though I made my choice in a split-second, I somehow knew inside I had a really important choice to make. Was I going to let this food fear get the better of me or was I going to push through and see what’s on the other side? If I let it win, I could go home and eat something I know I like. I would also have to look at the disappointment on his face, mirroring the same disappointment I would feel in myself, not knowing which was more painful. If I push through it, I don’t know if it will get any better, but I know I can’t feel much worse.

I pushed through it. And whilst I can’t honestly say I liked the meal, I didn’t hate it. My boyfriend says it’s okay not to love every single food I eat, and that sometimes, the joy in eating it is in the not being sure of whether we like it or not, but in the experience itself.

I wouldn’t normally support the idea of eating over emotions, but in this case, I know it was something I needed to do. I needed to prove to myself that I can do it. I needed to know that I can be strong enough to brave new situations. I needed a little faith to cling to before I’m out there, in the big, wide world, alone, experiencing new places, and people, and foods.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first pangs of fear I have around this trip gravitate towards food. It’s my fall-back worry for when I’m afraid or unsure of something that I can’t quite (or don’t want to) pin down. Truth is, I’m getting so much better around new foods that these fears are pretty minute. I momentarily wavered at the restaurant this weekend, but I think now that maybe this was less about the food than it seemed.

This will be the longest period of time I’ve spent apart from my boyfriend since we met. It’s also the first solo trip I’ve made since my time living abroad, with depression, suicidal feelings and binge-eating disorder (following a period of anorexia).

Typing these out and saying the words, I’ve got that same flutter in my stomach and prickling of tears behind my eyes as I did in the restaurant. I am scared. I am scared that, perhaps, I won’t be able to cope with being on my own. I’m scared also, perhaps, because maybe I will, and maybe he’ll think I need him less. I’m afraid of being alone.

I’m scared because it might bring back those memories, and with them, the feelings of loneliness and desperation that I’d rather forget. I’m scared because I’m not the same girl that set out by herself before. I don’t yet know how this woman will handle things. I’m afraid of facing my past and stepping into the future.

The truth is, I just don’t yet know the answers to these questions.

And it’s this – the uncertainty – that’s the real fear. Not knowing. It makes me feel vulnerable, lost and child-like. Knowing stuff is something I’m extremely good at, and for which people have praised me. Maybe this is why I find it so hard to accept uncertainty.

But accepting uncertainty, and facing my fears, is a lesson for which I’m long overdue. Like the meal, this trip will not necessarily be easy. I’ll need to look my fears in the eye and I’ll stare them down. I’m telling myself that there are always going to be things I don’t know, or might have to wait to find out. That knowing to expect the unexpected makes me feel better – more prepared – but truth is, it doesn’t settle the flutters in my belly. I know that there’ll be moments I’ll want to cry, even if I don’t.

I also know it’s the pushing through these moments that allow me to move forward, move further from disordered eating and thinking habits. This IS the “recovery” purported by so many people with all kinds of afflictions and addictions holding them back in life. It’s not all happy and pretty; it’s uncomfortable and unnerving, but ultimately leaves me in a better place than I was before. I’m a stronger, more beautiful woman because of these moments. This is what I hope to learn from this trip, as I’ve learnt at the restaurant on a far smaller scale.

I also learnt another important thing: I really like Chinese rice pudding parcels, tied with string and steam-cooked inside palm leaves.