Everyone has issues, here's my biggest...

We all have our fears in life. Mine happens to be eating in crowds of people whether it is in restaurants or around a group of people sometimes with or without a dinner table. It stems from childhood events and has evolved into a high stress event for me. Though I may WANT to be able to sit and enjoy the food, it turns into something debilitating and eating becomes impossible. My good friends have come to accept this fact about me. I still have occasions though where people just can't understand this fact about me and persist in their efforts to have me dine somewhere with them or around a dinner table and for some reason want to pick on me because I can’t. Do you pick on people who can’t read? Love me or leave me. This is who I am.

We all have things about ourselves that we might not like: hair, weight, or problematic skin (because the word “acne” is gross). This is not the same thing. This is an actual fear that prevents me from doing something. There are other people like me who experience this and even take medication. I do not. I met someone on the internet who did and made me seriously consider it…but after thinking about it I figured that I shouldn’t have to take a pill to make someone else feel fine with MY issue. Nothing wrong with pills, I think they are great for people but since I DO eat and would only have to take a pill to be able to eat in crowds or around a group of people, it just seemed pointless.

Our society puts so much emphasis on social interactions involving food. My favorite times happen to not be centered around food. A perfect evening with friends is board games and hanging out, scrapbooking or watching a movie.

Being more open-minded and sympathetic to others who have certain fears in their life – this is what should happen when we come in contact with someone who is different than us. Accept others and respect their differences. After all, we ALL have issues and some of us just happen to be more unfortunate and ours is something that can’t easily be hidden from others. (If you’re reading this and you know me personally but never knew about it, you can’t be blamed for not knowing something no one ever told you…that’s certainly not your fault. A person doesn’t always want to go in-depth about something that people don’t tend to accept…something embarrassing…this is my easy way out since I’ve had to explain it for the last 18 years, now I can just say “Just read my blog.”) :)