McDonalds drive-thru Mon, 17th Sept
The week of September the 17th was my last feed of McDonalds & KFC. My disordered eating stuff has been riotous this year. It had been no secret – that I was eating McDonalds for breakfast – getting stoned on shit food basically, so I could extinguish the high anxiety long enough to get myself in through the doors of the gym. My trainers and I laughed hardheartedly when I told them one morning that I’d hit a new low – I’d eaten McDonalds in the gym car park!
I once had a flatmate – who was cough medicine addicted. I had no idea until one day I went to check her spare tyre before going on a weekend trip with her – I lifted her boot and it was littered with the empty boxes of a brand of cough syrup, which at the time here in NZ, a person needed to sign for prior to purchasing over the counter. I realised then, that she had been travelling around the country buying her drug of choice at multiple locations. I had almost become the same with my want to quell anxiety by using McDonalds. The back of my car was looking more like the car park of a McDonalds late Fri / Sat night … littered with McD branded rubbish.
I have felt bereft and desolate for much of this year. I have been stripped down by my own conscious process to expose aspects of my internal being for strengthening purposes. I have largely been able to succeed. YET – the evidence that I wasn’t doing such a great job was building in the back of my car. Another realisation I had – which really turned it around for me, was when I caught myself in town early hours going from car park to car park in my car feeling desperate for company – desperate for someone who would have the humility and strength to hear me multiple times over – knowing there is no such person, so again turning to my longest serving friend – McDonalds & KFC.
That was the week I realised how naked and alone I truly am on this planet. So I let go of the need, of the wanting for truthful people. I suspect I have been trying too hard to source friendships that are mutually transparent. I had allowed myself to bow down to too much of other peoples ill beliefs – dysfunction and self righteousness. I had allowed myself to again become enslaved and / or imprisoned to other peoples wants.
I had again allowed myself to be used.
And so I’ve cut off.
It has been over a month since I last fed on McDonalds / KFC. I went through the McD drive-thru last week and ordered a coffee. I drove out of there feeling so damn proud of myself. I am almost back in the routine of eating dinner every night here at home. I began having breakfast here at home – cooking me some eggs and having them with toast. I cut back on buying coffee like it’s a commodity. I realised I was using it as a socially acceptable way to avoid stuff. There is quite a smug community of coffee drinkers – like smokers – there’s a certain attitude that goes with the addiction process. And what I know about addiction from lived and academic experiences is that the weak seek out the weak. In other words – people who are unable to stand on their own feet without the aide of substances have a lot of growing up to do.
I’d allowed myself to travel back down through the realm of age and in the process, I remembered that I had grown up, and that I was no longer weak, and that I was cherished by many.
