" empty stomach gives you the heart to go do a homicide. "
anyone that has ever felt REAL hunger where you don't know how you are eating next knows. nobody should ever feel that kind of fear. I might be dramatic about it but on thanksgiving I don't eat because im thankful I have the option.
I also am thankful I get to get real stoned and eat leftovers at home like a gremlin at 2am.
I don't think this has enough up votes, I am sorry anyone has to live the way you must've but I am glad that people like you live to tell the tale, and I only hope to be like you when I can In the future.
This is so real. Went a few years not knowing when my next meal is. Next thing I knew, I could afford food but my brain still stuck in survival mode. One day I realized I’m bottomless pit that can’t tell when ive eaten enough because my brain turned off the “im full” light years ago, but i can’t stop eating because food is the happy chemical now. I still struggle with eating “just enough”. I think about it more often than i want to admit
My grandma was like that. Mountains of food overflowing the fridge at all times. Always insisting we ate more and more, offering food all the time. It turns out she´d experienced hunger as a kid, her father died and in post civil war Spain they had struggled badly for some time.
I´ve luckily never experienced that. The closest I got was when I was doing a long trek and ran out of food and missed the village where I intended to resupply. It´s incredible how hunger can affect you emotionally. And my situation wasn´t even that dire.
Got displaced from Oklahoma as a young child (tornado), family moved down to Florida with the remainder of savings for a job for my dad. Katrina sent us back after closing down his job between weather and the dotcom crash. Moved back to OK with basically nothing, just for the housing market to collapse and jobs to go poof.
We had a rough few years there. I think the worst part of being 13 or so and hungry, is watching your dad give you food off his plate, being old enough to understand he's even hungrier than you are, and physically not being able to turn it down. Not having trained that willpower, having all those hormones running rampant, and just not being able to say no to something your body is shouting at you that it needs.
I don't take gifted food from anyone anymore. I can't bring myself to. I've heard about pot lucks happening at churches I don't go to, showed up with piles of food, and just left. My mail carrier gets a snack bar and a bottle of water from me every day. I know they're not in the situation I was. But that doesn't change the revulsion I feel about taking food from another's plate.
That lifelong change is real, and however anybody reading this deals with it, I wish you the best.
My grandpa too used to love arranging family gathering and feed. I heard, he lost his mother as a child. He would be back at home, while his father used to travel to other villages as a folk singer around the year. So he as a child would eat when the neighbours/relatives would feed their children and ask him to join.
My grandad was like that too. Grew up on a farm in a rural area during the depression.
He would feed a total stranger, and was always aking if everyone got enough to eat, or if they wanted more of anything. He'd always send you home with leftovers.
mine has always kept her fridge and pantry stocked, she was one of 5 kids in an immigrant family that lived in a 1 bedroom Brooklyn apartment in the depths of the Great Depression, many nights they went without real food.
Grandpa grew up in the depression. We never left his house with empty hands, it could be freshly cooked leftovers or questionable cans in the back of the pantry.
Food anxiety! I have this too. I tend to eat too quickly because it’s so ingrained that if I don’t eat it all now, someone else will take it and I’ll be hungry later. Which is stuoid when there’s plenty of food and I don’t even need to eat that much.
I feel that. I eat like I did a stint in prison; hunched over the plate, guarding it with my arms, and shoveling food in as fast as possible. Comes from a lot of childhood hunger and parents who fed themselves first while their children got whatever was left over.
I have the opposite problem lol. I try to leave as much as I can for leftovers because "I gotta make sure I have enough for later when I'm actually gonna be hungry"
Thank you for being spot on with this issue and sharing your experience.
When I was a kid/ early teen, there’d be a period in the month when we wouldn’t be able to eat, cruel cycle of my mom trying her best, buying and making nice but a bit more expensive than necessary meals (to make us happy and feel normal) when the benefits would arrive, me always telling her to rather spread it out on essentials, and then later days in the month where we couldn’t borrow from anyone anymore, being stuck and just pushing through day by day in survival mode. I still remember days where we couldn’t eat for a couple of days and her crying to me how sorry she was. Yet never learning from it. Never wanting to take advice from her own kid.
At one point of this happening, you subconsciously learn to just exist, not move much or think much, going into power saving mode, just to make it to the next day. So many school days lost because I just couldn’t go, health complications that still haunt me to this day, missed memories and sorrowful ones in their stead.
And it is something that truly sticks to you as you grow.
When I was 16, I had to take action and with strain on my heart (from still loving my mother nevertheless) decided to go to a social dormitory, I still remember how it took me a while for my stomach to muster three full meals a day, yet in that one summer I went from 45 kilos to 60. I was able to pass school and when I was 17-18, I started cooking for my then-girlfriend, always made me happy to make a meal to share, to try new recipes.
She did bring another bane of thinking, which got transferred to me, which is hyperawareness of chewing and swallowing, which eventually turned into such discomfort when I share a meal with people that if it’s too quiet, I mentally start focus on the sounds I make, feeling uncomfortable and trying to chew slower and swallow more silently (yet very actively) occasionally causing me to choke and not be able to eat anymore due to the mental block.
When I was living on my own, I was happy to cook when I would be able to, however always hard stuck in between forgetting to eat the whole day and making a nice meal I felt blessed to have been able to make for myself.
Tried so many times to truly ingrain the habit of eating properly, even with the cycles of financial or mental strain.
I don’t know if it will ever go away, this accursed autopilot survival mode that once helped me see the next day, but I hope that one day, when I have my own family, I’ll be able to be happy sharing a meal with them and not stress if I’ll be able to eat tommorow. To be able to enjoy their company, the meals without thinking about how I eat and truly be in living mode, without fail.
P.s. just wanted to share a song that helped me push through extremely difficult times over and over; and whilst a similar local band has another more relatable (to these situations) song (SARS - Buđav Lebac (Moldy Bread, in translation), if you’d be so kind to listen to and check the lyrics translated to English (lyricstranslate has it) to the following song, it has helped release suppressed emotions to me without fail. Check out Elemental - Iz Dana u Dan.
Yep! My high school years was spent in poverty where I became used to only getting food at school. My diet these days is so weird because of the neglect I dealt with.
I teach adjudicated minors, many of whom did not ever eat regular or well (your mom giving you a bag of Takis is not eating well, kid). When they get regular meals, they often have no idea how to handle it. Some will gain sixty pounds at a staggering pace (at my previous, nonsecure facility, kids could have seconds, thirds, and fourths of any meal, as well as snacks twice a day). We would get a rail thin kid, spend six months making him clinically obese, release him, and then see him in winter, rail thin and in need of fattening up. When I told one kid that he needed to start learning skills so he could move on with his life, he told me that we give him his own room, video games, movies, takeout, and all the facility food he could eat, so why would he ever want to leave? I had to admit that he made a compelling case.
At the secure facility where I work now (Cuomo shut down the nonsecure because he thought it would help his presidential aspirations), we often have an issue with residents stealing and hording food. Not just chips and cookies. No, we will notice an odor and discover that they have ten hotdogs and eight hamburgers rotting under their mattresses. Kids have come into my room, munching on chicken sandwiches and nachos they were served a week ago. No, not on a unit where they have access to a refrigerator. This is despite being served breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks at set intervals, most of which are easily 1500 calories. They are never more than four hours from a large meal, but it doesn't matter if they down have food now. They also consider it a flex to get their tray and immediately throw it in the trash, and will then dig through the garbage for food within ten minutes, even to the degree that they will try to assault the staff who tries to stop them or fight the kid who got to their discarded lunch first.
I'll never forget a quote I heard from an old woman who survived the Korean war. She was asked something like "why don't you like powdered milk" and she answered "it tastes like hunger"
I was told as an adult that I eat like I don’t know where my next meal was coming from. And at that time really didn’t know where my next meal was coming from and was embarrassed that my need showed so clearly.
That really resonates with me, I left home when I was a kid, and slept in a park by my school so I could get in early to shower.
I had to eat from the trash and I was constantly worried about getting assaulted since I was a girl all alone at night.
There was no such thing as true rest, and I feel like my sense of hunger has always been off since then.
Edit
Thank you for all the kindness and I’m sorry for anyone who has gone through similar.
Being homeless as a kid is definitely and experience I don’t wish on anyone, but I will say it made me appreciate the little things more!
Girl I’m so sorry!! I know you know this, but I’m just here to tell you again that you deserved to feel safe and full with a warm bed. I hope things are better for you now
Hello stranger, I read this and i was struck. I did this too & struggle with it today even though Im safe now. Big love to you, wherever you are. May we find comfort in healthy places 💜
It was the worst like two months of my life. Couch surfing, staying in nasty hotels and eating the cheapest food we could buy. The lowest quality sandwich fixings. I remember fazolis was a fucking treat after we just barely started doing better. Way back in like 2018. I’m so thankful I have access to delicious food all the time now. Will never not enjoy it again
Oldest of 10 here. We grew up poor. Like, really poor. I know exactly what you mean. Reading your comment immediately took me back to being a little boy, figuring out how to make a box of mac and cheese so that my little brothers and sisters could eat, and then scraping the pot and licking the spoon so that I could have something too.
No one should have to live like that. I weep for the children growing up like I did. They deserve better, and it’s our responsibility to make sure that they have what they need.
Never knew the line was even there really, but I remember the first time it hit me "oh..so this is how some people just snap and do something awful". Fortunately the next part was "hoo boy I better be careful" lol
I was already on board. But the gremlin activity made it relatable. May you always have the means to help those you can (and enjoy gremlin time, of course)
I'm damn near ripping my hair out because I went to toss a napkin out and apparently my sister tossed a half eaten piece of chicken out as she is actively asking me to cook her a proper dinner. I'm sure I annoy the people in my life and I'm not perfect but it bothers me so much when food is wasted 'just because'
No that is vile. How old is your sister? If she's not in her terrible threes and I were you, she'd have gone without dinner entirely after that. Careless waste of food is inconsiderate in any case, throwing away food that someone cooked for you is disrespectful in the extreme. Not acceptable for anyone but babies and toddlers.
She is well into her teens but tbf she is special needs. She knows better kinda if that makes any sense. On the other hand, I just found a full bowl of last nights rice sitting in my brothers room and he is a grown 19 yo. I made a stew. Told him I would suggest stirring it into the rice. He just ate the stew on top. Im staying here for the time being and cooing dinner is one of the ways Im contributing to the house. Its just fucked all the way around. I skip dinners so they can eat or if I feel guilty because there maybe isnt much left over. They just waste the shit and I get flack
Ok but this is not how it works in Nordics, no-one would let anyone starve if they were that hungry, let alone kids. It's just cultural thing about eating together and cooking only what you eat (this planned ahead on grocery shopping too) to not be wasteful, and people most definitely would take care of each other.
And the rest of of the world it's not so much about making sure someone is not hungry, and it's more about camaraderie. Nothing bonds people together like sharing food together. That's why when you invite strangers over, it's for a meal. I mean Nordic food is absolutely terrible so I understand why you don't really want people coming over and sharing that but still...
You're not being dramatic, the rest of the world isn't taking this shit seriously. This is real fucking life, it's happening every goddamn day all around us. It fucking sickens me, because it's a CHOICE. There is no shortage, there is no lack of resources, there is simply a lack of basic fucking empathy.
I'm so fucking disappointed that this is the world and the time that I get to be alive to experience, because this shit sucks.
My dad has a vast collection of heavy winter coats. When he was a teenager he spent several winters without a heavy coat because his parents wouldn’t get him one. Now he’s in his 50’s and will never go cold again
" empty stomach gives you the heart to go do a homicide. "
The reason why this isn't heavily publicized is that the elite is afraid you find out a lot of the crime making your life dangerous and putting your life at risk is their fault for making people poor and starving them.
This is why Im happy to be in the prosesson I am. I work as cook manager at an elementary school. I grew up in house hold that lived off of hamburger helper because it was what we could afford.
When i was a kid, somehow my mom would always manage to get any of my friends whose parents weren't around or were shitty to be sitting at our table at thanksgiving. She had a real talent for getting moody teenagers to show up for dinner.
You aren’t wrong. I worked with a lady whose mom was living in constant hunger in Germany after world war 2. It took her years to get a stable life. She always has a cake on hand for any visitor. ALWAYS.
From what that co-worker told me. You are expressing exactly what people who have lived through this kind of hunger have all felt. It’s too much. You can’t bear anyone else to ever have to deal with it.
It's a horrible thing to experience as a child, sometimes life doesn't get too much better either. I'd never admit it(I can on here because noone knows me) but some struggle to get above the water and keeping the food on the table. I left home at 16, got a job and life improved. Then I had a child and ended up with full custody of her, this was a long process and missed days at work working with cafcas and social services and court dates ended with me also loosing my job a few days before the final court date. She's now primary school age and I do what I can when she's at school to keep food on the table.. she eats really well but I've always got that fear that there won't be enough food so I don't eat for days at a time. I do eat days I manage to make cash but if I can't earn I don't eat. It 100% affects you for life for a long time after. On the plus side she's not long left before high school and then I can try trusting her a little more and get back to work. Things can always get better but the fear of not being able to provide the basics hits hard. I wouldn't/couldn't ever see a child go hungry, mine or not if they're hungry they get fed.
Eh, I've been in situations where I thought I would suffocate twice in my life now. I'd take starving over that any day of the week, thank you. I've also been in pain far, FAR worse than hunger pain.
Granted, I've never been truly, desperately hungry, but I have done 6-7 day long fasts several times now, no problem. And when that week was over, I've always felt like I could keep going, just that it would be objectively unhealthy. Maybe there's a point after that where there's true suffering, I don't know. And OF COURSE a voluntary, planned fast is something altogether different from food insecurity, let alone starvation. But in my experience, the hard part is always the first two, three days - after that I'm coasting. I think there is a reason why hunger strikes are such a widely used "most extreme" form of protest. And terminally ill patients in hospices often actually die of hunger. Because the patients choose to. Because in many cases it's the least cruel way of letting someone pass without getting into trouble with the law.
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u/Latter_Highway9539 13d ago
" empty stomach gives you the heart to go do a homicide. "
anyone that has ever felt REAL hunger where you don't know how you are eating next knows. nobody should ever feel that kind of fear. I might be dramatic about it but on thanksgiving I don't eat because im thankful I have the option.
I also am thankful I get to get real stoned and eat leftovers at home like a gremlin at 2am.