I have had an abnormal relationship with food since I was a young girl. It started out as a strong craving for sweets, and my craving was more than that of the average child. I would scoop sugar into my breakfast bowl until there was a wet dense mixture on the bottom. My mother always sensibly portioned out sweet treats in our house, but I always wanted more than my share. Although I only ate my portion, it never felt like it was enough. I was a compliant little girl and was very afraid to get into trouble. Even though I wanted to, I did not sneak into the cupboards and take more than what was allotted me. Despite this, I found various ways to get my hands on sweets when I was young. Every year, my family would get together for Christmas Eve at my grandmother’s house, where there... Continue Reading
Last night, as I was making my dinner, negative thoughts started plaguing me, as fear and anxiety crept into my heart. The first thing I need to do when this happens is “stop and reconnect,” as one of my FA friends has reminded me several times. But negativity was winning the battle, and chopping and cooking seemed to be taking priority. Fortunately, God had a different plan. The phone rang. Someone I had briefly met while attending an FA Information Session called. She shared with beautiful honesty how much fear she was feeling about family and financial insecurity. The chopping and the cooking went on hold, and I listened. As I continued to listen to the facts of the story, I knew in my heart that she had no reason to feel afraid about her life. Things were going to fall into place, I had no doubt. I knew because... Continue Reading
I did not have the greatest financial education, or any, really. I remember once my aunt sent my mother money for groceries and my mother instead bought a stereo. Both of my parents struggled, when they were together and after their divorce, with how to handle flush times and lean times. I never recognized how this financial flux affected my sense of wellbeing until I came into FA. When I was 18 and had just starting out with a clean credit report, I remember some young-20s friends telling me that they had already destroyed their credit. With no knowledge of how such things worked, I felt perfectly justified in condemning them in my mind, and telling myself that it would never happen to me. Then I began borrowing. I borrowed with impunity—for school, clothes, trips, and food. I felt no shame in putting a $15 binge on an 18% APR... Continue Reading
I received an upsetting letter from my parents yesterday. They recently learned that I am a lesbian, and in their letter, they disowned me and said that my “lifestyle was shameful and an abomination.” My first instinct when I read the letter? It was to get down on my knees and pray for them, which I did. That is nothing short of a miracle. I came into the FA program filled with shame, confusion, doubt, insecurity, and guilt. I was riddled with fear about coming out to my parents, about my sexuality, and about how I would fit into the world as a gay Nigerian woman. I was extremely self-centered, and I had been having suicidal thinking. I was also 62 pounds overweight, and was using food and alcohol, and sometimes drugs and cigarettes. I felt like my life was spinning out of control and slowly unraveling. I thought that... Continue Reading
The people in my childhood family were great cooks. They would cook lots of food, because when they were growing up as children, there were eleven mouths to feed. I was the first maternal grandchild, so I was given 98% of what I wanted. When I was eleven, I was brought to New York to live with my mother and stepdad. My stepdad would bring me a cold treat every night when he came home from work, and my mom would tell me to have something to eat because we’d had an early dinner. It made my mom happy to know that I was eating, because I was a bit narrow in body type. I had gained many friends who, at that time, took the place of food. I actually started throwing away food so my mom would think I had eaten it. As we moved from place to place,... Continue Reading
