When my mum met my natural father, he was a bouncer, on a door, at a nightclub. His name was Brian.
Think back to early 80's, this is the image i have of Brian in my head when my mum met him, we are talking very neat short blonde hair, stone wash jeans, white t-shirt tucked in, a blazer jacket, white socks and black shoes. From what i understand, he was a very handsome man, looked after himself, was very vain, had a kinda body builder physique.
So of course my mum fancied him! It helped that she was (and still is, i might add) incredibly foxy.
My mum had my brother when she was 16 (apparently you cant get pregnant if you do it standing up), so she was a single parent when she met Brian and absolutely adored him, i mean was totally in love with him, he took my brother on as his own, even adopted him.
Lovely you may think.
But, Brian wasn't a normal bloke. He was OBSESSED with body image, himself, what he looked like in every angle in every mirror. He used to wash the car by the road in SPEEDOS for gods sake! Walked around town in speedos and flip flops. Urgh im dying inside with the memories!!
My mum was a size 8-10 when she met Brian, but apparently that was to fat. There is a massive hill on an estate that they used to live on and he would make her run in black plastic bin bags up that hill in summer to burn extra calories. Bless my mum, she would do anything to please him, she was young and i can guarantee that if someone tried to force her to do that now she would tell them to kindly 'F' Off and for them to go and die somewhere.
Brian was a very fat and unhappy kid, so he had his own issues and demons. I find that it can go either way if you don't deal or have any sort of love and support with those fat kid issues, you either go really fat, or you go the other way and become very obsessed about maintaining a certain body type.
He became very obsessed with himself.
When i came along, i was a hungry baby. This made Brian panic that i was gonna be a fat kid, so he would only let mum feed me a certain amount. Mum had terrible post natal depression and loving that bloke and trusting everything he said, when he was in the room, would do as he says. So i cried ALOT, infact i screamed allllll the time, so much so that i had to be hospitalised and left to scream it out for 3 days in a room whilst my mum was distraught in another room. My heart breaks thinking about it. I even feel guilty that my screams would break someone like that! I know it wasn't my fault that i was a screamy baby, but for a long time i thought i was the reason they eventually split up.
As time went on, Brian eventually had it down to a fine art as to what and how much we could eat as people. We were NOT to be a fat family. in the mean time he was bonking anything that moved, so that caused my mum to go further into depression. All this control and obsession eventually led my mum to become bulimic. I grew up with eating = guilt.
Not healthy.
Whilst my friends were chomping on biscuits and crisps, i was only allowed a frikkin Carob bar. Do you know what that crap tastes like? It doesn't taste like chocolate, that's for sure. I imagine that if i was forced to eat an actual lump of crap, it would be carob. Carob, is actually crap wrapped up and sold in health food shops.
After a while my mum had enough and kicked him out, me and my brother were sat at the top of the stairs, watching them argue and scream at each other, then mum pushed Brian out the door and slammed the door closed. My brother stood up walked into his bedroom and closed the door.
I still get chocked up at this memory.
Despite what my dad was i still loved him, he was my dad! I loved how he smelt, he did the biggest farts, they didn't smell that great. I loved his laugh, it was a proper head back chuckle.
So Brian met someone else, they were dark times for me, i wasn't liked by the person he was with and it was made very obvious.
Every weekend or whatever weekend Brian would bother to pick me up, he would tell me i was putting on weight, getting fat. I was 8!!!! 8!!!!! I look back at photos of me when i was 8, i wasn't fat, i was very unhappy, but i wasn't fat and it makes me sad. I should have been enjoying a childhood, being carefree, not having a complex about being fat when i WASN'T!!!!
So there we have a start of a new generation being obsessed about being fat.
My mum was still having her warped eating issues and would often invite me to join her on a new diet. I was very angry with my mum for a long time as an adult about this. At school, i didn't take biscuits and have those wonderful lunches that kids had. I was that annoying kid who always-ed asked 'can i have a bit' 'can you lend me 20p so i can go and get some sweets from the canteen' 'Are you gonna eat that?'.
I remember my 1st ever binge. I was round my best mates house, and in the corner of the kitchen, they had piles and piles of crisps. They were French Fries and other delish things.
I woke up early one morning after a sleep over and i snuck downstairs, into their kitchen, and i opened a packet of crisps and stuffed them in my mouth really quickly before anyone caught me, then i had another and another. I don't remember how many i had, but i remember their dog watching me and my bottom lip was a bluey colour from all the salt, but i felt amazing, then i felt awful, i knew what i had done was wrong and i had to try and hide all the empty crisp packets, so i stuffed them in my sleepover bag and then i was panicking because mum might find them. I put them in a neighbours bin in the end.
By this time, mum had met an amazing man. He is my step dad and is my big hero. i adore him, he came with 3 kids. 3 smelly boys. So it was me my brother and 3 step brothers. 4 boys against 1 girl. So i had a new challenge at meal times. Mum would lay out plates of food for us and basically if you didn't eat your quick, you wouldn't get to eat as one of the boys would have it, or stick their grubby fingers in it to annoy you. I still eat very fast today, the thought of slowly chewing food drives me crazy! I hate being hungry, why tease the stomach like that!!
When I was about 12, Brian had split from the woman who hated me and was living on his own. It was becoming more and more obvious that he wasn't quite right in the head.
He was talking to some spirits, and he was also jimmy Hendrix and i think at one time he was possibly God.
He was a masseuse, and did all that Reiki stuff. Basically he was weird and freaky.
On 1 particular visit to his house, he took me up to his massage room and told me to lie down on the bed. he locked the door. I was very scared, but i figured, he was my dad, he wouldn't hurt me.
He explained that he was going to cure me of chocolate and also replace my spine with a golden bone so i wouldn't ever have any back problems.
Now i was nervous
I put my head through that hole bit in the bed and he started the reiki stuff, clearing all the bad energy from my body. Then it was time for my 'operation'.
This is a true story by the way. I'm not making this shit up.
Anyway, He was talking to the spirits, like he was a real surgeon. 'Scalpel', 'Knife'. He wasn't using these for real, he was just imagining it. then he said 'Bone' and then 'needle'.
So i had a 'golden bone' I have to say the operation went well, i felt no pain at all!
I was seriously freaked out and asked him to take me home. He was to cure me of chocolate 1st tho. So he did some mumbo jumbo crap and cured me of chocolate.
I had 50p in my pocket and on the drive home i asked him to shop at the shop. I promptly bought myself a Lion Bar got in the car and ate it infront of him. he wasn't amused, but then asked me for a bit!
I didn't tell my mum straight away, i had to try and figure out what had just happened in my head.
So i went round my best mates house. My other bestie was there as well, i told them the whole story, and after alot of comfort and making me see that, that wasn't normal, they told me to go home and tell my mum.
So I did.
She was lovely, very supportive and i imagine totally freaked out and horrified about the situation.
If Brian wanted to see me, he was to come to the house when mum and my step dad were there.
This was when he came round and showed my step dad that he was Jimi Hendrix.
In my family, we deal with stuff with humour. Its our way. I call Brian 'Mental Boy' and my brother calls him 'Mad Max'
After Brian had left and proving he was indeed Jimi Hendrix, we fell about laughing. Then i think i cried.
Things got weirder after that. Brian was practising his powers on real trusting customers, that came to his house. I'm not sure what happened, but i'm sure he tried to rape a woman in order to get the devil out of her.
The woman he did this to sold her story to Take a Break. I remember reading it and showing my friends at school.
He was a wanted man. He went on the run.
I remember my mum sitting me down in the morning and explaining everything to me, about how the police were after him etc. i was really upset and i had the day off school.
That day, we got a phone call from down our local pub. Brian was down there, praying over a glass of water and he had just left to come and find me.
I can safely say me and mum were shitting our pants. From my brothers room you can see into a carpark that i normally walk down when i get off the school bus. There is a large hedge in this carpark that i walk past. Me and mum were watching Brian waiting for me behind this bush. Mum went to ring for help. When he saw that i wasn't on the bus he walked off down the path that led to my house.
Mum told me to stay in the house and she was gonna go out and tell him to go away.
So there i was in the house, shitting my pants, thoughts going through my head of what he might be doing to her. I heard a knock on the door, so i went and answered it, thinking it was mum.
It wasn't.
It was Brian.
I swear to God, that his eyes were black. He used to have lovely blue eyes, these eyes were cold and black, and he was very pale. Almost zombie like.
I screamed so loud and slammed the door. Mum ran back with a burly friend and i hid upstairs in my bedroom, listening to them.
His plan was to basically kidnap me so that we could run away together.
He wasn't going to leave until he had seen me. So i lent out the window and screamed ' DAD, JUST PISS OFF!'
And with that, he was gone.
He ran away. Around Europe. then he handed himself in.
He was sent to Dartmoor prison. I remember working down our local pub at the time in the kitchen and our local radio was on throughout the pub. and Brian was the main headline. Mortified. Every time i came out the kitchen, into the pub, people would go quiet. Urgh.
I didn't see him for a long time after that. But when i did eventually reunite with Brian, he told me i had put on weight and had i considered dieting!
WTF!
Then i didn't see him again for ages, then after my 1st child was born, I wanted Brian to meet him. Again 1st thing said after 12 years or so. You are so fat! Why are you so big? and then my son bumped his knee and Brian tried to heal him.
I chucked him out and that was the last time i saw him.
That 1 man. Had his own issues and managed to pass his issues onto an entire family. impressive.
So I gave it back. in my head i imagined Brian and his issues were a solid object, and I handed it back to him.
I have come to realise, that yes, this man did all those things, but as an adult, with my own mind, i have to take responsibility for what i put in my mouth. I cant continue to blame other people for why I am fat.
So i own it, and i'm dealing with it.
I am doing my absolute best for my kids to see food as fuel for their bodies and something for them not to feel ashamed or guilty about. It is my mission, a difficult mission, but i will do my best dammit!
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