"The only thing I'm afraid of is cheese."

How to Start a Blog Post Using the Phrase Replacement Game:

Every woman's most difficult and complicated relationship is with food....

Eating is one part catharsis, one part delight, one part nourishment of fat cells...

When you face something....let's just say, "famine" in your life...

So, I don't know if you guys have noticed or not, but I love Mexican food...

I'm beginning to feel hungry...

The day before yesterday, I consumed 1,000 calories without supplementing my diet with Ensure. It was really hard. Why? Have you ever had food poisoning from fettuccine alfredo? Now, since that incident, have you eaten that particular fettuccine alfredo again? That's because your body doesn't want food that tries to kill it.

One of the theories as to why my disease exists is that my immune system thinks food and the friendly bacteria I need to digest food are trying to kill me. My immune system goes all Hannibal of Carthage and hurls millions of white blood cells at the problem, who, being the dedicated-but-brainless brutes they are, then proceed to fling themselves Kamikaze style at the lining of my colon, causing it to become inflamed and develop millions of bleeding ulcers. I am lucky enough to have also developed arthritis, which is also an inappropriate response of my brainless, brutish, WBCs. I opened this elaborate mixed metaphor with the phrase "one of the theories," because, like most intelligent people, one of my methods of coping is intellectualization and I have delved into credible scholarly research on what's happened to my body which stands unmatched even by all the research I've done on Gender Theory. (Which, if I do say so myself, is pretty extensive for an undergrad.) Anyway, there is no consensus about what causes Ulcerative Colitis, and while all agree that it is a malfunction of the immune response, not all scholars even classify it as an "Autoimmune Disease." My doctors say it is an autoimmune disease, so I say what they say. Three weeks of reading does not make one a doctor.

I said all of that to say this:

Everything I eat causes some degree of pain. Sometimes, things I think I can eat still cause me to vomit. I don't understand this phenomenon, but I intend to ask my gastroenterologist about it as soon as I have one. It doesn't seem fair that food cause me distress even from the outset. The deepest part of this problem is that it doesn't matter how much I tell myself I have to eat to get well, I still have the guttural response of "get that poison away from me," every time I see food. It wasn't until a few days ago, when I saw my GP that I could put my finger on exactly what that feeling is called.

Doc: How is your appetite?

Me: Awful, but getting a little better. It's weird, I just have this feeling when I think about eating like.......it's hard to explain, but....it's like....I don't want to....?

Doc: Alright, well, I need some blood from you. If you'll follow me to the lab, Nick can stay here...unless you're afraid of needles?

Me: The only thing I'm afraid of is cheese.

............................................................

Then:

^Just like this, I realized what to call my aversion to food: FEAR. Not just any kind of fear, either: ABSOLUTE TERROR. The kind of absolute terror that kicks you in the pit of your stomach, grabs you by the throat, dangles you over the abyss of your own mortality and laughs at you as you struggle to free yourself from his black-gloved hand.

In that instant of "BOOOOOM! [JESSICA THIS IS YOUR LIFE!]" I also realized that because this fear is so primal, there would be no intellectualizing it away. As of right then, my strongest defense: sheer force of will, pure unadulterated unwillingness to admit defeat, Hubris on the scale of Michelangelo as he defaced his Pieta--was doing little to remedy the food problem. I would need to default to my other favorite coping mechanism: humor. But how? How do you make paralyzing fear funny? I had to think about it.

I decided to go with Hobbits.

I made myself a menu of things I can eat:
Breakfast: Banana
Second Breakfast: 1 Tablespoon of Peanut Butter
Elevenses: Dry Low-Fiber Cereal
Luncheon: Two Eggs
Tea: PB&J Fold Over on White Bread
Dinner: Baked Chicken Tenderloin, White Rice & (baconless) Green Beans
Supper: Yogurt, or Ensure if I still need calories.

It's so much easier to eat when I get to say "Elevenses" once a day.