“Sensitive Child”

A Chapter from my upcoming untitled Memoir

CHAPTER 4: “Sensitive Child”

My first bout with being the sensitive child was in 6th grade when a boy I liked named Ricky Hoyt screamed very loudly in the library:

“Look. Here comes MICHELLE THE NOSE. What a HONKER!!!”

He yelled it so loud that all the kids in the library turned and stared at me. How embarrassing.

Yea my nose was large — being from Jewish heritage, but I didn’t know it would be such a source of ridicule. I suppose it was, because many other kids also pointed out my nose size throughout the school year which began my feelings of sensitivity and alienation.

By age 13 my weight became the main focus for me too.

Reading back on my old journals I found these comments from age 11:

“I really want to lose 20 lbs”

“I better start dieting TODAY!”

“ I’m too fat!”

So much obsession with my weight at that young age!

My mom and I were both chubby. We had food and body image issues and were binge eaters. My dad and sister Ellen on the other hand, were the skinny ones. They got the ‘skinny genes’ in our family, no doubt. I envied them for being able to eat whatever they want.

NOT FAIR.

I recall one night vividly in my memory. My dad brought home a pint of coffee flavored Haagen Daaz ice-cream (MY FAVORITE!)

He said .”OK everyone — I bought some Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream. Ellen and I can eat it but …then he glanced at my mom and I and gloated ’mom and Michelle — -you two CAN’T TOUCH IT!”

Shit!!!! I recall running downstairs after everyone went to bed that night. GOD DAMNIT!! I was gonna get me some ice cream! Funny how when someone says “don’t” do something you want to do it even more…ya know?

So, I crept down the stairs, opened the silverware drawer verrrry slowly, quietly took a spoon out, opened the freezer, looked around the kitchen, and pulled out the carton fast — hoping no one would come down the stairs and catch me!

With scientific precision I scraped off some of the ice cream slowly and evenly from the top.

Maybe no one would know any was gone. Sneaky eh?!

It was heaven. I still love coffee ice cream to this day, and Haagen-Dazs specifically.

My mom had serious hatred of her body all her life.

One of my earliest memories of her misery was when I was maybe 11 years old. We were both in her bedroom. She was standing in her large walk-in closet which was stuffed full to the brim with clothes.

I was laying on her bed on my stomach with my head on my elbows wide eyed, watching her in amazement.

She stood in a too tight girdle with part of her stomach flowing over the top. She was feverishly throwing clothes off and on — off and on her body.

She was in a panic!

I recall her disgusted frustrated face vividly as she threw each piece of clothing off her body onto a huge pile.

‘DAMMIT. NOTHING FITS ME!!!’ “NOTHING LOOKS GOOD!!! “ I LOOK SoOOooO FAT!!” “I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!!!”

“…Yea you do mom… you have a closet full of clothes…”

I was a young impressionable girl so this vision of my mother’s self disgust and self loathing sank into my subconscious, no doubt.

She so wanted to be thin and ‘worthy’ and ‘acceptable’ but I realize now that she never ever felt she was.

Never good enough.

Never thin enough.

Never ‘anything’ enough.

A mutual friend of ours recently told me on the phone,

“I don’t recall your mom ever once enjoying her food without feeling a lot of guilt. When we’d go out to eat at a restaurant she never once allowed herself to just enjoy a meal!”

It’s sad to think that my mom (now 85 years old) hadn’t ever had a time when she just felt OK or relaxed about herself and her weight.

(This would come to be a theme in my life too. Unfortunately.)

So, I was raised by a self loathing self hating mom which left an indelible impression on me. We are so impressionable when we are young. We look at our parents for our identities and belief systems.

I believed and learned the subconscious mantra ‘not good enough’ which stayed with me most of my life. I learned it very well from her but I think I also learned a similar lesson from my dad — but in a different way.

My dad on the other hand was the polar opposite of my mom. He seemed smugly almost arrogantly confident. Narcissistic?

He had a sarcastic sometimes cruel edge. He was a champion handball player, super skinny and proud of his physique — although honestly he was a bit bony.

I heard that his dad (who was an abusive alcoholic) used to make fun of him for being toooo skinny while his brother Harvey was the pro basketball player, had the chiseled athletic body and was praised for it. My dad won many trophies for his athleticism that he proudly displayed in the corner of the living room.

Being ‘in shape’ and fit seemed vital to him.

I recall walking by the bathroom often seeing him looking at himself in the mirror grooming and primping… the way a woman would.

Damn. He thought he was ‘ all that!’

(Think Hugh Hefner meets Jack LaLanne — the fitness guru — Throw in a little Larry King from CNN and you have my dad.)

My mom told me in later years that my dad always had a complex about not having large enough muscles, which he always compared to his brother Harvey’s.

Also, he wanted to win his dads approval.

My mom told me that when my dad was 10 his dad put him in the car and drove with him to a brothel in a seedy part of Downtown Brooklyn, New York. My dad had to wait till his dad was finished.

Dysfunction breeds dysfunction ?

My mom and dad met when they were teenagers. I have no clue why they ended up together though. Opposites attract? Who knows…

The story was that my mom’s mom (my Grandma Molly) liked my dad a lot — She thought he was sooo handsome, so my mom married him. Good reason eh?

The irony here is that my dad loathed and despised fat, and my mom loathed her own fat. What a pair!

I heard my mom and dad were never (ever) happy together.

The story my mom told me was that on their honeymoon they argued fiercely and ended up in a huge drag out fight — something about my mom being fat or looking fat in her bathing suit — and my dad flirting with the cocktail waitresses.

My mom told me more stories about how my dad always made fun of her weight and put her down viciously and constantly. (This is her side of the story only, I remind myself.)

He told her she was never thin enough even pinching her thighs on their honeymoon until she screamed “STOP!”

Not much romance on their honeymoon I’m assuming.

Interesting how sometimes we get entangled with and even marry people who bring up our own shadow issues.

I’ve since learned that many times our opposites can mirror the stuff that we need to work on within our own psyches.

My mom and dad eventually got divorced when I was 14…thank GOD.

My mom moved out of our ranch style 3 story suburban house into a small one bedroom apartment. I stayed with my dad in the family house.

By then my sister was already gone. I’m not even sure where she went but she was OUT!!

My mom recently admitted this to me about her food issues:

“Food saved me. If I didn’t eat I wouldn’t have survived my childhood. My mom and dad abandoned me…left me alone to fend for myself where we lived in new York City. When I was a young child of about 7 or 8 — -at the time of the air raid sirens during WW2 it was scary for the Jews. We always felt that maybe Hitler was coming for US next! I remember having a key around my neck and running around the city scared and alone when the sirens hit. I was so frightened!. I had to let myself in my house after school, ALONE AND basically parent myself, because my parents both worked. So, I was alone and scared and food was the only thing that was always there for me… it was my friend.”

**TO BE CONTINUED…

(This is a chapter in my upcoming Memoir. Stay tuned for more scenes and chapters)

THANKS FOR READING! contact me at: [email protected]

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