My Friendship with Sugar
I was 10 when my mum remarried and left with her husband to live in Latvia. Life without her felt hard. It’s like all joy was gone with her. Every night, I desperately wanted for her to scratch my back and sing me a little lullaby at bedtime. I missed her smell, her touch, her smile.
I kept longing for an occasional trip with my mum to a local park after it rained; I missed eating vanilla ice-cream near fountains on a hot summer day, indulging in walnut-shaped cream-filled cookies she had made for me, racing on dodgems when she had spare cash….
Instead, I inherited all her chores around the house. My grandmother was a seamstress and worked hard. She could only manage making money and cooking food. So I needed to help around by cleaning floors daily and rinsing bedding under a cold tap in the back garden.
Shortly after my mum left, my grandfather’s health started to deteriorate, so my grandmother couldn’t take me to and from school anymore. Unusually, my school was quite a long way away from home. I had to catch two busses each way.
With my newly-acquired freedom, I started getting the bus fare for school. I quickly learnt that if I walked or managed to get away without paying the bus fare, I could save up 20 gapiks a day, which could buy me a slice of baklava in a local supermarket. This baklava tasted stale and stodgy compared to my grandmother’s cooking, but on those grey winter days for a few short seconds it brought me joy. It was something to look forward to every school day.
The man who sold the baklava treated me as a regular. At first, I enjoyed the attention but soon I felt it wasn’t quite right. I didn’t know how to navigate the situation. After all, I wanted him to cut me a nice piece of baklava. I just wished he didn’t flirt with me.
His attention didn’t last though. I developed horrible looking sties in one eye and then in another. As my wounds dripped pus, he looked at me with disgust and I stopped going to the shop.
My mother’s absence left a gaping hole inside of me. That baklava gave me an illusion of sweetness in life, while deep down I felt wretched.
That little distressed child in me did not just vanish because I grew up. I remember a friend of mine suggesting a sugar free February one year and I thought ‘I’d rather die. Sugar is my only friend. I can’t possibly give it up.’
Until I tended that 10-year old child in me. Until I healed that void inside.
Because up until then nothing was ever enough. I was not enough. Why else would I be left behind?
Today, sugar has no charge or power over me.
I am free.
When you attend to that hidden distress in you, the unhealthy behaviour drops away. Your addiction to sugar or anything else is an important symptom that there’s some buried distress in you. It’s not THE problem, even though it creates problems of its own.
P.S. We all have these young distressed parts in us. If you’re struggling with your relationship with food, let me help you heal what’s really agitating and distressing you. Join us live: www.gularavincent.co.uk/end-emotional-eating If you join the 5-week course by 22nd September, you'll save £120 and receive 'Already Enough' masterclass for free.