19.2 The symbolic value of food
Another aspect of food has to do
with associations that different types of food can have because of childhood
sexual abuse. Ruth speaks of the problems a woman had because she had to swallow
semen as a child. When admitted to a psychiatric clinic, she was expected to
eat food that she associated with semen, but was not able to tell the staff why
she couldn’t. Instead she phoned the Incest Centre in Vestfold for help.
Ruth_1: She
has diabetes and it’s very important that she eat according to a regulated time
schedule. Last summer everything went wrong for her. She hadn’t eaten for
several weeks. (.) Umm her body
became inflated, very swollen. She had to be admitted to a psychiatric clinic ((Scratches
her arm)). She was too sick to stay here
with us at that time. She was unsteady, dizzy and we couldn’t take
responsibility for her. Umm she had cut herself and had to go to the emergency
ward, and that’s where the doctor admitted her. She was there for a short
period. (.) I got a telephone call
from her. She was in a phase where she was working through having to swallow
semen. She called me and said that it was so difficult to be on the ward,
because they made her eat yogurt. They had lots of butter on the bread there
and made her drink milk. She couldn’t eat any of it.
The story told by Ruth seems to
suggest that patients with psychiatric problems sometimes have problems when
being inpatients and having to eat institutional meal consisting of types of
food which they feel they can not eat. The feeling of shame connected to eating
and types of food may make it difficult for some patients to talk about their
eating problems, and thereby resulting in misunderstandings between patient and
ward. Linda and Margaret elaborate on
the different types of food that they find difficult to eat because of the
sexual abuse they experienced as children.
Linda_1: It’s
usually guilt and shame that leads to…eating disorders and bulimia and
everything… some people punish themselves by not eating, I mean anorexia and
bulimia are ways of harming one’s body…It’s all about punishing oneself by
eating too much, they’re so ugly anyway, they make their bodies look even worse
intentionally. Or some don’t eat at all. They feel fat and they’re really real
thin...And then there are those who don’t eat special things because they
relate them to the abuse. ((Bites her lips)) (.) I can’t drink milk, for example. (
) Yogurt and milk are things I
know about because of the conversations I’ve had here and with myself, it’s
usually milk and yogurt that people have problems with, mayonnaise and stuff. I
never eat tartar sauce either. ((Bites her lips)) It’s more because of the consistency than the taste.
Margaret_1: People
seem to remember how things smell almost forever, but it diminishes over time,
it’s not so strong after you get hold of it and work with the emotions around
the smells. Smell and taste become less and less important, but I’ve never
heard anyone say that the problem disappears completely. I’ve also experienced
this. It has to do with some types of food that you relate to memories or a
smell or a consistency that reminds you of other things you’ve had in your
mouth. And then it’s just impossible to eat. Think about experiences involving
excrements and that sort of thing, it might be ((Scratches her neck and
looks away)) casseroles and different
sorts of meat. No it’s just impossible… You just have to stay away from certain
kinds of food for periods of time.
Food may according to these accounts
have the function of being symbols for semen, urine, faeces, which the person
relates to experiences from their childhood sexual abuse. Innis (2005) explains
that different kinds of food functions as signs. He argues that when a person
who is:
Presented with a bowl of yoghurt gags, refuses to eat or even continues
eating, albeit unwillingly, and says that it will make him/her sick, the
yoghurt, with its configuration of qualities and perceptional properties,
functions as an iconic sign for semen. The gagging is an indexical sign, a
reaction, released by the sight of the yoghurt and by associated experiences.
The linguistic utterance is a symbolic sign that must be understood by relying
upon a shared linguistic code (2005:501).
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