20231001 : relationships with food

I loved food. Any kind as long as it was vegetarian. It has been that way ever since I have been a kid. I don't remember me fussing to eat anything. This was only passive consumption.

For almost a decade before my stroke, the love for food xhanged from passive consumption to active experience and experimentation with food. I used to love cooking - especially without any recepie and just try various things and see how it turned out. I loved entertaining and feeding others as well.

For the past 4½ years, I have been having only fluids through a tube - initially it was a ryles tube through the nose and almost 4y afterwards through the peg tube to my stomach.

When I had the stroke, after coming out of the disoriented and confused state, one of the first things for the mind to come to terms with was not being able to swallow and consume anything. Water, food etc. Not even my own saliva. It was very disturbing to see others eat foods, gulp down water, have a hot cuppa, etc.

After sometime, probably almost a year I think, the mind got used to the sight of foods and others having it and kind of not affected by it.

After sometime, maybe around 2½ years or so. A craving started again. Strangely, not for everything. Some time it was egg maybe, some times Street food like chats etc. This was also when I had started using the phone and I could use my thumb to press buttons on the remote and be able to change what I was watching. This was a phase of maybe ½ a year when I was watching a lot of videos of cooking and food experience shows.

It went away later. I think the mind made peace with the fact it will not experience it again.

Then, about a year ago, the sense of smell started slowly waking up. Till then I could only see food but not smell anything. That was a very different sensory assault the mind was not prepared for. I struggled for a few months with various smells it was recognising. I was not feeling the same discomfort I earlier faced seeing others consume in front of me. But in absolute sense, I guess it was just the mind getting used to the new sensation which it had so forgotten.

In the past ½ year or so. It was back to calmness and peace. I think the mind got used to the combination of both sight and smells. 

Over the past one month or so, suddenly, I don't know why. I get very scared looking at food. It is not a regular fear of things - like getting up because of fear of a bad dream or fear of ghosts for those who are afraid etc. It is a very different kind of fear because the mind automatically knows what food means and it kind of physically makes it uncomfortable without even thinking about it explicitly. For 4½+ years, it is used to fluids being filled in by someone else. Like driving up to a gas station and someone else fills up the tank. Even more so, it knows thae struggle everyday it goes through with even half a spoon of plai6 water without success. It induces a shudder at the sight of solid food with spices and masalas. Even the smells don't elicit the liking it used to. 

I know it is also a phase. I don't know when it may get over it. Right now it is the coward phase.

I don't know what other types of relationships are in store with foods for this mind...