Guilty Shame Over Popcorn

[The Artistic Autistic]

So on November 5th I went to a party at my local college. But downstairs there was also an event going on where people were watching a movie and there was bags of popcorn just sitting around, as events often have free food.

I have a problem with food to the point where I’m worried I’m becoming anorexic. I’ve started eating very sparsely, like only 2 pieces of bread in the mornings and a hotdog at the end of the day. My dad was out of job for a year and got a massive amount of debt, and that gave me an intense anxiety about spending money, even when we recovered. I’m currently slightly underweight, but before I was very sedentary and now I’m walking a lot so I’m worried it will drop.

It didn’t seem to me that anyone was interested in the popcorn so I took one for myself and left. I love free food because it’s pretty much the only time where I can indulge myself without stress before hand. I would call my dad who makes 800 cad a day and interrogate him whether we could afford a 5 dollar hotdog.

But now I’m scared people would be upset, because I’m not an official student I’m just an auditor.

A similar thing I’m scared about is that I was exploring a student lounge area and I randomly came across a group of people playing video games with free snacks. I played with them and asked hesitantly a few times if I could have some to a person nearby and said im auditing a course, but they just said they didn’t care. So I took some snacks but I should have taken the extra time to ask the people who actually organized it.. That same person was also part of the team doing the watch party and they greater me when they saw me there. There was free pizza there and I really hope they didn’t mind that I ate some. I saw the event description and it seemed to imply that everybody could come, at least to me. But I’m still worried that I didn’t explicitly ask…

 

[Misty Avich]

Yeah, I worry about that sort of thing too. It has backfired before, when I saw some chocolate bars on the table at work and I thought they were for anybody (as there is sometimes food placed on the same table that is for anybody). But I wish I had asked first because it turned out they were someone's, and he had a go at me in quite a confrontational way. But even if I had of asked I still would have felt embarrassed when they say no because they might think "she's so greedy for food!" or something like that. Yes, I do have food on the mind a lot.

 

[Forest Cat]

I don't think you should worry. If people were gathering, someone put out some food for them and you were there, it really shouldn't be a problem that you ate some of it. Someone would probably have said something if it had been a problem. I think you can relax.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I agree with Forest Cat. If there’s a group, especially of students at a college, with food out, it’s there for everyone. No one has to show an ID. Besides, even if you are auditing, you are a student.