It’s late Saturday night and thanks to some extra weekend work forcing me to have an early supper- guess what? Im starving! So instead of eating as soon as I got home, it reminded me I’ve been neglecting these followup questions for too many days now. (especially since posting them on the blogs was my idea) For the record, I’ve been really sick since this ended. My ‘new’ antibiotics seems to be doing the trick (bacterial infection- yuck) and I also had an earlier ‘alarming health failure’ that caused me to spend all Thursday night (Day 3 of The Food Challenge) at the medi-centre getting my blood and urine checked and thankfully everything, so far, has come back normal. It’s safe to say my system was shocked.
NEW QUESTIONS
QUESTION THE FIRST:
How did this experience affect your mental health?
HA! Someone described my Food Bank Challenge blog as a ‘Decent into madness’ – (which I think isn’t nearly dramatic enough LOL) but it’s sadly accurate. I couldn’t keep it together. I wrote endlessly about the mental fatigue and even looking back, 2 weeks removed, the mental toll was harder than the physical toll. I have nothing new to say here that I didn’t blither about in every single one of my posts- so let’s move on to:
How has this amount of food affected you emotionally? Has it affected your family life?
I said during the Tuesday night wrap-up roundtable that if I had no 7 day finish line, and I didn’t have the luxury of telling my wife and son to “Just put up with me until Tuesday, and then everything will go back to normal” I’m sure I would have lost my job and my wife by 2012. I just couldn’t focus on anything longer than about 30 seconds. They would tell me stuff, and being brutally honest- I just didn’t care. I wanted to care, but I just couldn’t- everything seems so trivial when you’re starving. I was alone in my head; my bitterness on an endless loop.
It was worse at work.
I was just wondering aside from physical aspects, what were, if any, some of the mental aspects you went through in trying to complete this challenge?
See above? Well, I told myself I wasn’t going to cheat and I didn’t. I didn’t. I suffered through two pizza parties, theatre popcorn and watched my family eat ‘normally’ for seven days. It was hell.
While I obviously kept reminding myself that I chose to participate, the biggest ‘mental aspect’ I noticed was how silently resentful I was that everyone else could just snack when they wanted to. In between meals when you get hungry- you find something and eat it- suddenly denying myself that ‘luxary’ took its toll immediately. The people around me had no idea how lucky they were to just eat something yummy whenever they felt like it, (and neither did I, until I The Challenge wouldn’t let me), but I really wanted to make everyone understand how lucky they were, but I knew I couldn’t- because you can’t, until you deny yourself.
How would your experience change if you had been looking for employment this past week?
Easy question- I wouldn’t have been looking for employment. I couldn’t do the job I already had and if I didn’t have a job I would have spent my day stressing over my limited food and I would have tried to cook something half edible in my free time. Getting dressed up with a smile on my face? Nope. Wouldn’t have happened.
How do you think your experience would have been different if you had a disability like diabetes or food allergies? Why?
Obviously it would have made things way more difficult- again, I cringed when I was introduced during a radio interview as “someone who has been living in poverty for a week now” I didn’t live in poverty, none of us did. We just ate from the Foodbank. We only had to worry about FOOD, not shelter, not money. I honestly don’t know. I came into this with every advantage and it still broke my health and my spirit.
What would this have been like if you had done it at the end of January? What would it have been like if you had been using a walker? Or had one or two small children?
Again, it’s hard to answer that. Most of us still used our cars. Snow, a lack of transportation and a physical disability would have basically made it impossible to have steady employment.
It was extremely difficult to be a good parent under these conditions. Like I said above, for 7 days I couldn’t focus and was constantly on the edge of losing my temper.
In what way will this experience change your attitude about poverty?
In what way hasn’t it? Oh my God. I used to drop off a few cans and some bread in the Foodbank Donation bin at the grocery store and pat myself on the back. ”Job well done, Curtis” I’d think as I imagined how many lives I was singlehandedly improving. It actually really bugs me that I honestly used to think that.
What things do you no longer assume about people living / struggling with poverty?
From a former post of mine:
“What have I learned this week? Hunger makes you resentful and poverty is a giant pit. Food deprivation makes it impossible to think rationally which in turn, makes it damn near impossible to make any sort of positive changes…. and the worst part of it all is the fact that the smallest risk could be a mistake and sink you even deeper, so it’s honestly safer to just keep trudging forward, wincing on eggshells with every step.”
Was it difficult to understand that people on low income benefits have to use the Food Bank / Salvation Army / The Bridge until you experienced it for yourselves?
Um..not really, I assumed they were there because there was a great need for them. What I didn’t understand until I experienced it was how badly you need these services when you’re short on food I assumed I was ‘stronger than most‘ and if I missed a meal or two I could just suck it up and go without, as I didn’t really want to go to The Friendship Inn….but all that bravado was gone by Wednesday. I was starving and I didn’t care. I had no pride. All I had was hunger.
My two meals at The Friendship Inn were the highlights of my week.