Afraid To Swallow

I was afraid to swallow food when I was eleven. I lived on licking peanut butter from a spoon and yogurt. One time I went to Dorney Park with my friend and I got fries to not seem weird. I buried as many as I could into the paper ketchup cups. My friend's mother gave me a funny look. My father put cream of wheat in front of my face and I would shake, terrified he wanted me dead. I would eat a cracker until it was liquid and then spit it out. I would sneak my grandfather's Ensure milkshakes for when he had cancer just so I didn't become malnourished. This lasted for two months. Doctors didn't know it was  mental. They wanted to remove my tonsils. One day, I just gave in and thought "if I die, I die." The first solid thing I swallowed was a piece of boiled chicken. I screamed with joy at the dinner table. No one truly understood what that was like for me.