Have you ever heard of this happening to anyone else?

[Squashit]

When I was a child my father used to have episodic meltdowns and get all the food out of the cupboards and fridge, put it all in the sink and pore hot water over the lot making a sort of toxic soup and all the food inedible.

I understand this behaviour was far from the norm but has anyone else come across this before?

Pour even !

No, I haven't. It must have been frightening and confusing to watch as a child though.

Haven't heard anything like that before. Was he diagnosed with a mental illness?

My firend lived with an anorexic and she would often come home.e to find every single.scrap of food gone as she had thrown it all away.

I think that would have been quite disturbing to.see.as a child

He was sectioned before I was born but was never upfront re a diagnosis.

I am just trying to make sense of this and wondering if anyone else had had a similar experience or had heard of a similar behaviour?

Thanks for your replies 🙂

It sounds very frightening. How is the memory of it affecting you?

My brother empties everything from his room sometimes and then places things in strategic places. He’s autistic. I think it’s possibly a mix of regaining order and control over his space when things seem out of kilter

Nope never heard of that.

It’s quite childlike in many ways though. Cooking up everything in the cupboards and making an awful tasting stew. Something my primary school aged kids would dabble with.

Thank-you everyone for your responses.

This behaviour happened in anger or following violence from him. Loads of his other behaviours I have come across referenced but never this one. Just wanted to establish if this is likely to throw someone if I share it because it is so unusual and not be something they have likely come across before.

When I was a younger woman it affected me in that I would put empty packets back in the cupboard so it looked full. It sounds odd but I didn’t make the connection for years.

My mum had episodes of psychosis through my childhood. Her fixation was always around music. She start playing it blaring loud then she'd move on to throwing various records and cassettes out of the window. Kept my brother and me off school for 2 days as we wouldn't admit the Froggy Song by Paul McCartney wasn't real.

OP I have never heard of this before but it sounds upsetting, especially for a child to witness.

If you haven’t already, have you considered looking into some counselling or similar? It might be helpful to talk to someone about these things and how they might have unknowningly impacted your life. Seems like you are still trying to make sense of it all, and it might be cathartic to sit down and tell it to someone.

I had some therapy for a phobia earlier this year and even though I felt I knew myself well and who I am, when I started talking and making new connections with old memories it was genuinely eye opening and I realised I had locked quite a lot of things away. Maybe you’d find it helpful too.

Never come across anything like that myself, but cleaning purges are a known phenomenon and it sounds kind of related.

That must have had a big impact on you as a child. Food security is a fundamental human need and your father was taking that away.

I have heard of it in the context of the story of an abusive man who would drink the housekeeping money and, if his wife found some way of getting food he would destroy it so that the wife and children couldn't have it. It was a means of control/terrorizing them. Do you think this was part of the motivation in your family's case?

I have heard of a man throwing all the food in the cupboards on the floor and destroying it as a means of control /domestic violence.

I used to do it. I used to chuck everything in the sink and soak it until it was no longer fit for consumption. I also did it after anger. I have absolutely no idea why I did it, but while doing it I remember it feeling like it was a positive thing. Clearly it wasn't. I am on medication now for severe social anxiety and depression, which has also helped me with anger/rage. Or as I call it, "temper tantrums". I haven't done the food thing in about 8-9 years. Nor have I had an angry meltdown in the same amount of time.

Sorry, not much help I'm afraid. Perhaps whatever made me do it was a result of my temper tantrums. Which I also have no idea was about. I'd just get angry. But I had an abusive childhood so it could be an outcome of that.

I should add as well, I got violent when I had angry outbursts, for example throwing over shelves or smashing thing. Though it was never in front of anyone and I never hurt anyone or myself. Maybe the food thing was a form of self harm, a punishment for what I'd just done

I haven't but due to my dad being, um, bizarre, it immediately strikes me as potential power issue, especially if he was the sole earner. So a "I can deprive you of your food and then what happens to you" power exercise.

Could he have been punishing you or exerting his position of control as "provider"?

OP is there any reason why you feel the need to explore too deeply the behaviours of your DF that happened so long ago. And why you are now having to rationalise it to someone else?

It just feels like you are needlessly burdening yourself with someone else’s actions that you may never truly understand, and may not even have a rational explanation.

People do things for all sorts of reasons, but you shouldn’t have to hold onto those things in your life now. You are you, different to anyone else even your own DF, which is the most important thing.

Sorry no, you poor thing. He sounds very disturbed.

Thank-you. This has been incredibly helpful 💐

I’m a mental health nurse and I have seen this in a few patients in the community when having psychotic episodes, usually as they believe someone has poisoned the food and is trying to harm them and there family.

I'd assume afterwards he would be very remorseful and apologetic. It certainly doesn't sound like he was in control when he carried out this peculiar behaviour. Then when he calmed down he would regret doing it. Did it follow drink and a rage? I've seen some very weird things happen after a loved one of mine with very bad mental health drinks too much - dinner mashed into their hair, smeared on walls, lay down in the freezing snow to die - name but a few