Growing up I had a problem with pica. That is when a person chews on and sometimes swallows things that aren’t food. When I was six I had a fuzzy blanket. The outside was a soft polyester and it was woven onto a cloth fishnet. I nibbled on that blanket for a good year. I would chew and swallow little bites of that polyester. When the polyester was completely gone and there was nothing left but the sturdy cloth weave I didn’t want the “blanket” anymore. I’m not sure why no one tried to stop me or even if my parents had learned the word pica at that point but I remember having a deep love for a security blanket that ended when I had eaten everything but the lining.
The habit continued as I grew. I would chew off the tips of blankets and clothes. I also ate paper. There was always paper around in my childhood and no one seemed to mind that I was eating it as well as using it to write and draw. It had to be regular paper though. Plain white paper was relatively tasteless. Craypaper and construction paper were both bitter and cardboard was really gritty. I also ate mint flavored toothpicks a few times. Of course by this point you can imagine why I have trouble with my stomach and my teeth to this day.
In highschool there was always a lot of the “right kind” of paper and I chewed on the tips of the collars of my shirts. Neckties tasted wrong and the line seemed to be drawn at chewing the tips off of those. But I got nice shirts. Hand-me-downs from my uncle who was just about the same size as I was. They were nice before I started chewing on them at any rate. There were rules against gum in our highschool, but when I chewed on the strings from my collars, no one tried to stop me. The athletic boys in school nicknamed me “Strings.” I asked why they did that once, and the kid I asked said it was because I walked like a marionette. I let the question go because the answer was plausible and probably at least partially true. In retrospect I know that it was mostly because of my pica.
The good news is that I grew out of it. But not before passing the behavior to my children. I don’t know how much of their issues with pica are genetic and how much is environmental, but I see all the problems with my stomach and teeth catching up to them too. That’s the story about strings.
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Latter Day Sinner 
2 responses to “Strings”
During pregnancy I would have incredible cravings for soap and dirt. Have you considered mineral deficiency?
Also, we think humans don’t eat dirt. That is what we are taught in modern societies. But most animals eat dirt of some kind. If you watch kids, they do eat dirt too. Biologically speaking, we are a species that actually does eat dirt.
Foods and water used to have considerable amounts of other kinds of materials as well. This would be another source of materials we used to get in the olden days. In fact, “contaminants” like dead bugs in food were a huge source of nutrients and used to enable “vegan” diets. These vegans stayed healthy because they were unwittingly getting micronutrients like b vitamins from these insects. Vegans today in the west tend to eat pure foods and w/o contaminants, it is unhealthy.
So I think your behavior isn’t as unusual as it seems.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of my sons chewed on sand a couple of times but didn’t seem to like it so he stopped. He also ate sugar packets. Just popped the whole thing into his mouth paper and all.
LikeLiked by 1 person