it's M.I.N.E.

I have a confession:

I am a very terretorial person.

It's MY pencil, MY pen, MY pillow. DO NOT TOUCH!!!

It's MY room. Do not touch it or attempt to clean it up. I will gladly do that myself if it means that you don't mess up MY stuff.

And it carries over to food, I'll freak out if someone eats one of MY cookies, despite that there are two boxes of them in the pantry. And I don't even pay for them, so why do I flip out when I see someone with something I consider "mine"? When I DO pay for it myself, I get really obsessive about people not touching/eating it.

I feel like such a little kid (my 6 year old sibling acts the exact same way). We are in family therapy though to work out the kinks this obsessive terretorial issue (and a few others that are not relevant right now). But is anyone else kinda like this, or know what I'm talking about? 

Yes.  And I am married with 2 little kids.  I just have to take a deep breath, and remind myself it can be replaced, and try to train the other members of my house.

We all have things we genuinely value and would be uspet if they were stolen or damaged. But if it's cookies and the like that's more a form of insecurity. Usually happens when people have either been deprived in the past... and are therefore very posessive... or they fear that everything is going to be taken away in the future.  If you were never encouraged to share as a child that can have an effect.  But if you know you have this tendency you can make steps to change it.

Religious orders often include 'dispensing with personal posessions' as a first step to their members finding serenity.  Maybe you could consciously get rid of some of yours or make bigger efforts to share?

I kind of do in a way. It started when I moved out of my mom's house when I was 19, and had a few financial hard times, so I wasn't always able to eat when I was hungry.

Anyway years later it turned into my appreciating food & free food a little too much. I had to start by purposefully sharing my food. I would buy some cookies, only to make sure I give some of them out to others.

Thanks GI Jane.

None of these "possessions" are of sentimental value. Instead, they're disposable, like cookies... it's not just food either- like I said, erasers, pens, paper... stuff I know I'm not going to get back (and when people "borrow" pens, they tend to keep them). I'm absolutely fine with lending out something IF I don't need it that moment or anytime soon and IF I'm 110% positive I'll get it back in the exact same condition.

Like my therapist said for me to do, I'm going to work on sharing more. Start out small, like making sure I let someone else have the leftovers from dinner for lunch, or designating a pencil as my "lending pencil" to start out the security of letting people use something of mine.

If you're anything like me, its because you're a teenager still living at your parents house, and the only one in the family that eats healthy. So you feel if someone eats your "healthy" food, just because it tastes good, you're being cheated, because they have everything else to choose from, and you can only eat this healthy stuff, right?

Thats how it was with me.

My brother could eat anything he wanted in the house, but he decided to go for my lowfat ice cream and eat all my 60 calorie puddings, instead of his own full fat versions.

It's rude, I think, so i know how you feel.

YES! LOL It's so weird when its my kids though because they pull the "but you can share" business with me. So if I do get something for me - WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MY DESSERT - that's mine - I'll share 1/4. It makes breakfast messy, cutting up a bagel with cream cheese into a size for a 3.5 year old and an 18 month old;-)

I guess its not so bad with my husband, but that may be because we like such different things! My mom is the worst though, she's been nabbing my food since I was a baby.

Original Post by healthisinplease:

If you're anything like me, its because you're a teenager still living at your parents house, and the only one in the family that eats healthy. So you feel if someone eats your "healthy" food, just because it tastes good, you're being cheated, because they have everything else to choose from, and you can only eat this healthy stuff, right?

 

Thats how it was with me.

My brother could eat anything he wanted in the house, but he decided to go for my lowfat ice cream and eat all my 60 calorie puddings, instead of his own full fat versions.

 

It's rude, I think, so i know how you feel.

Actually, my whole family eats healthy, but there are certain foods I can't eat without having a reaction that they can (ahem, SUCRALOSE). So my ice-cream is all natural WITHOUT splenda. They're ice cream is sugar-free with splenda. My rule is don't touch "my" ice cream when you can have yours, which I think is legible. If they wanted the same one I do, then quit buying the sugar free kind, it would certainly help me feel less possesive (maybe).

I think it's deeper than that, but what you said about having your stuff when they could have theirs is definitely true. 

I'm the same way... I hate it when people eat my food, especially when I'm "plotting" to eat it. When you're on a diet, especially, you need to feel in control. And if you're not, then you want it anyways. I'm completely like that. My dad assumes anything in the fridge is free game. ...We don't get along.