Hunger is life changing. When you have felt true hunger in your life it never leaves you. It clings to you like a bad memory of food poisoning that repels you from the food culprit that led to your illness. However, in this case, the reverse happens: you are instead drawn to food because of your past experience with hunger.

Hunger haunts you even in those innocuous moments when you don’t have time to eat breakfast, and your mind starts to freak out on you simply because you are hungry. Your freak out is not due to low blood sugar. The feeling of hunger takes you back to that time when you and your two sisters had to share a small frozen pizza between the three of you, and there was nothing else to eat. Hunger takes you back to searching in vain for something to eat while your mother holed up in her room with the blinds drawn, the lights out, and the door closed. At 6 years old your resourcefulness could only take you so far.

But, in fact, you were resourceful. You learned that watermelon was served during the summer lunch program, but, your understanding was that you needed to be in summer school in order to get a free lunch. So, you showed up to school one day, and declared that you needed summer school. You were so persistent they didn’t know what to do with you so they let you read books all day and play with the felt board. You were fine with that arrangement.

Then there was the time you learned how to make deviled eggs on the television show 3-2-1 Contact. You were thrilled beyond belief because this was something you and your sister could make on the nights your mother holed up in her room, which was most nights.

Your reactions around food are not muted, nor are they discreet. God help the person that tries to start a conversation with you while you are holding your tuna melt that you just purchased. You have a short capacity for waiting to eat something once it’s in your hands ready for consumption. Your brain cannot fathom ignoring a hot tuna melt in your hand for a two minute conversation.

You do know that you are no longer in danger of going hungry, but your brain is mixed up on this issue. Part of your brain knows that you have a good job, and you can feed yourself now as an adult, but another part of your brain still lives in that scary place called hunger. So, why would you want to see a movie depicting this feeling … this horrifying feeling likely not intimately known by most movie goers of The Hunger Games?