It began not as a decision but as a single acknowledgment.
I’m eating because I’m emotional.
The thought didn’t stop me. I still ate. But it did give me pause.
The next time it happened, I thought: I’m eating because I’m bored.
That time, it did stop me. I acknowledged that I wasn’t hungry, just bored. So I didn’t eat. Again, I didn’t think about it much past the acknowledgment and action.
What started out as such a small event has now snowballed into something I think about nearly every time I consider putting something in my mouth. Sometimes the thought stops me from eating, sometimes it doesn’t. The thoughts vary.
I’m eating because I want comfort.
I’m eating to punish myself. (I really dislike feeling full.)
I’m eating because it tears me up when The Bloke is feeling down and I can’t make him feel better.
I’m eating because I’m afraid.
More often than not lately, all of these thoughts have come together in a jelly mass of:
I’m eating because something is missing.
I live in a new country where I am safe, have a home, have enough to eat, have an amazing husband I love with every ounce of me, get to work doing what I love even though I don’t always make much…
What could possibly be missing?
That’s the question I am stuck with as I try to get past all the triggers that make me want to eat. It’s something I’ve had on my mind nearly constantly, sometimes depressing me and sometimes inspiring to get ‘out there’ and ‘do more’.
The more I have been thinking about it, the more I know that fear is what is keeping me from discovering what it is that I need to do to shake my dependence on food to try to fill that gap.
Perhaps I need to get out in the world and take some classes to meet new people.
Perhaps I need to join a club, day-travel more, get lost or do other things that make me nervous.
Or perhaps I need to stop worrying about whether people will believe me or whether I’ll cause trouble and finally do what I have been aching to do ever since I moved to Australia:
Stand on the rooftops and scream, “I left because I was being abused!”
Perhaps.
All I have at the moment is the knowledge that I eat because something is missing – and that missing part is clouded by a whole lotta fear.
::hugs:: I haven’t still figured out why I eat. I know it’s not because I am hungry though.
I think taking the step to try to figure it out is the best starting point.
(((Hugs))) Fear is always at the bottom of it for me. Mostly fear of never being good enough… In so many ways I was also abused as a child, although not physically. It has really cast a long shadow in my life, but I am finally dealing with my old subconscious beliefs. Pulling them out in the open (not for the world, but for you) is the first step. Good luck!
Thanks Hanlie. A lot of problem for me comes in comparing myself to others. Sometimes I worry that no one will take me seriously because the abuse I went through ‘wasn’t as bad’ as things other people went through. Stupid, but there.