Vulnerability and Emotional Eating

Vulnerability is a universal feeling, one to which we may attribute different meanings, and the meaning you make of this emotion will determine what you do with it. Associated words to feeling vulnerable, physically or emotionally, are weak, small, insignificant, in danger, in trouble, susceptible, defenseless, or exposed. Each word indicates being at risk for harm due to lack of power. That’s because when we first felt vulnerability, in infancy, we did lack power to impact our lives. Our current take on vulnerability depends in large part on how our vulnerability was treated in childhood. If we couldn’t fight back when we were physically abused by parents or witnessed one parent abusing the other or our siblings, we felt a surge of helplessness and fear. If we couldn’t talk back to defend ourselves when we were emotionally abused, we also felt frightened and powerless. Both of these automatic, natural reactions generated a rush of adrenalin, accompanied by fear and anger at our defenselessness. To compensate, what we craved in these moments was power. Power made us feel less vulnerable. Maybe we daydreamed of being more powerful so that we wouldn’t have to feel vulnerable or looked for ways to use the small bits of power we had to strike back.   Fast forward to our adult lives. We no longer have validreasons to feel emotionally vulnerable because we’re now independent. We’re adults now: people hurt our feelings and we hold the power to hurt them back. But...
Source: Normal Eating - Category: Eating Disorders Authors: Source Type: blogs