Does Eating Solve Your Problelms?
Many disregulated eaters have
convinced themselves that eating solves their problems, or at least extinguishes
the distress they have about their problems. Really? I’m of the opinion that
eating to solve problems only causes more of them.
I’m not saying that when you were a
child eating didn’t make you feel better emotionally. Back then when you
overate, binged or snacked in secret, you might have felt comforted without the
guilt, shame or disappointment in yourself that you feel today when you engage
in these behaviors. When your problem was, “I’m in emotional pain and I have no
other way of soothing myself,” eating came in very handy. Maybe overeating
helped you tune out the nightly battles between your parents at dinnertime, or crawling
under the covers and snarfing down candy bars provided you with a bit of sweetness
in a life that was full of bitterness, or maybe being a good eater was one of
the few ways you received praise from your parents, so you went at it with
gusto.
We could say that your problem then
was not only emotional distress, but the severely limited ways you had to
manage it. As a young child, you couldn’t very well escape when your parents
were fighting nor could you, without becoming the target of their rage, step in
and request or demand that they quit it because it was unbearably distressing
to you. If your life was dreary and you were depressed because you were
neglected, you couldn’t go out and seek other...
Source: Normal Eating - Category: Eating Disorders Authors: eatnormalnow Source Type: blogs
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