[Hoasis]

My story short: I have a personality disorders whick makes it uncomfprtable for me to be around people, which again leads me to feeling anxiety/bad about myself, which again leads to me eating. I have no problem with food or overeating if I dont have to deal with tough emotions. Basically when I feel down, depressed about myself and life, I turn to eating. So for me to get eating under control I need to feel good about myself and be able to cope with social situations without feeling ****.

My question to everyone here: WHY are you overeating? Besides "addicted to sugar" and love food. I think there is in most cases a specific reason behind people eating so much they gain a lot of unwanted weight.

[ahdm]

Mine is mainly emotional eating... when I'm upset, or anxious, I eat secretly. I'll often spend vast amounts of money of junk good alone at the corner shop. For example, I once bought 2 big bags of crisps, 3 chocolate bars, 2 energy drinks, and 5 packs of sweets, all at one go.
I also overeat, especially when I'm not hungry, when I'm bored. It will be mainly when I'm sat in front of the TV, and I'm watching a good film or TV programme (NCIS is my favourite), and I just want something to do, so I eat.

It's a horrible, horrible disorder, and most of the time I wish I never had to eat food.

[Hoasis]

Originally Posted by ahdm

Mine is mainly emotional eating... when I'm upset, or anxious, I eat secretly. I'll often spend vast amounts of money of junk good alone at the corner shop. For example, I once bought 2 big bags of crisps, 3 chocolate bars, 2 energy drinks, and 5 packs of sweets, all at one go.
I also overeat, especially when I'm not hungry, when I'm bored. It will be mainly when I'm sat in front of the TV, and I'm watching a good film or TV programme (NCIS is my favourite), and I just want something to do, so I eat.

It's a horrible, horrible disorder, and most of the time I wish I never had to eat food.

Are there any specific reasons to why you get upset and anxious? I hate food myself, its either overeating or undereating to loose weight. Never had a normal diet in my 31 years of living!

[ahdm]

Originally Posted by Hoasis

Are there any specific reasons to why you get upset and anxious? I hate food myself, its either overeating or undereating to loose weight. Never had a normal diet in my 31 years of living!

Mainly it's because a lot of memories come flooding back to me from the past that trigger me. It could be caused by a conversation with a teacher, and then me going away and over analysing and obsessing over that conversation. I get anxious pretty much every day, about a lot of trivial things - the most common is when I get to college and I get anxious over whether I'm going to the right lesson, even though I have my timetable right in front of me.

I'm exactly the same as you! I either overeat in the evening, or I don't eat anything for a few days.

[jenniy122]

Often because I'm anxious and the actual act of chewing calms me (as in I can chew gum and it has the same effect). Some of the time because I feel this deep cavernous emptiness inside that I'm desperate to fill. And then the rest of the time because I'm bored. I'm anxious for who the heck knows what reason, my mind is constantly catastrophizing and worrying about nonsense and can't stop ever, the emptiness comes from an unfulfilled life, and the boredom's from having no structured activities in my life right now (no school, work, etc.). I'm working on changing some of these things, but it takes time.

[pleaseilluminateme]

I've been dealing with a lot of negatives in my life due to mental illness. I struggled with bulimia and depression while I was young, and I was doing well for a little while, but in the past few years things have started to crumble again. I lost all of my friends last year because of my illness, and I live by myself now, and my only friend outside of work is my cat. So, I've been turning to food. I have a lot of impulsive behaviors, eating being a big one. I feel so lonely all the time, I feel neglected by the people in my life, and I feel like my life has no purpose. So I eat. Constantly. When I'm off work, I just eat. Even if I feel so full I could burst, I just keep eating. It happens almost every day. When I'm at work, its no problem. But i have no life outside of work, so food has taken over.

[Hoasis]

Originally Posted by pleaseilluminateme

I've been dealing with a lot of negatives in my life due to mental illness. I struggled with bulimia and depression while I was young, and I was doing well for a little while, but in the past few years things have started to crumble again. I lost all of my friends last year because of my illness, and I live by myself now, and my only friend outside of work is my cat. So, I've been turning to food. I have a lot of impulsive behaviors, eating being a big one. I feel so lonely all the time, I feel neglected by the people in my life, and I feel like my life has no purpose. So I eat. Constantly. When I'm off work, I just eat. Even if I feel so full I could burst, I just keep eating. It happens almost every day. When I'm at work, its no problem. But i have no life outside of work, so food has taken over.

I feel with you on that one! Its frustrating the cause of eating is not the food itself, but underlying sosial issues. I have the same one's myself. When I feel depressed and lonely, I eat, and when I eat, I gain weight, and when I gain weight, I feel even more lonely and depressed...which leads me to eating even more..so its just an evil circle we have to try to break out of!!

[Espresso]

I eat when I'm stressed out or depressed or self-loathing. I eat when I'm bored or when I'm watching TV. And other times my mind wanders over to food and then I start feeling the urge to eat. The urge gets stronger and stronger until I give in. Once I give in, it's a binge until I feel sick.

[shortandcute]

Well, here is what I think is at least part of it for me. When I was little, I was really sick all the time and I couldn't eat. When I did manage to get food in my mouth, I ate real slow. My parents were abusive alcoholics, and it never occurred to them that I was having trouble eating because I was so sick. So my dad would shove food down my throat (literally) and I was forced to eat way more than I could and end up sicker. Then everyone in my family got tired of my eating so slow that they'd get really mad at me and always tell me to eat faster. Eventually I got better--but only because my STEPMOTHER started taking care of me, but then that "eating mindset" stuck, and I kept right on eating that way--fast and eating everything on my plate.

I ended being mostly raised by mom, and she pretty raised me on junk food--which can be very addictive. Plus, I am a (recovering) alcoholic and my addictive tendencies started coming out, and I started using food for comfort. I always say that food was my first addiction. My parents were both pretty horrible anyway so there was a lot of stress in there. I was also sexually abused a lot and maybe that played into it.

[TheOriginalMe]

One of the reasons I overeat is instead of SI in some other form. So I control one set of urges by giving in to another.

There are other reasons too, I don't differentiate between different feelings very well, so if I'm anxious or bored or angry or tired or lonely what I think I'm feeling is hunger and will eat. Plus there is that surge of "happy" that follows eating and sometimes I just need that rush.

Mostly, now, I've been overeating for so long, I don't even register that I'm eating at all. Today has been a good day though as I've only eaten at mealtimes (hurrah).

Let's just say I know the what & the why ...

I just haven't figured out the how yet!

[gypsy pink]

not a clue as of now

[gypsy pink]

not a clue, just blocks out what ever happens to be bothering me.

[PianogirlPlays]

Overeating often and it hurts. Here I am dealing with bad affects of an antibiotic and still I want to eat and comfort myself with food. Did a little better today but I hurt a lot and want a lot.

[PianogirlPlays]

Pain piled up over my head. Hurting inside! Relationships are tough. Head for food for comfort.

[Marielle]

Classic emotional eating here, but mostly boredom, anger, stress, and feeling not nurtured.

Anger and stress are the big ones. My downstairs neighbors are really obnoxious. One of them has a kid who comes to visit on the weekends and it's non-stop screaming and tantrum-throwing as long as the kid is awake. There have been times when I've been perfectly fine, reading or doing some other peaceful activity, heard the kid shrieking, gotten up, marched right into the kitchen, and ripped into a box of crackers. I don't know what's more satisfying, sinking my teeth into the food or slamming the cupboard shut. (Yes, I know, that's just throwing a tantrum right back.) Forget trying to talk to these people. They're absolutely oblivious in their lack of consideration.

I'm chewing a piece of gum right now and just caught myself really chomping simply thinking of them. I'll admit it: I hate them. They actually make me look forward to Mondays, when the kid is gone and they're at work, so I can have some peace and quiet.

Medication had a lot to do with it for me. One med in particular gave me an unbearable urge for sweets and I packed the pounds on.

[SilentVoices]

I overeat sometimes. I'm sick of it. I think it's mainly because I'm bored, especially if I'm watching TV or reading a book. I think another part of it is maybe comfort eating - when I feel sad, I normally turn to junk food. Oops! I think I'm addicted to crisps though - they are my biggest weakness!