Eating myself to death

Why do I countinue doing this despite the health risks I am very much afraid of? It's like the feeling food gives me, the numbing comfort is more important than anything else. It overrides everything else.

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Catie, do you feel like anything is missing in your life, like some type of void that eating fills and provides comfort from? Friends, relationships, family problems?

Catie, you are not alone. So many of us feel the same way. How can we control the power food has over us??

Hi Catie,

What types of foods are you eating?

I just joined An your post is the first I read. I hear you. I take bipolar An anxiety medications An have gained 40 lbs since 2001. I'm hungry all the time. No matter what I eat or how much. I no the medication has so much to do with my weight but being a senior citizen An living with my pets makes me lazy. I don't want to excersise I did when I first moved here so I just wanted you to no I hear you

Hon, your not alone....please be good to you. Believe me, I know how hard this can be, there's so much I wish I could say. I know others will help, and tell you, better than I, what's best. Love yourself x

That numbing comfort is SO powerful, it's incredibly hard to let go of even with all the information we have of how food affects us.. You describe it perfectly. It really does override everything. I say this while stuffing my face with cookies I know will make me ill soon

Maybe for now, try and accept that this is where you're at. Don't beat yourself up about not being able to follow nutritional advice because for now, there's something else going on for you, something more powerful - I know it can be SO HARD not to blame yourself!!! I just posted a thread doing just that, saying how disappointed I am in myself.. It's human to feel lousy but let's try not to get hung up on it. We're doing the best we can!!!!!

Can you recognize any of the emotions you're trying to numb with food.. Maybe just try and get to know them first, get comfortable with them.. Where do you feel them in your body.. What do they feel like.. On a scale of 1-10, how intense are they.. Can you name them..

Know that whatever emotions come up, they're all OK.. Can you then maybe recognize what they are about? They can be about something that happened ages ago - decades ago.. Maybe something you couldn't feel and express then..

I think by releasing these emotions we can maybe start feeling better and have less of a need to numb our emotions with food or anything else.. But they can be so hard to face. I've just recognized that for me, they're about having been SO alone as a child I was certain I was going to die.. And I think what's been so hard to face is actually the thought that I was alone because I wasn't good enough, because I wasn't worth being taken care of.. Horrible thought that there could be something so wrong with me no one would ever want me

But I already know on some level that it wasn't my fault I was alone.. My parents just couldn't be proper parents. They didn't know how to - because their own childhoods were even more harmful than mine, and they never learned - I don't think they even realize they should change..

Welcome to PC

welcome to psych central

maybe it's because of depression.

I don't know if you have that, but for me, I do get really low- and I do really hate myself- and I swear it contributes a little to how I feel when someone says.. you know that over eating's bad for you, blah blah blah- what ever they choose to say

I should feel guilty about it, I don't