ED When food became your parents: disordered eating from childhood

[ms spock]

My disordered eating is still pretty disordered.

Food was my parents.

I turned to food when I was scared.

I turned to food when I was terrified.

I turned to food when I had been severely abused.

I turned to food to reward myself when I was happy.

I turned to food when I was bored, and had nothing to do.

I turned to eating food to think about what I would do next.

I have a part that runs interference with connection with the world - and I have to stuff it full of food in order for me to be able to think, process and be a bit more present. So that is confusing when I am thinking of things on here and stuffing my face full of food to manage that part.

I turned to food to help me regulate my emotions. I turn to food for comfort. I turn to food to feel connected with people. I turn to food to manage feeling scared.

Dinner was awful - abuse of all types - so we all ate to stuff those feelings down and to manage the terror of what was about to happen, what was happening and what was about to happen.

Food was my parent - that connection with safety. To feel safe I need to be stuffed full of food.

Unsurprisingly when you are mostly in a food coma - that is not helpful for your recovery/healing.

So who has resolved this? Or is resolving this? Anyway have this issue/problem/challenge?

 

[Queen Boudica]

I don't know. I have the opposite thing. Sort of. I don't think I comfort ate, my mother made us eat all our dinner etc. And then I did get overweight as a child and bullied to death. By time I was a teenager I was missing meals, trying not to eat and then the bulimia.

See I don't know whether that is comfort. I'd come into that house, start having a massive panic attack and then desperately try to get rid of that horrible feeling. I'd go into the kitchen and eat and eat anything, junk cakes, biscuits, cereals, Not because I was enjoying or liking them, just to try and make that feeling go. It was almost manic, trying to get rid of that feeling. And then I would have to throw up. Stopped the panic. Made me feel revolting.

So I was stuffed full of food but I had to get rid of it. The stuffed full of food does not feel comforting at all. Eating it isn't comforting.

So is it just replacing with something else to stop the panic? At the moment addicted to tweeting, facebook, here I think.

I don't know. Food doesn't feel comforting at all at the moment. Nothing does.

 

[Seasounds]

I deal with this. I especially liked your wording,"emotionally regulating with food."

I have a hard time finding a way to change my habit, without making it worse. Since I have been deprived of food, and since I have been forced to eat, I ping pong between eating-because I fear of being deprived, and eating-because it means that I am good enough/reward. And, similar to what you said, food is the comforting and the validating parent I never had.

As my habits don't feel good to participate in, they hold a main form of dysfunctional-yet validating, interactions that I had, with my parents.

 

[Ronin]

What about reframing this?

That food is parent, good.

But it needs to be a /good and healthy/ parent. So how do you help that food take care of you properly, keep you healthy, other than keep you alive and safer feeling? Turning the emotional safety into actual safety and working for you?

 

[hodge]

I like what Cashew said. This has never been a problem for me, probably because I lose my appetite when upset Actually I don't have an appetite most of the time. So why am I responding? Because it sounds almost like an addiction. Or food used as as addictive substance. Maybe not addiction, but abuse?

 

[ms spock]

I also go to the other extreme which is totally shutting down and not eating, and in 2013 I almost went /was close to organ failure. It was serious. I think that is why I am stuffing my face so much at the moment I am scared that if I stop eating so much then I will start to starve myself again.

It doesn't feel good to be bloated and stuffed @Link Removed it feels uncomfortable - but that is safeness in not feeling any more.

 

[hodge]

Oh, dear Ms Spock, I hope and pray you can find a balance. Neither extreme is good, as you know. :hug:s

 

[ms spock]

That is why since I decided to stop overeating - another part of me is stuffing food into my mouth to make sure I don't go back there - but I am now eating more food than I was eating before I decided to get my eating on a more even keel.

 

[hodge]

What helps for me, I don't know if it would help you, is to put my snack or meal on a small plate. A small plate gets filled up easily and helps you feel you've eaten enough.

 

[ms spock]

Every tip is gratefully received @hodge. Portion size and control is pretty important.

 

[hodge]

Every tip is gratefully received @hodge. Portion size and control is pretty important.[...

It really worked for me, Ms Spock. I hope it helps.

 

[twinkle30]

I have binge eating disorder. So much of what you said sounded like me. I have been to a treatment center and did a full program and I no longer binge but I still eat too much and have a weight issue.
It feels like no matter what I accomplish I will always feel like a failure because of my weight. Sadly I feel like society often does treat women with weight problems this way.