Do You Have Food Problems?

[Cool Cat]

I find I am often either eating too little or too much.

Like when I would have been in a crisis last year I barely ate at all, and would go weak and dizzy with the hunger. I had to really remember to eat. I didn't want to eat. I sometimes went through a day with maybe only breakfast and a burrito or something similar. I could only eat junk food.

Now I have improved, a lot. But I find what's happening now is my appetite is back but I am eating too much. or at least, I still crave junk food.

Any ideas? Or what about you, do you have the same thing?

 

[Casey_03]

I've had the same thing. I feel like any appetite is good, even if it is for junk food. I went through periods of near starvation and got so emaciated people expressed concern for me. But I really didn't have an appetite and food seemed difficult to me, somehow. I have always made a point of trying to prepare my own very healthy meals - spinach, chicken breast, etc. But I am not able to do that consistently; my appetite is all over the place. Though I do think eating too much is waaaaay better than not eating enough. At least eating too much seems to help with depression.

 

[Underdog]

Yup, I have the same issues. My psychoanalysist told me it's because when the body is in its fight/flight/freeze zone, it's more concerned about escaping harm than it is about maintaining itself. Therefore, eating becomes less of a necessity as do other things that over the long run actually end up hurting the body because the body wasn't designed for long term exposure to the fight/flight/freeze stage. She suggested to force myself to eat if need be and to eat whatever sounds good just to get food in my body. Obviously, junk food is what I crave though so it's not ideal but it's something that is better than nothing scenario.

 

[MT Johnny]

When I had my big freak out in 2012 I couldn't stand to eat anything at all hardly. All I could begin to look at was cottage cheese, plain yogurt, and bananas - I might have been getting 800 calories a day, and throwing up a lot of it from panic attacks.

I was overweight and unhealthy anyway, so that was a strange silver lining - I dropped about 60 lbs and got myself back into shape.

Now I just have the more typical American struggle with food - trying to stay healthy, not gain weight, eat nutrient dense clean healthy foods. But when my anxiety ramps up I still lose my appetite. When bouts of depression hit I can go the other way and binge.

 

[sun seeker]

When something seriously triggering has just happened to me, I don't eat. The rest of the time, I tend to use food as a tool to calm down, especially at night. I'm working on not doing that, and it's hard because I haven't found anything else that does the same thing. I've made some drastic changes in my diet over the past few months for health reasons and am quite proud of sticking to it, but it's a struggle every day.

 

[Cool Cat]

I think it is like 'survival mode"
I wonder what mode is it when you eat too much

 

[ghotiff]

I used to eat too little and often my husband would remind me to eat (I would forget). Since opening Pandora's box last year, I now am constantly hungry, eat too much and junk food. I don't know why and I don't know how to stop.

I look forward to seeing if anyone has any answers.

 

[sun seeker]

I see it as a sedative. I'm very conscious of using food to calm down enough to fall asleep when my anxiety is really bad at night. Nothing else works quite the same way.

 

[ghotiff]

Yes @sun seeker i too am using food to manage my anxiety. I would like to find an alternative though.

 

[sun seeker]

Yes @ghotiff, I've really been trying, because it's not good for my health. I haven't found anything that does the same thing though, so most nights I just grit my teeth and get through the anxiety, but that's not good for my health either. I don't know the solution. Let me know if you find one, and I'll let you know if I find one, okay?

 

[Cool Cat]

@sun seeker @ghotiff @Casey_03 @Underdog Would it be safe to say that the undereating problem is a trauma problem?

I wonder where this places the overeating.

 

[sun seeker]

I think both can stem from trauma... or not. I know that's not very helpful, sorry. It's just that there are a lot of reasons why people eat too much or too little. Some people overeat when depressed, some undereat when depressed. Some people starve themselves after a sexual assault, some binge. Some people can't eat when they are anxious and some eat to calm the anxiety. Why any one person does one or the other, I don't know.