• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

ED Tips for eating?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Rose White

MyPTSD Pro
I just loathe eating lately. Every day I know I am suppose to eat 3 meals and three snacks. I am supposed to eat every 2-3 hours. (I am seeing a nutritionist.)

I can’t even get close to the portion sizes I’m supposed to be having, and uncommon for me to hit all those times.

When I wake up I start to feel frustrated that I’m supposed to eat. On weekends when I’m alone I procrastinate eating as long as possible. It’s almost 10 am and I’m supposed to already have had my breakfast and having a snack now.

I feel angry about eating. The only advice I get is “eat what you want” and “eat through the anger or tears”.

At least I don’t drink beer instead of eating anymore, so that’s an improvement. I also don’t drink water though either when I’m avoiding eating.

I don’t think there’s any other advice besides eat what you want and eat through the discomfort, is there? I feel so frozen in this state. No energy. I will try to eat now after complaining about it a bunch! Lol! Maybe I just need to whine more!
 
If I ate what I wanted? About once a week I’d have steak, or sushi, or oysters on the half, or a grilled sandwich, or paella. Oh look! There’s 5 weeks worth of food. One month down.

During my best times? Yep. I’m eating 5-6 small meals a day, IE every 2-3 hours. I exist via hedonism (if I’m eating it? There is SOMETHING delightful & amazing about it), and routine. Routine is the best bit, because removing the thinking, also removes the feeling. It just happens. So the only feeling is attached to the fun stuff.

During my worst, I just forget for about a week. Eat something. Intend to do better. Forget for about a week.

During my transitional stages? I try reeeeelly really hard to knock back a V8 and a nutrition box shake drink thing, every single day. From the FLATS of V8 & premixed shake things, I get in bulk, so I don’t hVe to go buy more any time soon. They’re just there. Then I add in other no-thinking things, as I can. To start building that routine up, again. Because I really, REALLY, have to be able to not think about it… unless it’s fun-food / hedonism food.
 
Oh… one trick on the routine thing? (For ME) No clocks. Time eating to EVENTS. That happen every day. So it just automagically happens that I go for a run, come back, stick a thing of soup in the microwave, have a cold drink in a hot shower, & eat a bowl of soup.

Later? Once the routine is down that I eat, exercise, shower, eat? I can mix things up. Have a salad, or sammich, or whatever. But I have to get the no-thinking thing happening… first. Then, 2 seconds of thought, isn’t overwhelming/impossible/awful. But for the months it takes to lay the routine? If it’s more complicated than cracking open a can of soup? It’s not going to happen. It’s just not. So I’d better have a few dozen soup-things in a box, next to bowls. Next to where I shuck off my sweaty clothes.

Notice how I skipped mentioning the first eating? Fats before exercise clear out the bile duct, which prevents cramping/a stitch in the side. For years and years and years, I ate a hashbrown patty, sausage link, and chocolate milk… before PT. I fell into the habit during bootcamp, by accident, because stomach pain and I are enemies. As long as I have the food I need in the house because of years of habit… I still don’t think about it. Something fat rich. Before exercise. No pain. Happy belly.

I tie the same sorts of food-things to other activities.
- Before drinking? Fat rich. After drinking? Time released water content (pasta, oatmeal, bread). Because I reeeeeally don’t do the nausea thing.
- Before/after work or travel? Protein & greens. One of my faves there is crab cakes & chard or broccoli raab.

So just exercising daily, and working daily? That’s 4 meals. Add in my V8 & Meal Shake Thing. That’s 6. And I’ve got about 2 dozen activities I tie food to before/after, so whatever happens to be going on in my life? The food thing happens. Without having to think about it. Unless it’s FUN. Because working with my own patterns, creating habits around them, removes mental/emotional effort.

If it’s tied to a clock, instead of an activity? I stress the f*ck out of myself 3 times over, often miss the activity that IS clock sensitive, and also don’t eat anything.

But some of my friends? Are the exact opposite. The set a timer, and just eat -no thinking, same deal- when the timer goes off.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for the response. It’s helpful to realize that just eating what I want isn’t working. I like how you say “no thought food”. I thought I could do that, but my brain keeps trying to outrun me. (“Nope! Not that! I don’t like it anymore!”)

Foods that were perfectly safe get struck out.

The routine is helpful. I understand activities. When I’m working. When I’m home alone I’m struggling and that might be leftover headache stuff or depression stuff or grief stuff. It feels very much like grief.

When I first went no contact with my dad I was rewiring on a major level without any support system other than T for one hour a week. I was trying to recognize that my dad who I had thought of as kind of weird and hard to live with was actually dangerous and needed to be far away. And the fact that my parents marriage was over. And that I started being flooded with body memories (“Remember me! Remember me!”) And my sexual body was slowly shutting down to the horror of my ex.

I could. Not. Eat. It scared me. I kept thinking I needed to check into a hospital but T kept saying, “I don’t think that will help the way you think it will. Just wait.” I called an ED clinic and I didn’t know the words “restrictive eating” yet and they said it didn’t sound like ED because I don’t have the body weight focus.

This feels like a mini version of that—or like an 80% version. Because when I read my past entries I was saying things like, “I’m discounting my trauma. I want to get this out of me. I can’t stop these intrusive thoughts.” And then I got tumbled and I cried, “UNCLE! I accept!” And I did. Which means that all that time I was discounting I was storing up trauma energy. And now that I’m accepting it I have to face again the reality that my dad is a gross human that is not worth my time or energy and I will repel him if he ever came near me again. It’s rather a neat package. It’s all NO.

But it’s still big rewiring. And it’s exhausting. And for some reason I don’t eat much when I grieve. I’m grieving the loss of identity again. It’s an ego grief. Back then my ego was grafted to his. When I was dismissing and discounting my trauma I was re-knitting our egos together. And now this is like a rough scab that had to be cleaned out again.

It’s not that I’m losing a dad. Because he never really acted like one. It’s facing that I believed my life was normal and safe and it wasn’t. And that I Was a target for predators but I was damn lucky and blessed to have only had my little coterie of abusers. I’m not immune to abuse now but I certainly wouldn’t fall for any of the sh*t I did when I was pre-recovery.

Okay, what am I grieving now? I don’t know. My lost self up to now? Grieving the years I was stuck and lost and unavailable to any kind of loving connection. Not true—there were angels along the way.

*Sigh* I’m trying to defend my restrictive eating. I’m saying I’m grieving therefore I’m special. Maybe I am. But I know what a grieving person needs. Starchy foods. Soft things to cuddle. A place to hide away. Reminders from loved ones of their care.

And a loved one would try to bring me food. I have to be my own loved one. I’m supposed to make a meal plan today: and I didn’t do it last week. I need to make a list of safe foods. That’s a good action to take.
 
*Sigh* I’m trying to defend my restrictive eating. I’m saying I’m grieving therefore I’m special. Maybe I am. But I know what a grieving person needs. Starchy foods. Soft things to cuddle. A place to hide away. Reminders from loved ones of their care.
Grieving is a special kind of place to exist in.

My disordered eating patterns totally shift when I’m grieving… So on the food front, it’s a keen thing for me to be aware of.

I tend towards “The Heidi Cure” when I’m in grief. Just my own nickname for it. Clean air, at high altitudes. Lots of physical work/exercise out of doors; chopping wood, barn work, etc. Whole grains porridge, fresh bread, honey, cooked fruit, meat pies. Or the coastal version that’s essentially all day/every day swimming, fishing, campfires, sailing, shellfish. Either way? Outlandishly more healthy than opium dreams or wasting bereavement. Which is what I get stuck with in the city. Starving myself in stuck pain and apathy.

Day 1, though? Brownies for breakfast. No idea how that tradition got started, but for whatever reason? When I’m deliberately setting out to mourn -or come across someone in pain- It’s brownies for breakfast.

I called an ED clinic and I didn’t know the words “restrictive eating” yet and they said it didn’t sound like ED because I don’t have the body weight focus.
Cha… I have

- Disordered Eating
- Trauma related food issues
- A bonafide (and stupid common) Eating Disorder. <<< That one causes me the least trouble mentally/emotionally, as long as one considers SI trifling (I’ve been suicidal for too long, for too many reasons, to pay it much mind).

They’re 3 very different things, with different causes/solutions. But they all merge together to create “me”. Or you. Each of us, as individuals. Good stuff to learn, but -IME- it’s the root cause that effects the most changes
 
IME- it’s the root cause that effects the most changes
Yes. I see that. I’m having all kinds of root changes going on right now. Even though I’m not eating I also am not drinking—that’s a big deal for me. And my body is not craving MMJ—also a big deal for me.

And I’m not able to get mental relief by picking my skin anymore. And my ability to fantasize seems to be going down the drain. So some big rewiring happening again in my life. Feeling a new kind of fragile. For some reason my body is not wanting to cope in the old ways. And it’s because of accepting my csa. It’s root stuff.

But I’m not sure how to shake the fear and sadness that seems to be popping around in me like popcorn.

I’m calling grief fear and sadness. I think that’s great that you know your grief plan. That’s a goal for me. I’m better now at having a coping and grounding kit (five senses if possible) for every day stuff, but I don’t have a grief plan. I don’t even have an anger plan. I think that might be the next section of my routine to add in. I can just call any aerobic or strenuous activity “anger plan”. I need to plan the movement stuff, because I’m suffering from stagnant fear and sadness—I need to squish it out.

So even though I’m having the grief I’m also experiencing a huge shedding of old useless coping mechanisms and I need to replace them. The art is probably another activity that needs regular scheduling. I can do this, but I’m not sure how. I need so much support with my meal times, how will I get the accountability I need for adding in new activities? I will discover how in the coming weeks. I will look out for ways to meet my needs.

I like “The Heidi Cure”. Just watched “Fantastic Fungi” and I’m feeling called to go back up the mountain and lay in some bracken and just be.
 
Am using a meal plan (two weeks in a row) and it helps me when I loathe eating. That was something I learned from the dietitian. I quit the dietitian in December I think, after about 8 weeks or so. Didn’t use the meal plan until I ran out of money so had to budget and number one tip for food budget I discovered was meal plan. So those skills came in handy. And I like the feeling of knowing I have all the ingredients for all the food I hope to serve myself and kids over the course of a week. It’s a welcome level of self care.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top