Does anyone else eat compulsively?

[noteasyformetopostthis]

Hope it's ok to post this in this section, and I hope it's not too trivial a subject. Just wondered if anyone else feels out of control around food? I eat too much almost every day and find it almost impossible not to.
I'm trying to explore the reasons why but I find it really hard to do this> Have been reading books by Geneen Roth which do help but not much. Is anoyone else in the same situation. I'm really fed up with it now. Have namechanged as I'm ashamed of myself

Strawberrysam you say you have no childhood issues yet you describe sh from an age where this is really rare. And sh is usually a coping strategy.

It is probably worth working out maybe in counselling how exactly your sh came to be and why.

I was never able to tackle my binge eating until the abuse memories came back just over a year ago and I finally knew the why and could actually remember how I started to eat for comfort and survival.

I'm not at all suggesting that you were abused. But simply that a bit of digging may pay off.

name says it all.

What does the name say exactly??

Have got a letter from the community mental health team, so things have started moving now. Thanks again.

Hi noteasy, well done for making your new start. I think it was very brave of you to start this post and I'm very interested in how you get on. Did you find your GP was sympathetic? Do you have to pay for the therapy that's being organised? I have had issues with food my whole life - I actually found a letter the other day that my mum sent to my father when I was about 10 months old describing how I was eating all my food and hers and all the leftovers! I have binged and starved since I was 12 and currently completely lost control of my weight and put on stone and a half since xmas.
I noticed an organisation called Overeaters Anonymous - based on the same principles as AA but I don't know anyone who's been to them and I'm a bit wary of getting involved...not sure why, but I am very wary by nature anyway. Has anyone else had any experience of them?

Hi gotareason, my gp was very sympathetic, but then she is very good generally.
I'm going for an assesment by the mental health team next week, but it will all be free as on the nhs. I'm scared!!
I didn't fancy oa either, and I have no experience of them.
I am also reading one of my self help books again, called "When women stop hating their bodies" got if from amazon. It is good, but I think I need some extra help.
I personally think a 10 month old baby is not capable of having food issues, maybe it was the way your mum reacted though that led to you developing your food problems?

Fascinating to read everyone saying things that could easily have come straight from my mouth (and hello strawberry).

As a child my mother was very strict about not having sweets or lollies in the house. Then I went away to school which was a place full of young girls dieting stupidly and slowly developing crazy eating patterns and almost certainly eating disorders. If you overate at school, friends would casually recommend to go to the loo and get rid of it. It just seemed the normal thing for everyone to do.

And I guess from then on sometimes I would comfort eat and do nothing about it, but if I was dieting or eating far too much, I would nip off to the loo to get rid of it.

I had low self esteem for quite a few years and I guess I thought it was always associated with that. After I had some lengthy and fabulous counselling I thought it would stop, but it hasn't really. I can go a long time without doing it, but this year has been really bad (I suspect a combination of 1. having stopping breastfeeding but still having the urge to eat a lot 2. having a wedding I want to slim for at the end of the year and 3. Having a father with Alzheimers). Also, a young son who seems to be always sick or teething (therefore crying) seems to drive me to the shop for a large cake of chocolate to address the headache that comes from it. This week has been possibly the worst ever, I have been sick every day, for up to four times a day. I just have this almost insane urge to keep shovelling food in my mouth.

I have finally realised this is no longer 'normal' and as I also severely bite my nails and compulsively twirl my hair I wonder if there is a self harm element to all this. Also, it does feel very compulsive when I am doing it, and very intense with a great feeling of 'release' afterwards. There must be some kind of chemical rush in your head or something. Maybe two 'rushes' the buzz of all that sugar and then the rush of getting rid of it. Is it an addiction in a way?

The thing is, in most respects I am happier than I've ever been and one of the more cheerful, active mums at my daughters nursery. Being referred to the community mental health team would feel ridiculous. All these habits feel like my way of coping with stress, nothing more pyschologically complex than that. But then in another respect, it is beginning to feel like a crazy thing to be doing to myself.

Really interesting to hear everyone else's stories and thoughts.

By the way, Overeaters Anonymous seems to be run by a religious group and that may not be everyone's cup of tea....see this from their website.

12 Steps of Overeaters Anonymous
We admitted we were powerless over food ? that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Reprinted with permission from the World Service Organization of Overeaters Anonymous

Venetianred those are the same twelve steps AA uses. In fact it is right to say they are the AA 12 steps and other groups have adapted them.

It is no longer a religious group if it ever was and it refers quite clearly to a God of our understanding or as we understand Him. So for you it could be the Power of nature, or mother earth or buddah (not in any particular order and no disrespect intended).

That must have been what I read about OA - although I don't see it as a religious organisation as such and agree with willsurvive that it makes clear that it is a question of spirituality rather than organised religion. That's not really the problem - I just find that list very daunting to look at and a sense that my life might be 'taken over' which is the last thing I need. I might be being unfair but that is my gut instinct (no pun intended!) and it wouldn't be fair on them to go in half-heartedly.
Noteasy I hope you are feeling a bit calmer about the assessment now - do they give any hint of what is involved? I agree that a baby can't be described as having food issues but when I read that letter it struck such a deep chord - to me it shows that even at that age I was looking to food to provide the comfort and security I was missing or to relieve the tension around me - it was a very traumatic time for my family. I feel sure that set the pattern for my problem eating even at such an early age and then it was compounded by other sad problems, including as you mention, the reaction of my family especially my Father who bullied me mercilessly in the hope that I wouldn't become an overweight adult like him. So much for that strategy!
Anyway, I feel I ought to follow your example and take some positive steps the first of which better be to change my GP because I know I don't want to talk to any of them about this.

Noteasy and gotareason every baby derives comfort from food and the human contact that is involved in offering the food, first breastfeeding, then weaning. That's why most of us crave sweet foods when we need comfort.

That is normal

what your mum says is not normal. 10 month olds do not have food issues period. She clearly has issues.

My experience is that overeating is a symptom of a deeper problem, nothing to do with you being a greedyguts or whatever ugly words overeaters tend to use for themselves.

Incidentally i started eating aged 7 to cope with abuse, I'm now 35, in therapy and have 6 weeks ago spontaneously stopped bingeing.

Venetianred, just wanted to say that I also compulsively eat AND twirl/pull out my hair. (I also aggressively pick any blemishes I have on my face/back and make a real mess of my skin).Also I had a very abusive upbringing and have a lot of self esteem issues.

Am glad to have found this thread.like others here, I never ever feel full. I could eat all day long. I find that when I am stressed, carbs (especially sugar) fill up the anxious 'empty' feeling which occurs in my stomach/chest area. It's a bit like self medicating I suppose.

I think I see food as a 'milder' way of self harming compared to the drugs/cutting/suicide attempts of my younger days. However I am now 39 and a size 18, so I guess being overweight (am borderline morbidly obese according to BMI) could finish me off in the end.

I have spoken to my GP about it and she has been really kind. I am in Manchester and she says there is an eating disorder clinic that she will refer me to. I am just waiting for my son to start primary school in Sept so that I will just have the baby and hopefully they will let me bring him along to the sessions.

korkii - yes, when I saw the question 'does anyone else compulsively eat?' I thought - this is where I belong. I've never spoken the words aloud, except to my partner three months ago (I thought that alone might do the trick) but he really didn't take me seriously (I think he assumed I was making excuses for not being able to diet for the wedding). It is so wonderful to be finally talking about it. So much so, that I haven't been sick today and managed to through the remainder of the kids sausage rolls in the sink and drown them with water so I couldn't eat them.

It was great to hear someone else say the same thing - yes, I bite my nails very badly, twirl my hair, obsessively pull out the grey ones, sometimes do a funny thing with my tongue. One day I just realised, no one else does all these things and I'm tired of trying to hide it all the time - oh, the money I've spent on false nails.

There are other similarities too - I am size 18, 81kg, have a 4year old and almost 1 year old and live just outside Manchester. I never really considered myself someone who needed help, but I am tired of not being able to have chocolate, muffins, cake, crisps, ice cream etc in the house because I just scoff everything and come up with excuses. My poor kids are not getting much in the way of dessert poor dears.

This is so wonderful just to start talking about it - I can't believe it has been going on for 27 years and not even my closest friends or family realise.

noteasy - hope you don't mind me posting on here. I could start a new thread if you do, it's just that it seems to be

...so similar the worries we have.

Venetian, am in a bit of a hurry now but maybe we could email or something to discuss eating and hair twirling
Not sure if it will let me put an email address on here but will try -
nicdoig1 @hotmail. com
There are no spaces - just added them to hopefully stop a load of spam appearing in my emails!

Sorry for the hijack noteasy. Will add more posts in a normal fashion from now on. This is a great thread!

Hi venetianred and korkii - sounds like a lucky coincidence for you two! I agree that there is definitely an addiction aspect to compulsive eating - sometimes it reminds me of when I smoked and by the time I gave up I wasn't actually enjoying any of the cigarettes I had but I just couldn't stop doing it. And then I did. Sometimes I am completely in control of my eating and feel that I'll never go back to overeating and then something somehow triggers it and I'm right back where I was only heavier still. I've had a miserable couple of years with ill-health and relationship probs so there's no mystery there. Like you Venetian I am generally known as an upbeat hands-on person and that's not fake but there is a whole other side to me that needs an outlet and perhaps that's where cbt or similar might help...I will wait till after the half-term then look into it.

willsurvive - I think you are right, but I seem to have got rid of my really big deep seated problems, but am still left with the physiological habit of bingeing. I'm fairly sure I got everything important out of my system during my 2 years of counselling. There are two things remaining that bother me. One is that I love being fit, so I wonder if I am trying to sabotage this with my eating problems. The other thing is that all my life I've wanted to start my own business, and I sometimes wonder if my inability to crack on with that, might in some way be tied to it. But it is nothing like the dreadful issues of low self esteem and hating myself that I used to have. In fact I don't hate my body, but I would enjoy being back as a size 12 and not having these binges.

Thanks korkii for the address and I will email you, however I also thought I might start a support group on this thread for people who sometimes eat compulsively. I wasn't sick yesterday and have not had any urges today even though I was at the supermarket, so talking about it openly is doing the world of good for my head. Maybe we could all log on at least once a day and talk about it. Just say whatever comes to mind that day, and whether we are having urges or not. Like our own little self help group, and just see if it helps at all?

Would anyone be interested?

Venetianred - would it be possible that you are using your eating and the resulting bodyshape to stop yourself doing things in which you might fail?

I think the support group would be a fab idea but my first impulse is to join immediately, but I spend so little time thinking about food atm and I want to keep it that way. For some reason the binges have stopped, I'm going through a stage of extremely and exhaustingly painful counselling so for now I will leave you to it.

I'm really glad I started this thread now!
I've actually been a lot better; I've been re-reading one of the self-help books (one of many) and it seems to be making more sense. I don't know if it's just my fear of the appointment that is making me be "good" so I can tell myself I don't need to go though, but I'm still going to force myself to go, because I know I do need some help with it.

willIsurvive - yes, that could be it. It may also be tied to feeling out of control, and being emotionally and physically exhausted, which is always the case when you have a young baby....and body resorting to one of it's familiar responses. strawsam - Well done for not hurting yourself since your dd arrived, I have never done it, but can understand why you do. In a way, I think severe nail biting is a bit in the same direction. I believe that having a young baby really tests the head and heart and it isn't surprising we are subconciously tempted to go back to our old 'coping mechanisms'. I do remember that once dd got to about 1.5 years, and I went away for a 4 day break with a good friend, I came back feeling incredibly different. She was sleeping well, crying much less, I was getting out and about more, and I'd had a proper break. When I look back, I realise I had a degree of PND but never would have admitted it to anybody. But then I suspect that almost everyone does to some extent. No matter how much you love your baby, your life is so completely and utterly changed that it really throws you.

I've got visitors this weekend, but on Monday or Tuesday, I will write a short piece and start a support group on this thread. We can just talk about anything that is worrying us, food related or not perhaps. Not the replacement for therapy, just just an outlet for that muddle of worry/thoughts that we have to try and make sense of on a daily basis on plays with our minds? Anyway, would love you both to join strawsam and korkii.

I think it's important to remember that it's not really to do with food itself, it is a coping mechanism, and also a manageable addiction for someone with young children, fits in with family life lot better than getting drunk or taking drugs, which I did used to do before dc.
It's something I've done on and off for years for various reasons. At one point I weighed 16.5 stone, and managed to get into a state of mind where I realised that I would rather be fat and happy than thin and unhappy, and guess what the weight dropped off me. This state of mind, accepting yourself as you are now, and acknowledging that it's not about the food, is the key to stopping I think.
I just find it hard to remember this!

noteasyformetopostthis - sorry, this dropped off my threads I'm on (was justmytwopenceworth).

Am I having help - no. Have in the past. Nothing helps. Talking about the burn doesn't make it go away. Finding out where it started doesn't make it go away. I just have to learn to live with it. Accept it as part of me.

I had CBT to deal with my needle phobia. Am considering going back to her to try to learn to live with this pain I feel. Because nothing I have tried makes it go away, so CBT to deal with getting on with it is probably my only option.

Hi Hecate, sorry if this sounds silly, obviously you've been through a hell of a lot, but have you read any self help books specifically for compulsive eaters? I have read quite a few, and they do make sense, especially at the moment, I seem to be doing well (don't speak too soon )
Also it helps to know I'm not the only one, I have felt like that, all my friends seem to be really slim, so thanks everyone on this thread