Hold back - before I get shot at for trivialising addiction:
Without any intent to cause offence - I'm a food addict.
I recognise cravings. I experience withdrawal. I struggle, daily, to not eat foods that are bad for me, because if I don't get them, I get angry and irritable, my blood pressure rises, I feel pin like stabs at my mind - foodfoodfoodfoodfood.
However. I have to eat to survive. I cannot abstain.
I can't express the depression that lives inside me.
As a child, I was forced to eat my meals. I'd be sat at a table for hours until I finished a meal. I'd be sick eating foods my body wanted to reject.
As a young woman, I was raped - let me tell you about rape, you reach out to family members and they just may not believe you. This only dictates that no one will ever believe you. So you try manage it.
However, what I learnt is that being raped doesn't deter other men from committing sexual assault - groping you in bars and clubs, trying to force themselves onto you. So, at 19, I made a decision - to make myself unattractive. So I ate. And ate. And ate.
Strangely enough, it seems horses are for courses and that first rape was not to be my last. So I ate more. It became a coping mechanism.,
Now I've had plenty of consultants nod and clock watch whilst I've sat and unburdened this, but not one single moment have I felt that it's helped me. The depression I feel after these sessions makes me - eat.
I'm 49. Those early experiences still control me. And now, so does food.
I can't control it. I have good days, but it's nigh impossible to get past one day where I actually control what and how I eat.
Food addiction is real. It controls you. It owns you. It suffocates you until all you have left is self loathing.
I just want to feel healthy and normal. Im nudged constantly by society. Society thinks we need to just make smarter eating choices - they don't understand food addiction. I am absolutely positive I'm not alone?