Emotional eating

 Yeah, I do it. It's very easy. Feel something? Eat it. Get a hit of brain chemicals. 

Some of it is that. Some of it is a sort of food panic. What if it's not there later? What if I don't eat now, and don't have a chance, or don't have anything to eat later? They're irrational fears. I'm an adult and control my own food supply. But a lot of times, when I think of not eating something the moment it has crossed my mind, I get this rush of panic, like OMG IF YOU DON'T DO IT NOW YOU WILL DIE. Ok, maybe it's not that I'll DIE, but I'll feel really angsty and in a bit of a panic if I don't. I know where it comes from. When I was a kid, you'd literally not know when you were going to eat again. 

It wasn't just a food insecurity thing, but also my parents weren't really great about feeding us in a regular fashion. Dinner could be at 4, it could be at 9pm. So if you had extra food at lunch or after school, you damned well ate it, because you never knew when dinner would show up. Or we'd be out forever doing shopping, or visiting someone, and would miss meals because those things or those people were more important than we were. 

It just seemed like everything was more important than we were as kids, and feeding us in a timely fashion was low on the priority list. Heck, I remember getting yelled at for being hungry and saying so, because mom was in the middle of something. Shut up, I'll feed you in a little bit. Or we'll eat when we get home. Or go make it yourself. I cooked a loooot of meals for someone who's a rubbish cook and was, at times, probably too young to be using the stove.

And there were five of us kids, so if you ever got any treats (chocolate, ice cream... non-canned fruit) the impulse was to eat it right away, because it wouldn't last the whole pay period. If you didn't eat it, it would either go bad, or someone else would eat it and you'd be left out. I guess I have a FOMO with food, too. I'm gong to miss out on a flavor journey! 

So that's what I'm thinking about and trying to work through today. I'm not entirely sure how to work through it on my own. But I guess that's what the therapist is for. Three more weeks until I see them? Something like that. Time has no meaning.