Past Experiences to Help Stop Binge Eating Disorder?
When trying to figure out why you binge eat, I think it’s so important to try to remember the first time food was used to make you feel better. Perhaps your parents celebrated good grades on your report card by taking you out to eat.
Or maybe they got you to stop crying by giving you milk and cookies.
Or maybe you were given candy in a sad situation to try to make it better.
Or maybe food was different in your household in the sense that if you acted badly or were disrespectful, you were told that you couldn’t have dessert after dinner.
While I cannot remember back to the first time I was introduced to food to make my life better and easier to cope with, I do know that it happened many times. Of course my parents didn’t set out to screw up my mind and create a relationship between food and emotions - Most parents would never do something that would intentionally create an unhealthy view of food. That being said though…
It definitely happens to most of us at some point in time and may not even stem from something introduced by our parents at all. Instead, it might be a self-learned behavior that we try one time and keep it up.
When many people break up with someone, they might turn to a gallon of ice cream for comfort.
Of course all of these situations do not mean that the specific person will have binge eating disorder… but they aren’t discounted from it entirely.
There had to be a circumstance when you first turned to food to make you feel better and it helped to take the edge off. Your brain is then conditioned in a way to find comfort in food the next time you are sad. It’s all about the way we program our minds.
The thing that is most different about me now (since I do not ever binge eat) and me previously (when I binged all of the time) is my mindset. I have had to re-program my thoughts that wanted to lead me to food because of prior situations. I had to change this thought-pattern in order to overcome binge eating disorder…
And I’ve been very successful in doing so =)
This really struck home with me - when I was growing up, there was often conflict at the dinner table as my father was constantly criticizing what my mother had made for dinner. Comments like “where the hell did you buy this meat”, “why the hell did you make this” were all to common.
Then there was the whole issue of being forced to eat vegetables. As a result, I didn’t eat any fruit or veggie other than corn, potatoes and tomato sauce for decades. It has only been in the past 5 or so years that I’ve learned how enjoyable fruits and vegetables can be.
And I wonder why I have issues with food…….