Binge eating and/or Food guilt?

by **tommygirl** » Thu May 19, 2016 9:13 pm

I've always had a problem with being hungry. When I was really little I bugged my parents for food all the time, woke my mom up at 3am for "breakfast" (when I was still a baby, about 1.5, I somehow managed to get into the refrigerator, Mom says she found me stuffing wee baby handfuls of cherry tomatoes into my mouth and giggling hysterically), but once I got to be 5-ish and started realizing what was expected of me, I couldn't bring myself to utter the words "I'm hungry" even though I was more often than not. Didn't want to bother Mommy with having to stop what she was doing to feed me all the time, didn't want ppl to think I was a fat, greedy, little hungry piggy. I also knew that as a girl "fat" was about the worst thing you could be in society's eyes, because it meant you were an ugly pig who eats too much (in case you didn't know, there's this bizarre idea in Girlville that the more "good" you are the less you eat, and vise versa. Good girls don't make noise, they don't get dirty, and they certainly don't get hungry). And of course as a fat girl you were so ugly and gross and unfeminine no man would ever marry you. I'm pretty sure I knew I was fat from the day my BMI passed into the overweight range (and maybe even before), I was about 7 at the time.

Still whenever I got the chance away from my parents I'd stuff myself, parties and the vending machines at school (thank God I finished secondary school pre-Obamas) were like manna from heaven. We had these knock-off Oreo things, that came in round tubes about the size of one sleeve in a standard Oreo package, abut 8" long, I would eat a couple of those plus a little bag of Doritos plus 3-4 candies plus my lunch (in the good old days when pizza and french fries were plentiful and ketchup counted as a veggie ). When my parents were away I'd raid the kitchen and scarf up cheese by the block and peanut butter by the spoonful. Nothing makes you question the meaning of life and your own existence quite like sucking pancake syrup and salad dressing straight from their respective bottles all whilst keeping your ears cocked for the imminent arrival of the familial food police, or panicking when you come home from school and realize your mom cleaned your room while you were gone, because she might have found your sweets stash. I'm surprised I hardly ever got caught, idk if I was just that good at being sneaky or if my parents knew but didn't say anything or what.

Since I came to live with my godparents last summer it's gotten worse, they are health-food junkies, but weirdly I find they've started loosening up with me food-wise in the past few days, there was an incident where I felt sick from getting too hungry (bizarre I know but it happens to me) that they witnessed which may be part of it (I still can't bring myself to ask for food outside of mealtimes but I know I really should have on this day). Also I have Hashimoto's, been on Synthroid for a couple years now, they're still bumping up the dose occasionally, I think we might've overshot this time since I've really been ravenous since the last increase, no other hyper-T symptoms though, going to the doctor and getting bloodwork in a couple weeks so will see.

I know when I start college in the fall I'm gonna go nuts at first with my new-found food freedom, I'm really looking forward to it but also the idea of completely losing control scares me just a little. Just a few days ago I was watching a YouTube documentary about "half-ton man" Patrick Deuel and I was just floored when one of the obesity doctors said most ppl can go 6-8 hours between meals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb8lP7_FCys from about 16:46-18:25), cause I am usually either still hungry after eating or hungry again within an hour or two after a "normal size meal". Could be I have this fat gene he talks about, most of my family is obese, many morbidly, I'm just under the cut-off for obesity at BMI 29.3, but my eating is fairly restricted right now. Even when I was very young restricting what/how much I ate felt like holding my breath and being able to eat without restrictions felt like finally coming up for air. That is how I've felt my whole life, like I'm holding my breath 24/7 for other's approval, but when I'm alone I can finally breathe (binge) which comes with great relief and pleasure, but also some guilt and shame and fear of being discovered, of everyone knowing I'm not the good little girl who is never hungry after all, that I am just a big, fat, greedy pig. Is this just me, anybody else feel this way? I don't hear a lot of ppl talk about feeling relieved when they binge. Wow, I feel like I've just had a therapy session or something, hope my insurance covers this, lol.

Binge eating and/or Food guilt?

Binge eating and/or Food guilt?

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