Angry eating and my internal critcal mom

fluffyasacat

I've been overweight since I was a teenager. My mother had a lot to do with it. She was very openly critical and projected her struggles with her weight on to me. If she told me not to eat something (which she did a lot) I would go through a rapid cycle of feeling angry, trapped, shamed, defiant, and disengaged. Ultimately I would find a way to do/eat what I wanted. My feelings about myself in relationship to food were always contaminated by these feelings of anger, shame, and defiance. After a while those feelings didn't need my mother to play her part - both parts were completely internalised.

I want to eat that.
You shouldn't.
But it's delicious.
Well it's bad for you.
You should eat things you enjoy.
How do you think you go so fat.
Hey screw you.
Hey I don't care what you eat. Go ahead. You're going to literally be the one wearing it.
OK I WILL.
Fine.
FINE.
*nom nom nom*

It's been a long road coming to terms with my unhealthy relationship with food. Many people discuss comfort eating or eating as a reward and I have used these types of eating too, but the really damaging core psychology which I needed to address was the angry eating. I was angry because I felt unjustly criticised, and then I was angry because in gaining weight I built a body which justified the criticism. The cycle made me bigger and more sullen and angry with myself.

I cook a lot at home for my family and without wanting to sound conceited, I'm a very good cook. I'll sous vide a pork neck for 12 hours and handle live crabs. I'm one of those people who's regularly encouraged to try out for Masterchef. My calories didn't come from late nights with Ben and Jerry, they came from succulent slow roasted lamb backstraps with creamy celeriac potato mash and Belgian trappist wheat beer. Another source of anger (which is clearly irrational, I know this) was that if I worked so hard to make something so delicious and recognised as excellent then this carried a sense of pride and superiority which almost crowded out the self-critique.

Hey, I know. I didn't say it made sense.

I never really came to terms with my size. I was only ever about 210lbs at my heaviest, but I was so disengaged from my body that I would always pull a size 14 from the rack then be embarrassed when it didn't fit. If I caught sight of myself in a reflection I'd be shocked by the short fat lady looking back at me. It's a reverse body dysmorphia - I believe I'm fine until surprised by evidence to the contrary.

At this point I've been able to turn things around, and I feel like it's for good. I think doing a lot of work in trying to get to the root of my issues and deal with them is at the heart of my strategy to lose weight. The other part of my strategy is keeping the focus off what I "can" and "can't" have as these are trigger words for my angry/defiant cycle. You can call it pop psychology or being overly analytical, but I know many overweight people reading this will recognise something of themselves in this.

zoeysasha37

Great read. It was well written and relatable. Thanks for sharing this! (it home with me because that was my exact size/weight and I would do the same thing. )