YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I totally eat to take my mind off the negative voice running rampant in my head. It gives me that few minutes of pleasure then the negative voice comes back again. I know this is my issue so why can't I stop it.

Hum, maybe I'll post again tomorrow. The night is always the problem.

Binge eating, compulsive eating, eating correlated to emotional relief....that's disordered eating.

Our culture correlates eating with pleasure. We do it around holidays, we do it with family, we associate love and friendship with food. We have feelings of nurturance, of love, with food as well, because of our childhoods - being fed and secure by mother and father.

Food can also trigger a flood of hormones - I can't remember the name of the hormone - that get released from eating food.

So yes, it's no surprise that so many people binge eat when their emotions run high.

The key is, however, recognizing what's going on (you have) and trying to address it. You can find other ways to cope with your emotions, and that involves therapy and behavioral modification. Finding something that can be an acceptable substitute. You can do it alone, but trust me when I say this, it's hard as fuck and can escalate by you using other destructive coping mechanisms if that's what you're prone to do. Having a therapist can be the way to guide you to something positive and recognize it when you're using something else destructive when you do not.

hopefully this feeling passed for you!
...i'm painfully aware of my bad eating patterns right now.
luckily, or unluckily, idfk, when i get stressed or sad or overwhelmed or [insert any other emotion], i have the opposite reaction than most people, I don't eat. Particularly when stressed, i restrict to feel some control. i don't really Starve myself anymore, like i did when i was a teenager and i would just starve as much as possible, as long as possible. Nope, I'm sophisticated enough now to completely recognize what I'm doing is a reaction to stress, and therefore I don't starve, but I do diet as extremely as my life will allow. The food part isn't as bothersome as the *feeling fat*. I don't know if I've always had this kind of body dysmorphia, but lately the way I see myself in the mirror is bonkers.
"there's no way I actually look like THAT cuz i've been wearing the same size 6 clothes for months," says the logical part of my brain, which might just not be connected to my eyeballs, because they send my brain an image of a disgusting morbidly obese person, with lots of very detailed fat rolls and dimples and cellulite.

Ok maybe a little simplistic but I too share a weird binge eating regime at times....but one night I was at a gym and I notice these stupid motivational posters and one struck a cord with me with these simple words of wisdom...
"What you eat in private ,you wear in public"
ok...thats my contribution for today.....

Yup, me too. Also when I'm really stressed/anxious I can't eat I'm so nauseous, so that's fun since I need sustenance somehow. Crappy food sure does taste awesome after a day of a stomach in knots, but only LOTS of crappy food.
I do know better and I know what I need to do to stop some of it, but I don't. Then I get pissed at myself. Which leads to... yup. A lovely little circle.

Yeah I have a similar problem. Except I need to do it in private and to the point of making myself sick. I do not throw up ever because I HATE vomiting and have prolonged food poisoning because I refused to allow myself to vomit. I have just started therapy and hope to get some answers someday.