Underneath the hunger

A client came to me because of a health issue.

At some point she said,

“I eat when I am not hungry.

Then I feel horrible about it.

Then I decide I’ll control myself.

And then I am standing in the kitchen again.”

She said it so simply. Almost like she was tired of herself.

There was shame in it.

And anger.

Not just at the food.

At herself.

At this body that she felt she couldn’t trust.

At the fact that she knew what she was doing and still couldn’t seem to stop doing it.

So we stayed there.

Not at the food first.

At the moment before the food.

What had happened?

What was she feeling?

What was she not saying?

Sometimes it was after someone had hurt her.

Sometimes after a long day of doing everything for everyone.

Sometimes when she felt alone.

Sometimes when she was angry but didn’t know what to do with the anger.

And sometimes there was nothing.

Nothing she could point to.

Just that strange restlessness.

That feeling of wanting something.

So she ate.

And for a few minutes, maybe something softened.

Then the guilt came.

Why did I do that again?

I wasn’t even hungry.

What is wrong with me?

And then the promise.

Tomorrow I will control myself.

Until tomorrow came.

And she was back there again.

I think this is where food can become much more complicated than food.

Because before we knew the difference between hunger and loneliness, someone fed us.

Before we knew how to say hold me, someone may have held us.

Before we knew how to say I am hurt, I am scared, I need you, our needs were often met through the bodies of other people.

Someone fed us when we cried.

Someone gave us something when we were upset.

Food, comfort, love, attention, care- for a child, these things can live very close to each other.

And we grow up.

But sometimes the body remembers relationships long after the mind has forgotten them.

So we may reach for food when what we really want is to feel held.

We may eat because something inside us is lonely.

We may keep eating because stopping would mean feeling what the food was helping us not feel.

And then we turn around and punish ourselves for needing comfort in the first place.

That part makes me wonder.

How often are we caught in this strange cycle-

I need something.

I don’t know what I need.

I find something that helps.

I hate myself for needing it.

I try to take it away.

I need it even more.

Maybe the question isn’t only,

“Why am I eating when I’m not hungry?”

Maybe we need to sit with the question that comes before it.

What was happening inside me just before I reached for the food?

What did I want?

What did I not want to feel?

What did I need that I didn’t know how to ask for?

And if, for once, I didn’t judge the eating... if I didn’t call myself weak, undisciplined, greedy, out of control- what would I discover about the person who needed to eat?

Because maybe the part of us that keeps reaching for food isn’t the part that needs more control.

Maybe it is the part that has been asking for something for a very long time.

And we have been so busy trying to shut it up that we haven’t stopped long enough to ask what it was trying to say.