The Pacifier Effect

Here's what eating felt like when I wasn't bingeing:

Dangerous.

Precarious.

Like I was tiptoe-ing around a sleeping baby.

I used to think that food addicts (as I used to believe I was - I no longer believe in food addiction itself, just addictive behaviors) had it harder in some ways than any other kind of addict because we couldn't quit cold turkey.

Food abstinence isn't a thing. You can't use it to recover. My all-or-nothing brain would have preferred that concrete action plan.

Instead, I had to face food every single day of my life, and hope that one meal wouldn't trigger the domino effect that would bring my sanity down into a pile of rubble.

Eating meals, then, was like handing a baby a pacifier and then taking it away. I honestly felt it would have been better not to offer the pacifierat all, if it was just a tease.

Normal people could eat, enjoy, move on.

People like me? No. People like me (were there any other people like me??) saw food as a gateway drug to more food, and it was twice as hard to stop than it would have been to not start at all.å

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But "normal eaters" eat, so starting was something I had to do if I wanted to be a normal eater. (Plus, I couldn't help starting most of the time.)

So here's what happens when you're a binge eater who eats a "normal" meal -- you eventually eat enough to get physically full.

(Granted, it took me a while to get physically full, but I would notice the sensations of it coming on.)

The second I felt physically full-ish, I would panic. It meant it was time to take the pacifier away.

If my body was physically finished with food, it meant this was a normal-person cue to stop.

I did not want to stop.

I had a lot more eating to do.

But my stomach was full. That meant I was supposed to stop, and anything else I ate beyond that point was me being such a pig.

But stopping... stopping felt impossible.

I wanted more doughy bread slices, more peanut butter, more yogurt with chocolate chips, more cookies, more waffles.å

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The more full I got, the longer it would take my stomach to get hungry again, and the farther away I felt from "deserving" food.

I couldn't stand that. I didn't want to be far away from feeling like I deserved to eat. Hours were too long. And I knew it wouldn't be enough anyway, even with hunger.

So I ate, and ate, and covered up the fullness with more fullness. If I had to wait to deserve food, I might as well just eat it all right now because I'd never last.

This was the whole damn cycle.

I can see this playing out in my kitchen, the memories of this. I remember how it felt to walk between my kitchen and my couch, up and down, up and down, going back and forth for more.

If you'd seen me, you wouldn't have known my distress. Binges don't happen with tears or fanfare, they just exist quietly alongside of us living our lives, torturing us without a word.

If you are reading this, thinking: YES. That's me. That's what I do;

Then I wrote this email for you, because I am sitting in the exact same spot on my couch right now, with my lunch just finished, feeling full, and feeling done, and I'm moving on.

This is possible for you.

My 12-week course, From Binge Eating to Intuitive Eating, was created to help you learn all of the foundations of binge/emotional eating recovery so you can eat intuitively, without worrying about controlling your food or feeling addicted anymore. Or, you can apply to work with me HERE.

Stefanie Michele

Binge Eating Recovery and Body Image Health Coach. I help women stop feeling out of control with food and find body neutrality. Intuitive Eating Counselor and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner IT with anti diet culture content.

https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com
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