Yep, I Used to Steal My Roommate’s Food

When I was in college, I used to steal my roommate’s food.

I’ve told the story so many times that it almost feels like it belongs to someone else, but when I really stop and let myself feel it…ugh. I want to hide my head in my hands and pretend it never happened. But it did. And I keep talking about it because I know I’m not the only one.

The Hijack

Her name was Mara. She kept a box of Ferrero Rochers her parents had sent her in a care package tucked neatly in her closet. She ate them like a “normal” person: one at a time, spread out, savoring them. I couldn’t understand that.

I was in a binge–restrict cycle that ruled my life. Every day was “diet starts tomorrow.” I would clear my cupboards of sweets, convinced that if I didn’t keep food around, I couldn’t eat it. And of course, I told myself, I would never stoop to stealing someone else’s food.

That logic worked beautifully in the safety of bedtime. Tomorrow, I promised myself, things would be different.

And then the urge would hit.

The go get food now urge that hijacks your brain until you barely feel human. The one that drowns out reason and values and judgment. The one that tells you: find food at any cost, nothing else matters, get the food.

So I did. I ate her chocolates in one sitting. Then scrambled to replace them before she got home from biology class.

Sometimes I cared enough to replace what I’d taken. Sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes the shame grew so big it almost wanted to be exposed: fine, let her find out, let her see the true me — the hopeless, greedy, shameful mess that I am.

Once, she did find out. She confronted me. We stopped speaking. We haven’t spoken since 1998. Another relationship ruined, collateral damage from my obsession with food.

It Looked Like Addiction, But It Wasn’t

It sounds like addiction when I tell it that way, right? Risking relationships, violating my own values, doing things I swore I’d never do just to get the substance. That’s why I was treated for “food addiction” at the time.

But the treatment never worked. Because I wasn’t addicted to food. I was addicted to restriction.

What I was really living in was:

• A system of shame and self-loathing
• A body wired into survival mode by trauma
• A dysregulated nervous system
• A constant undercurrent of unmet needs

Food was never the problem in itself. It was the way my system tried to cope with restriction, with scarcity, with the constant undercurrent of shame and unmet needs. Eating was the outlet, the strategy my body grabbed for when everything else felt impossible to hold.

Not a Character Problem

That’s the piece I want you to hear if you’re in this place. Eating someone else’s food. Stealing from the office fridge. Driving to three different grocery stores because you can’t face the cashier again.

It feels like a character problem. Like you’re broken, selfish, greedy, out of control. But these behaviors aren’t proof of moral failure. They’re symptoms of a body and mind stuck in scarcity, restriction, and survival.

I spent nearly 20 years going to lengths that didn’t line up with the person I believed myself to be. That’s not because I lacked judgment or values. It’s because I was trying to meet a primal drive in the only way my dysregulated system knew how.

Compassion Instead of Judgment

If you’re in that place right now, I have a lot of compassion for you – not judgment. I know how isolating it feels to do things you swore you’d never do, and how shame convinces you that no one else could possibly understand.

But you’re not alone. And you’re not broken.

Ironically Though!

Here’s the funny part. As I’m writing this, there’s a box of Ferrero Rochers collecting dust above my refrigerator. Someone gave them to me last Christmas. I forgot they were even there until this moment.

That’s the difference now. Food isn’t the battlefield it used to be. The chocolates are just…chocolates. Not proof of control, not a forbidden fruit, not a temptation waiting to be conquered. Just food.

And that’s what recovery makes possible.

The shame of food struggles thrives in silence. That’s why I write about these stories, and why I created spaces like The Cocoon Membership and my 1:1 coaching programs — places where this isn’t hidden or judged, but understood. If you want that kind of support, you can find it here.