Emotional Eating And Why We Need To Stop Seeing It As A Bad Thing
Hi Musers, today we’re going to talk about emotional eating. As regular Musers will know, emotional eating has been one of my chief coping mechanisms since I was about 12 years old. It was usually chocolate when I was younger, and takeaways and cake now. For most of my life, I’ve seen it as a bad thing. It’s a nasty habit I need to stop. Recently, though, I had an epiphany. I’m going to share it with you now and explain why we need to stop seeing emotional eating as a bad thing.
The Current Situation
The Good
- In general my mood isn’t too bad
- I am sleeping much better since I came off my current antidepressants (Venlafaxine, in case you’re interested)
- I just got my hair dyed pink and purple and got my first tattoo. I’m becoming the person I want to be
- Work is crazy busy but going well
- I’ve made progress with paying off my credit card
The Bad
- I’m still dealing with the after-effects of extremely poor sleep for months due to the Venlafaxine
- Whether they were disrupting my sleep or not, the antidepressants were helping me remain stable, and I’ll be unmedicated again
- Mike (my husband) is not doing well. He has suffered anxiety for as long as I’ve known him, but now his anxiety, which is bad anyway, has been given a nice big side serving of depression. He needs a lot of support
- Depression tends to affect energy and motivation, so I’m doing a lot of the cleaning, shopping and general house stuff on my own.
- He’s only getting SSP (government paid sick pay), so our budget next month is going to take a severe hit.
- Due to the loss of money, I’m starting to ramp the overtime back up. When you pair this with a very busy day job, paid writing gigs for regular clients who I don’t want to let down, this blog, supporting Mike, and the housework, it doesn’t look like I have much time for little things like eating, washing, sleeping, breathing and so on.
The Solution
I think you’ll agree that’s a lot to have on my plate. More than some, nowhere near as much as others, but it isn’t a competition. In an ideal world, I’d be able to understand that this is temporary and cope with it using “healthier” coping mechanisms. For me, these could be:
- Talking it over with someone I’m close to. It would probably be Jayne (my sister) as she’s the person I’m closest to
- If I need professional help, then I could see my doctor
- I’d get 8 hours of sleep a night to recharge
- Take soothing baths
- Go for walks and move my body
- Maintain a balanced diet
I will be doing some of these throughout this period to help me get through it. There are a few problems, though.
- I have chronic fatigue. No amount of rest I could get would stop me from feeling tired all day long. It’s my default state.
- Sadly baths are forbidden for a few weeks after a tattoo, and believe, me I miss them!
- Finding the time and energy to exercise at the moment is a challenge. It’s not impossible, but I admit it’s not my top priority.
Just Coping
The key thing I’m trying to get across is that I’m just focussing on coping for now. I want to get out the other end with my sanity intact. I want to support my husband for as long as he needs me to. For that reason, my goal is just to make it through til things get easier. What’s more, there’s nothing wrong with that!
Because people love to plaster their triumphs all over social media whilst keeping silent about their failures, many of us are starting to feel inadequate. Sometimes it seems if you’re not a mother of 3, who works full time, volunteers at a homeless shelter, and has an always tidy house and bikini-ready figure, that you’re a failure. It’s bollocks! No one is perfect. No one.
Emotional Eating
I’m sure most doctors and experts would say that emotional eating is not a healthy way of dealing with emotional trauma. After all, you’re not fixing the underlying problem; you’re just putting a plaster on it. Also, if I emotionally eat, it will increase my weight, which will affect my health, yada, yada, yada.
The second point I’m not even going to discuss. The medical profession has medicalised fatness and called it “obesity” for no other reason than to make a lot of people very rich. The saddest and most infuriating part is most of them are so indoctrinated they have no idea that’s the reason.
The first point, however, is true. Emotional eating in no way fixing the problems I listed above. My response is simple, who cares? No, I’m not fixing anything, but I think that I’d rather deal with what I’ve got on my plate now and sort out the major shit later. Trying to do both at once seems absolutely bonkers to me!
I have too much on my plate, and it’s affecting my mental and physical health, so I’m going to fix it by adding more? Not a chance. Before you say, “there’ll never be a perfect time to work on your mental health”, that’s true. However, there are definitely better times than now! While it’s not a great justification, there are much worse coping mechanisms than emotional eating. Let’s take a look.
Really Bad Coping Mechanisms
- Smoking
- Drugs
- Alcohol
- Cutting myself
- Violence against loved ones
- Eating disorders
They all sound pretty grim, don’t they? However, the fact is that lots of people use one or more of these things to cope with difficult times. I would argue downing a bottle of wine a night will cause far more damage long term, even if that’s not how the world sees it.
A drink in the evening is seen as a natural way to unwind. Eating a takeaway or large bar of chocolate is seen as a disgusting slide into gluttony that must be stamped out at all costs. I’m tired of it. My father destroyed his liver only drinking wine, so if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to stick to my burger. Emotional eating is not bad, and we need to stop seeing it that way.
Emotional eating can lead to poor health outcomes, but it also can help people survive a difficult situation. This last year has been awful for everyone, so I say again, whatever gets you through the day.
Do you disagree with my take on emotional eating? Do you think it’s always bad? What are you methods of coping? Let me know in the comments.
