emotion sickness

For as long as I can remember I have had an unhealthy relationship with food. When I was about 10 I spent a week of summer vacation with my cousin in a neighboring town. This was my first experience being away from the seclusion and security of home and I felt the homesickness very acutely and painfully. The memory that is sharpest from that week away is not swimming in the city pool; and not playing with my cousin who had many more toys than I ever imagined possible (this coming from a girl who had one doll and that was a rummage sale find!); and not threatening to beat up a boy who called my cousin ‘fatty’. No, the memory that is most succinct in my psyche is the memory of having store bought white bread for the first time in my life—and craving that white bread, and stealing more slices when my aunt wasn’t looking. It was clearly an addiction at first taste and I kept creeping into the kitchen and stealing slices and wolfing them down. I can still feel the shame and guilt as well as the intense craving and compulsion to eat that white bread—no butter or jam or peanut butter on it—just bread slice after pasty white slice. And never feeling satisfied or full.

Now looking back I know why I was never satisfied. I was trying to fill an emotional need with a physical substance and that cannot be done. I was trying to assuage my homesickness, loneliness, and anxiety with bread. This has been a long time pattern in my life. Whenever I feel loneliness or anxiety, or shame, I reflexively turn to food. Thankfully I am learning to recognize this and distract myself—dealing with the unpleasant emotions in a more healthful and effective manner. Exercise is now my cure- all for every psychosocial ill as well as most physiological ones too. There are very few ills (psychological and physiological) that exercise won’t heal. I have often thought that an appropriate line for psychologists to use on their clients is ‘take a walk and call me in the morning!’. So on than note, I am off to take a walk!

-R