I myself went through a colourful array of addictions. Not just as a psychologist, that came later. The formal education, the research, the access to different therapeutic tools, the Eastern wholistic support - later.
Before that I was the one struggling. Like so many, I couldn’t cope with objective and made up pressures seeking support and self-esteem boost in all the wrong places.
For over 10 years I had a turbulent relationship with food. I binged, I starved, I pretended to be healthy, I went into recovery and then spun back into self-soothing or self-obliterating and sometimes what looked like a recovery was in fact leaning into other addictions...
From both theoretic and personal experience, food addiction is THE hardest. You can cut out alcohol, drugs, you can avoid casinos, you can spend time only in the company of the gender you are not interested in. You cannot do that with food.
As with most things, the true recovery starts with a mindset shift. Here are a few things that helped me on my journey:
1. Awareness What emotional states am I soothing, building, protecting, fearing? What triggers my overeating/starving/obsessive monitoring? The better I became at observing myself and knowing myself, the more options opened to me without regulating food intake.
2. Planned substitute Apart from food what else can provide me with the desired emotion? I prepared a few comfortable safety cushions for when I’m losing it. And it happens, right? No matter how well you get, the old ways are always trying to lure you back in. And of course that happens when you are most vulnerable. So the alternatives had to be easy and pleasurable to implement.
3. Loving relationship I learned to view food as my friend, something that nourishes my bones, blood, brain, etc. smth that enables me to run, dance, breathe, LIVE. And of course, I built a loving relationship with myself. This is the absolute foundation, the base camp.
In the next posts I’ll break down each point in more detail offering some helpful practical strategies and common difficulties that myself and my clients faced.
