Why Do I Binge Eat?

Emotional eating. Why do I engage in it? Part of it is that the food tastes good and triggers pleasurable sensations. It's similar to rubbing the back of your neck when you're in an uncomfortable situation, or like scratching an itch. There's also some similarity to nicotine addiction as consuming high-sugar foods creates the discomfort that it then relieves, like nicotine.

At what times do I find myself binge eating junk? It's when I visit my parents. If I'm being honest with myself, I'll say that I visit to stave off negative feelings like loneliness and as a means of procrastinating to avoid writing.

When I'm there though I realise I do not want to stay for long. As feelings of boredom and the nagging sensation that I ought to be doing something more productive begin to bubble over, I resort to eating junk. This drowns out the negative emotions of boredom and inadequacy.

Now to be fair to myself, these moments are much more likely afyer a hard and productive day. This last binge eating session came after working, delivering a five hour lecture and practicing bass, piano and singing for two and half hours in total. Having done all that by six o'clock though, I still had four hours left in my day to invest in my novel and my songwriting. But like I said, I have to give myself credit for the things I did accomplish.

Clearly then, evenings are when I'm more vulnerable. They're when I've used up a lot of my energy and am exposed to feelings of inadequacy. Engaging my creative self is harder then, and I can misdiagnose thesw difficulties as a sign of my lack of talent rather than a natural result of needing a recharge.

The thought of not having the capability to do the things I feel make my life worth living terrifies me, for obvious reasons. And therefore I choose to distract myself from this sensation, and protect myself from the implications, by resorting to shorter term pleasure seeking.

Perhaps the challenge is to find a way to do away with these feelings. Though, given my aspirational tendencies, I'll always be trying things which make me feel a little inadequate. Overcoming these feelings is a great source of pleasure, whereas sticking to activities which do not challenge me engender boredom. So really it comes down to a case of picking one's poison on the one hand, but on the other the feeling of inadequacy never goes away and is nagging at the back of my head.

So rather than eliminating the feeling, it is better to engage it. Have the presence of mind to notice it and have a conversation with the part of me that's expressing this emotion.

Ultimately these emotions can hinder the creative process but they cannot physically stop me from writing and playing an instrument, no matter how badly. There's room for negotiation. There's space to acknowledge this voice but not give the reins to this voice.