Every night it's the same thing. I get ready for bed, and invade the kitchen. I have had 3 healthy regular meals and 2 snacks over the course of the day. But at night, my stomach turns into a bottomless pit. I'm not even hungry. I just eat.
The term for this is emotional eating. Because of my trauma, I get anxiety at night. Sometimes, I get downright scared. My brain, for some reason, turns on the eating switch to carbs and sugar. I am a brittle diabetic, so this is not a good thing. I try to eat plenty of protein, and complex carbs so I don't crave the empty food. But, I always do.
One of my snacks during the day is to have something small and sweet. This does the job for me until about 8 PM. Around 8:30, I have some peanut butter crackers. This satisfies the job of having a bedtime snack, and gives my body some fuel so I don't crash in the middle of the night. But at the same time my brain starts in reminding me that there is cereal, popcorn, M & M's and all kinds of off limit food in the kitchen, and wouldn't I like to eat it. Sometimes, I crave salt. That's easy, I just have a dill pickle, instead of the bag of potato chips.
The problem is, if I crave 1 thing, I tend to eat 5 things to avoid eating the thing I crave. Usually, I end up eating it anyway. Like right now, I'd like to have some popcorn. But I already ate 2 packs of crackers and some Twizzlers.
I don't know why this happens. I think I eat to satisfy some emotional hole. Right now, I am anxious because the bulb on my night light burned out, and I can't remember where I put the replacements. I'm afraid to sleep without my night light. Otherwise, the Shadow People might come. I'll look around some more. They've got to be in here somewhere.
I started eating as a kid, when I was being bullied. I'd go home after school and have 4 pieces of cinnamon toast. Food doesn't make fun of you, or chase you home from school. It's there, waiting for you, providing comfort when no one else is around. It still does that for me. I like the experience of eating anyway. I like taking a bite and have the flavor explode in my mouth. There's nothing like it really, except maybe sex. But, I haven't had sex in 10 years. That must be my problem. I am sex starved. My meds have my libido so low, I'm not really interested anymore. I am more interested in a roast beef sandwich, the ingredients for which we happen to have on hand. So, I'm off to the refrigerator again. Maybe one day, I won't find the little light so appealing. I hope I find my light bulbs. Until then, Peace, Joy, Love - B
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