by bfp:

the thought of being hungry scares me. it terrifies me, actually.

when i forget to eat a meal or don’t have the time or have a changing body that requires an adjustment period (i.e. pregnancy, depression, etc), and i am forced to spend time recognizing how hungry i am, i spend half of the time close to tears, the other half of the time angry at the world.

it’s made me realize, yes, i do eat to hide from myself. to self medicate.

but what is it in me that i am trying to hide from?

you know, there’s so much armchair therapy in the world that gets to decide why women overeat. we are in unhappy marriages, we are mad at our mothers, we are working unsatisfying jobs, we are stressed out…but i’ve never once seen any Oprah show, Dr. Phil show, etc–not one, that has ever addressed the fact that sometimes–you overeat because you’re scared not of yourself…but…of being hungry. your scared of being hungry…because you’re scared of being hungry.

what it is like to be hungry–not to miss a meal, but to miss several meals, and then only get a small meal to “satisfy” you:
your stomach hurts, you get lightheaded. you can’t concentrate, you get the sweats and then the shakes. smells and sounds become especially intense. you get headaches and things that didn’t bother you or don’t bother you when you have a full belly make you snap. as in, screaming yelling hitting snap. you are very aware of portioning out “energy”–you know you have enough energy to make it through work and pick up the kids. if the kids start to give you shit or you have to stop to put gas in the car, you know you won’t make it. so you think through–what are routes you can take to get home that will use the least amount of gas? you send the kids to bed early.

i have not been this type of hungry since i’ve had kids–so the above is speculation that i’ve played over and over in my head, obsessing about. i was single working at a restaurant when i was that kind of hungry. and i look back now, knowing what i know and i think: you know, thank god that the people who are most hungry in the U.S. work jobs that they don’t have to think to hard on. when i was so hungry i could hardly think, it was ok, because you can cook twenty hamburgers, three orders of eggs, six chicken sandwiches and endless french fries all while sitting on “coast.” you can shut everything out and just coast. let your body take over.

i remember one time though, when i sat in the parking lot of the place where i worked and cried. for about three minutes and then stopped because i didn’t have the energy to keep crying.

crying because my car wouldn’t start, and i knew i didn’t have the energy to stand around for hours waiting for somebody to start it–or find a way home.

i sat in that parking lot until somebody saw me, and asked if they could help.

i didn’t have the energy to walk back into the restaurant and ask a coworker for help.

i am so scared of being in that place again.
when i feel my stomach growling because i ate a light lunch and it’s an hour before dinner…i get scared of being in that place again.

i told somebody on twitter once–hunger is the PTSD that rape has never been for me. don’t get me wrong, i was traumatized from my experience(s) with sexual violence. but with sexual violence, there is the illusion of control. i lock my doors at night. i “picked a good guy” to partner with. i learned not to trust men until *I* decide it’s the time to. illusions of control, i know–but effective enough to keep the demons at bay.

hunger…follows you. it’s in you. i know what it’s like to be a hungry mother, even though i never have been. at least not in that way. when i go to sleep hungry–because i am following the “weight loss’ advice of not eating for at least two hours before you go to bed–because i am trying to respect my body and it’s needs and it’s not so much that i want to lose weight but because i know eating a full thing of ice cream before i go to sleep is not exactly the kindest thing to do to my body….when i’m trying to be *good* to my body…i feel like sobbing the whole time. like i am trying to hurt myself. like i *am* hurting myself. like i’m not safe, and i’m abandoned and nobody cares if i live or die. because that’s what hunger is–it’s a reminder, a reminder that exists inside your body every single moment of the day, that nobody gives a shit if you live or die.

how does a person reconcile that? how does a person lock the doors to hunger?

buddhism has offered a solution for me here. it encourages you to “sit in the places that scare you.” learn that space. learn yourself in that space. i was listening to a buddhist lecture today about ‘making friends’ with haints. meditating in the physical spaces that terrify you–buddhist monks/nuns have been known to go into burial areas where skeletons are still visible above the ground and meditating for hours, days there.

the point is not to make the fear go away–but to recognize the fear for what it is. an emotion. an emotion that may feel more viscerally real and overwhelm you in a way that other emotions don’t–but still, an emotion. (and i say this clearly and loudly: fear of being hungry is SO no the same thing as actually being hungry. i am talking from a PTSD point of view here, NOT as a person living in being hungry)

i decided a while ago–i am brave enough to do that. or, more accurately, i admire and want to be like people that are that brave. that is the courage that will one day make this fucked up world worth living in. people who are brave enough to sit in the fear of hunger, allow it to soften them and connect them to hungry people–they are the answer.

and so i sit with the fear. and i try to breathe through it. and i last for about ten minutes before i am hurting to much to go on.

but three days ago, it was only two minutes. and three weeks ago, it’s was on a few seconds. and three months ago, i refused to even talk about it.

baby steps. little teeny tiny baby steps.
but steps all the same.