In the past, I’ve written about how my affinity for eating was linked to my declining mental health. You can read about that here. But this piece is more about how that link came into existence, and how it began to turn into my most dangerous coping mechanism.
Till the age of 6, anything except Maggi was pretty much off the table for me. Even at that tender age, I found the idea of food woefully unappealing. Shoving different colored mush down my gullet just seemed unnecessary, except Maggi of course, Maggi was and always has been, amazing. As I grew older, and my palate grew more complex, I discovered the wonders of Cheetos and chocolates. But even then, I had great control over my appetite.
The first time I really gained weight was on vacation when I was 9. It was innocent enough, I placed myself between my mother and brother at the dining table and had them both serve me, which ensured that I was eating for two. But once again, I maintained great control over my appetite and I lost the weight a few weeks after school started. The first time I really gained weight was when I was 14.
A broken ankle left me bedridden for almost 2 months, and when TV and reading just wouldn’t cut it, I figured that I might as well bide my time with food. I gained some weight, but I kept telling myself, “It’s okay, once I’ve healed, I’ll start playing in the evenings again and I’ll be back to normal.” Over time I healed and returned to my old routine. Everything was back to the way it was, except my waistline. It was only a matter of time before I sprained my previously-broken ankle and was incapacitated once more. This time, I skipped the TV and reading, and made a beeline for the food. I healed up, but then it was rinse and repeat. Over the next year or so, I kept recovering and hurting my already weak ankle. As my ankle weakened, my waistline expanded at a commensurate rate.
Over the course of that year, the reason I felt compelled to eat changed. It wasn’t that I ate because I could, I ate because it made me feel better about my life, fleetingly, but it did nonetheless. During that one year that I was out of commission, I wasn’t just injured, I felt left behind as my friends’ relationships developed and evolved in my absence. I wasn’t jealous, I felt inadequate. It was an inadequacy that I was unfamiliar with and the only familiarity that filled the vacuum of my perceived feelings was food. I found myself replacing the joys of friendship with the deep-fried goodness of chicken.
This tryst with overeating didn’t last very long though, and by the time I was 19, I was back to the way I was before; in control of my urges, without the need to cover the intermittent crack in my heart with a jar of Nutella. But then, a protracted struggle with my mental health ensued, something I still don’t entirely have under my control. My breaking point came sometime last year. In the midst of a particularly nasty depressive episode, I ordered in more food than I ever had and ate it all in one sitting. I ate till my tongue lost all sense of taste, and then I ate some more. I ate until I threw up.
With my throat on fire and my stomach cramping from the expulsion, I finally understood why my mind turned to food in the hopes of dulling any feelings of inadequacy. I wasn’t eating to feel better, I had begun to punish myself. Me allowing myself to balloon up wasn’t just a side effect of someone who just really likes to eat, it was symptomatic of a mental illness sitting firmly in the driver’s seat.
When I was 14, food was the rough equivalent of a loved one stroking my hair after a rough day. Almost a decade later, what was once a comfort had devolved into a means for my mental struggles to dominate my being.
In the past, we’ve spoken a lot about developing positive coping mechanisms, especially in the wake of dealing with a mental illness. The very notion of your mind fighting itself feels so unnatural, and that conflict can make you believe that the things that are worst for you, are exactly what you need. Developing the coping mechanisms you need doesn’t happen immediately, it takes time, effort, and in a lot of cases, causes a lot of heartache as well. It’s an unavoidable part of the process, but we want to help ease the process for you.