3. Difficulty with hunger cues
Our body tells us when we are hungry and when we need to stop eating. That also gets messed up in narcissistic abuse survivors. The same principle applies here. We suppress our hunger, and we keep doing that, which is why a lot of people forget to eat. They don’t even remember feeling hungry. It’s only when they feel starving, they feel like, “No, it’s getting too much.” That’s when their body pushes it and forces it, and then it doesn’t show up as hunger; it shows up as pain.
They just grab whatever they can and stuff their faces with it only to satiate that feeling and not eat peacefully. The other side of the same coin is overeating—eating a lot. You are dissociated from your body. Your stomach is full; there is no space, but you are eating and eating. You’re thinking you’re somewhere else. Your brain is reifying all the things that have happened in the past, and you are trying to think about them.
You are experiencing an intense emotional flashback while you are stuffing yourself. That leads to a lot of weight gain. You don’t do it intentionally; it just happens. Then there are problems like bloating, hyperacidity, vomiting, and whatnot. You may not be having a flashback and may still eat uncontrollably because that sensation, that emptiness within, is what comes up during eating. When you eat, it’s like a secondary gain, and you feel like you’re filling that empty thing with food, but it never gets filled. And that is what also leads to a lot of eating disorders.
Continue reading on the next page
Sharing Is Caring!
