HOW HEALTHY IS EATING YOUR FEELINGS?

A human brain is known to function in mysterious yet fascinating ways, and the most powerful of these functions are the emotions, the feelings. Yeah, it is true that there are a confined number of emotions that every human spirit is bound to deal with, but surprisingly everyone uses a different mechanism to process them, and after all isn’t that the tricky part?, accepting your emotions, feeling each emotion distinctly and processing them, it is a long and exhausting process.

While some people find it difficult to deal with their feelings and end up having anxiety all the time, there are some other people who choose not dealing with them at all by creating a defence mechanism, sort of a wall between those feelings and themselves.

I personally believe when we’re really anxious or sad, or even angry, we always look for someone whom we can rely on, I did that all the time, but instead of looking for the support in my friends and family, I turned to someone, or more precisely something, “food”.

I remember I was in 10th grade when I was still suffering from acute anxiety, and I was fed up with all the panic attacks, though my doctor suggested I see a therapist, and as any other rebel teenager, I didn’t go for it. Trust me I consider it one of my biggest mistakes till date. At some point that year, I started eating every time I stressed a little, popularly known as stress eating, and it seemed to distract me from stressing over stupid stuff, so now my brain started telling me to eat something every time I felt sad, angry, anxious, after a point, I would be painfully full, but I wouldn’t stop eating. Then suddenly one day, I happen to watch a documentary on YouTube about a man who was battling a disease as he called it, Binge Eating Disorder. I remember trying to process the whole video, while my brain asked me to eat as much as possible. I read more and more about the disorder, and since I still was a rebellion teenager a stupid one, I didn’t want to see a therapist. I learnt that this takes place in episodes, and I am still far away from the edge. I went cold turkey from that very moment, luckily, I haven't had a single episode of the disorder after that. I still have friends who are battling this very disorder every single day.

Eating your feelings would never really help you, all it will do is push your emotions deep down where your veins can never reach, until one day something hits you, and you start binge eating, yet again.I know how exhausting it is to live in a body like that, on one hand I know I am painfully full and I don't wanna eat, but on the other hand, my brain keeps telling me eat, eat and eat all I can.

So, I guess I’ll end my piece by answering the title, eating your feelings is very very unhealthy, not just for your physical self but also for your mental self. Trust me when I say this, getting rid of your emotions, or even pushing them down is never the solution, what actually helps is accepting them and acknowledging them distinctly. And, no, I am not saying that stress eating is always bad, sometimes, when you feel bad, or a little depressed, and you think a couple scoops of ice cream might help you revive your mood, don’t fight that urge, but, remember there’s a fine line between stress eating sometimes, and gulping your emotions down your throat.