Interesting Realization

Last night, I was watching a show I recorded on my TiVo a couple months ago called "Help! I'm a Hoarder" about compulsive hoarding. There was one woman, Melanie, who had a frightening amount of stuff. It followed her through daily life for a short while, including going to a therapy session. Her therapist disclosed that Melanie had suffered horrible abuse as a child and, not surprisingly, this was her coping mechanism. In part of the therapy session, the therapist asked Melanie about her habit of walking the streets and picking up items that other people had discarded. Melanie said she felt an emotional pull toward these items. She felt that it was her personal responsibility to "save" the items and protect them from being thrown away. Considering her abuse, that makes perfect sense to me.

What I never considered before is the way I have a similar feeling toward food. For instance, when I was on vacation, I WAY overcooked for the week. The 2 days before we left, I was making myself sick trying to eat it all so it would not go in the garbage. I feel the same way at home. I would rather overeat to the point of pain than to discard the food. I think I feel some sort of responsibility or even gratitude (?) toward food for being a comfort to me for so many years of my life and it becomes painful for me to just cast it aside. It's obviously symbolic of myself feeling discarded, unappreciated, cast aside. I never put the two together until I watched the show last night. Very interesting.

Thanks to all for your kinds words & concern after my last post. I have an appointment with my Dr next week to go over the results. Dreading it.