Hunger

Last week's DBT homework was to eat mindfully. I only tried to do it once and I know I didn't do it very well. But it made me not want to eat ever again. The food tasted blah and didn't have good texture. I realized with that experiment that, if the fod really tastes this blah usually, then I must be eating for other reasons. This kinda disturbed me and I really didn't want to think alot about it for now, as it is one of my lesser problems.

Then, I started to get this cold on Saturday. I had the house to myself, which usually means I cook whatever I want and watch Showtime or HBO On Demand, since I don't spend much time upstairs while my parents are sleeping becuase I don't want to wake my parents up. (Also, while they are home and awake, I don't have much control over the kitchen and the digital cable, which are both only found upstairs.) But I felt so tired and my head was so stopped up that I just didn't want to do anything. I finally went to McDonald's around 10 pm before falling asleep on the futon around midnight. But before that McD's trip, I felt like I was starving. I slept very late Sunday and ate 'dinner' with my parents almost as soon as I got up. Within hours, I was hungry again. I was hungry all night. Even when I ate a TV dinner, I was still hungry. When I tried to go to sleep, my obsessive thoughts revolved around all the places I wanted to eat, especially since i have a little bit of cash from the tax refund. I was actually afraid to start eating anything at the time though because I was aftraid that I wouldn't be able to stop. That is how hungry I felt. On a more rational level, I also knew that my physical body couldn't be THIS hungry. It must also be something emotional/mental, right???

Yesterday, I brought it up to my mother. She said that she's had a similar experience lately, but she thinks it is just excess stomach acid becuase the feeling goes away when she eats a couple of Tums. I tried this, but it didn't work. And I tried eating a decent, but not excessive, amount of food, but I was still hungry.

The newest development is that, despite how hungry I was when I went to sleep, I was not hungry when I woke up. It wasn't until after I ate dinner with my parents (despite eating a normally and normally filling amount) that I started to feel hungry, after about an hour.

So, I don't know what is going on with my body and my hunger right now. I know it can't be physical but I don't really know how to fix the mental/emotional problems that are causing this excessive hunger. Also, it is the least of my problems right now. Or maybe it isn't, considering how much time and energy I've spent thinking about it the past few days. Right now, I just want to eat until I'm FULL, stuffed actually, and can stay full for hours and hours afterwards.