Addiction to food...

So it turns out that I am addicted to food.


OK, so that might not surprise the people around me, but it came as a little bit of a surprise to me.  One of my favorite weight loss surgery authors, Paula Peck, RN in her book Exodus from Obesity, starts a chapter with a quote from Anatomy of Food Addiction like this:

"....For some of us however, food is like a lifeline, as essential tool in our survival kit.  It takes us away from stress, it numbs our fears an worries and it stops the world and lets us get off.  It is a womb, a haven, a cave, an escape and a refuge.

Eating is an automatic response to feelings- so quickly applied without thought - that breaking this pattern takes tremendous sustained effort.  If food has become a cornerstone and the cornerstone has been removed, an equally strong foundation must replace it.

With time, with an investment in your weight loss and with new habits of lifestyle,  your mood lifts and life seems sweeter.  The pain that eating has masked now is exposed and we no longer can use food to help us cope.  The real work now, is in dealing with our pain without using food as an emotional bandage." 

                                             Anatomy of a Food Addiction 

I'm finding this topic in the weight loss surgery books that I have come to depend on so much,  to be the most difficult to address.  I have learned that, "...The pain that eating has masked now is exposed and I no longer can use food to help me cope.  The real work now, is in dealing with my pain without using food as an emotional bandage".  For me, I am discovering that food has been my "essential tool...  taking me away from my stress and numbing my fears and worries...".  Right now I am working toward going back to work.  Unfortunately, my original position was given away, and now nearly 11 months later, my department  is suffering from the impact of the current economic down-turn and is unable to take me back or even keep the same number of positions that they had a year ago.  I'm looking for work, and have found several exciting positions to apply for, but the stress of lookingy is effecting me.  Even with a couple of potential employers scheduled to interview me,  I still feel worried.  I can tell when I begin to focus on all of the what-ifs that I see as related to looking for work - what if I don't find anything?  What if I can't pay my bills?  What if my fibromyalgia keeps flairing up and I can't go back to work?  I could go on and on.  


I have never been really emotionally solid as things relate to money.  I worry.  I always have as it relates to money.  I seem to always want a little bit more of a cushion - a small stash of money that I know will be there in an emergency -- but now especially, while I've been "disabled temporarily" that cushion is not there.  


At the same time, I know that things will be OK.  They always have been, and often that's been true regardless of how much I worried, ruminated, stressed or freaked out.  


::Sigh::  
More on this topic later...