Self-Diagnosis

[dljensengirl88]

So it struck me today - sorta out of the blue, but not out of the blue because I really have been thinking about it a lot. How did I get to this age and just now realize that I may be orally fixated? Wish that were as sexy as it sounded. Weight has been an issue for me since puberty, or maybe a little after that. Recently, in a group program test I'm doing at work, I was asked to think about my emotional eating habits. I've actually thought about this a lot over the years because it's easy to assume I must emotionally eat. But if you ask me to name the times I've done that, it's really hard. When I'm angry, I clean. When I'm sad, I drive and sing to myself (sometimes I do this when I'm angry too, so watch out) or watch TV or sleep or SHOP! (Bad girl.) I eat out of boredom, sure, and when I'm sitting still too long, including when I watch TV. But that's as far as I can knowingly go. I've never had an eating disorder or any other kind of medical issue that impacts my weight. OK, maybe the birth control pills did, though it's really hard to know that for sure. That's history anyway as of last June when I had my lovely pulmonary embolism and that was the only culprit they could name. And yes, genetics are involved too, so that makes things easier. But still, I'm doing something to excess, right? As in eating and I KNOW I'm not always hungry when I do that.

For some reason I didn't connect the dots that my unnecessary eating may be linked to my need to fidget and chew on pens, pen caps, straws, whatever won't hurt me in some way. Today I realized that maybe what I need to do is MORE chewing on the non-edible stuff when I want to eat for no good reason.

It's actually kinda liberating to put these two habits together and see what happens.