How Emotional Eating Became Survival—and How to Begin Changing It
<<I want to know if I'll ever be able to stop myself from emotionally eating. That I won't put tons more food into my body than I want or need.>>
Yes. You can get to a place where emotional eating doesn’t control you. Where food is just food—something you enjoy and nourish yourself with, not something that feels compulsive, overwhelming, or like a betrayal of your own body.
But right now, food is filling a role beyond just nutrition. It’s doing something for you—soothing, numbing, grounding, distracting, something. And until that something is understood and addressed in another way, it makes sense that stopping feels impossible.
The goal isn’t just about “stopping” emotional eating—it’s about getting to a place where you don’t need it the same way anymore. That’s a slower process, but it’s absolutely possible.
If I had to guess, I’d say a big part of why this feels so hard is that you don’t feel in control of it right now. Like you want to eat in a way that feels aligned with your needs, but something else takes over. Does that feel true?
<<Yes. And I started at an eating disorder clinic 15 years ago and I am befuddled that that has never led me to understand it, just cope with it with dbt and CBT. So I am exasperated and feeling hopeless about being able to get this under control so I don't feel like I am slowly involuntarily killing myself and blowing up my body with all these excess calories >>
That’s a really heavy weight to carry—15 years of trying to cope without ever really understanding what’s driving it. It makes total sense that you feel exasperated and hopeless. You’ve been working at this for a long time, but the root of it still feels out of reach.
And it sounds like there’s a deep fear here too—like this isn’t just about eating, it’s about feeling like you’re slowly harming yourself, like your body is not under your control, and that the consequences are building up in a way that feels terrifying. That’s a brutal way to live.
I hear the desperation in wanting this to change, and I also hear the exhaustion of trying for so long without finding real answers. If we set aside the frameworks that haven’t worked for you (DBT, CBT, coping strategies that don’t actually shift the behavior), what do you wish you understood about your eating? What feels like the missing piece?
<<Why do I check out while I am eating? Why does eating feel like something that I either have under control or totally out of control? Why do I feel like I don't have the kind of self discipline to get this under control? This feels like who I am at this point because I certainly can't stop it>>
These are huge questions, and they go way deeper than just food. What you’re describing—checking out, the all-or-nothing control dynamic, and the feeling that this is just who you are—all point to something much bigger than willpower or discipline.
1. Why do you check out while eating?
Because eating is likely serving as a disconnect—a way to numb, escape, or avoid something. You’ve been working on embodiment, and it makes sense that eating might be one of the places where your body and mind still feel disconnected. If food has been a long-time coping mechanism, your brain might have learned that not being present is part of how you get through eating.
2. Why does eating feel either totally in control or totally out of control?
That sounds like a black-and-white, almost perfectionistic pattern—either you’re "good" and in control or you’re "bad" and out of control. This could come from a past where control (in various forms) was tied to safety, self-worth, or even identity. If control = success and losing control = failure, then it makes sense why eating feels like an all-or-nothing battle instead of just…eating.
3. Why do you feel like you don’t have the discipline to change this?
Because this isn’t about discipline. If it were, you’d have “fixed” it by now. Discipline is about forcing behavior, but what you’re dealing with is deeper—it's about emotional needs, unconscious patterns, and coping mechanisms that have kept you alive in some way. This isn’t a failure of self-control. It’s something that was wired into you for a reason.
4. Why does this feel like your identity?
Because it’s been with you for so long that it feels like you. When a behavior is ingrained over decades, it stops feeling like a thing you do and starts feeling like a thing you are. But here’s the thing—you are not your eating patterns. Your brain has learned a way to cope, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way you can exist.
Right now, it sounds like part of you is still convinced that if you just had enough discipline, this would go away. But what if the answer isn’t about discipline at all? What if it’s about figuring out what emotional need this eating pattern is meeting—and finding a way to meet that need differently?
<<This checks out compared to the other work we've been doing and that I've seen work>>
That’s really good to know. If this framework makes sense in the context of your other self-work, then we can actually do something with it instead of just spinning in frustration.
Since we know discipline isn't the answer, and this is about deeper patterns, the next step is probably understanding what eating is actually doing for you—beyond just food. What role is it playing? What is it giving you that you wouldn’t have if you stopped?
I know this can be a hard thing to access because you check out while eating, but if you had to guess—what does eating feel like in the moments when you’re doing it? Comfort? Relief? Escape? A break from your thoughts? Something else?
<<How would I know? What do those words feel like?>>
That’s a really good question. Since emotions feel vague or hard to access for you, let’s break it down in a more concrete way. Instead of trying to name the feeling, we can go through what eating actually does for you in the moment.
Try imagining a time when you’re eating emotionally. Even if you don’t remember all the details, let’s focus on these:
Right before you eat – What’s happening? Are you feeling restless? Numb? Overwhelmed? Is there a sense of urgency, like you need to eat, or is it more casual?
During eating – Does your mind quiet down? Does time pass without you noticing? Does it feel soothing, like a break from something? Or more like zoning out, like you’re barely aware of it happening?
Right after eating – Do you feel relief? Regret? A mix of both? Does anything feel different in your body or mind?
Even if you can’t fully name the emotions, these observations can help uncover what eating does for you, which is the key to shifting it. If anything stands out from this, we can go deeper.
<<I feel urgency. It's often after a build up of perceived stress. Doesnt make time pass any faster. It does feel like a break, like taking gasps of breath after being waterboarded. I am hyper aware that I'm doing it when I am doing it. After eating I feel regret but also terror, grief, and desperation that there is no more food.>>
This is big. The urgency, the gasping for breath feeling—that tells me eating is acting as a survival mechanism, not just a habit. It’s not just about soothing stress; it’s about relief from something unbearable. That’s why it feels so desperate.
And then afterward—terror, grief, desperation that there’s no more food. That’s huge. It’s not just “I ate too much and feel bad.” It’s a deeper, almost existential panic—like food was providing something critical, and now it’s gone.
The fact that you’re hyper-aware while eating is interesting too. It means this isn’t unconscious, not really. It’s not autopilot—it’s something you know is happening but still feel powerless to stop. That tells me this is about needing to feel like you’re taking something in, securing something, stabilizing yourself in a way that food has become the shortcut for.
Does this tracking feel right so far? If so, we can start exploring what food is actually standing in for.
<<Yes, it does. I am honed in >>
Good. You’re locked in, which means we can get somewhere real with this.
If eating is functioning like gasping for air after being waterboarded, that means there’s something before eating that feels like drowning. Food is acting as the thing that temporarily pulls you out of that state.
So let’s go straight to it: What is drowning you?
Is it anxiety?
A sense of being untethered, like you don’t know what to do with yourself?
A flood of thoughts that feel overwhelming?
Something else that builds up until you feel like you have to grab at food for relief?
If we can name what’s suffocating you before you eat, we can start figuring out what food is actually doing for you—and what might be able to serve that role in a different way.
<<All of those things. I am terrified of being>>
That’s massive. If you’re terrified of being, then of course eating feels necessary—because it’s one of the only things that interrupts that terror, even if only for a moment. Food becomes a way to anchor yourself, to create a buffer between you and the unbearable weight of just existing.
So this isn’t just about emotional eating—it’s about survival, about trying to manage something that feels too big to sit with. That’s why stopping feels impossible: because without food, you’re left alone with being, and that’s the thing that terrifies you most.
Here’s the real question: What do you think would happen if you didn’t eat in those moments? If you just sat there, fully exposed to whatever is underneath? What do you imagine that experience would be like?
<<It's hard to imagine myself sitting with it, honestly. The compulsion to comfort eat is strong and I never seem to be able to negotiate with it>>
That makes complete sense. The compulsion is strong because food isn’t just food in those moments—it’s the only thing that feels like it can stop the free fall. Trying to “negotiate” with it probably feels like trying to talk yourself out of pulling a parachute while plummeting toward the ground.
Since imagining not eating in those moments feels impossible, maybe that’s not the first step. Maybe the first step is just noticing the compulsion when it comes up—not to stop it, just to recognize: “Oh, this is that drowning feeling again.”
Would it feel doable to experiment with that? Just catching the moment when the urge starts—not judging it, not resisting it, just clocking it as it happens? It’s a small but powerful shift, and it could be the first crack in the autopilot.
<<Yeah I guess>>
That’s enough for now. No pressure to change anything—just notice when the compulsion starts. Noticing is already a crack in the pattern.
You don’t have to do anything with it yet. Just observe: “Oh, I feel the urgency. This is the drowning feeling.” That’s it. No fixing, no stopping, no self-judgment. Just awareness.
We’ll go from there. And if you ever need to process what you notice, I’m here.
<<I also feel these desperation to get this figured out because I am panicking in my body as it's uncontrollably eating shit food and getting fatter and sedentary. I don't want to be like the old people I saw as a child>>
I hear the urgency in this. It’s not just about the eating itself—it’s about the fear that this is spiraling, that you’re losing control over your body, and that if you don’t get a grip on this, you’ll become something you deeply don’t want to be. That’s terrifying.
It makes sense that you’d feel panicked. You’re watching your body change in ways that feel wrong, and it’s happening through behaviors that you feel powerless to stop. Of course, that would make you desperate to fix it now.
But that panic? That urgency? That’s part of the same cycle. The desperation to fix it can actually fuel the compulsion, because it reinforces the feeling that you’re drowning—so you reach for food to escape it. You can’t break the cycle by panicking your way out of it.
Instead of focusing on fixing it right this second, what if the first goal was just interrupting the panic loop? Even slightly. Not stopping the eating—just breaking the fear spiral that makes the whole thing feel uncontrollable.
Would it feel doable to explore small ways to make your body feel even slightly safer, just for a moment, before the compulsion kicks in? Not as a replacement for eating yet—just as an experiment in seeing if you can interrupt the panic, even for a second.
<<Sure what did you have in mind>>
Let’s start small—just tiny things to see if you can create one second of interruption before the compulsion takes over.
Experiment: A 5-Second Disruption
Next time you feel the urgency to eat, try inserting a 5-second pause before you act on it. Not to stop yourself from eating—just to disrupt the autopilot slightly.
Options for Those 5 Seconds:
Exhale forcefully – A deep, slow exhale can trick your nervous system into dialing down panic.
Grip something firmly – A chair, your leg, your opposite arm. This gives your body a tangible sensation to anchor into.
Say (or think) one sentence – Something neutral like “This is the drowning feeling.” Not to stop it—just to acknowledge it.
Stand up and stretch for 5 seconds – No pressure to do more. Just one stretch to break the “sit and eat” reflex.
Splash cold water on your face – This can give your body a jolt out of compulsion mode.
The goal isn’t to prevent eating—it’s just to prove to yourself that the compulsion isn’t instant and absolute. Even if you still eat, noticing that tiny gap is powerful.
