Squirrels are hoarders. but since they do this so they can camp out inside a tree when the weather gets awful, no one judges them.
Similarly, autumn finds bears living a sort of life of Roman dissipation, eating almost non-stop. But since they're about to hibernate, and since they are bears and can eat you, no one says anything to them about it.
Binge eaters are not preparing for winter survival and their killer instinct falls woefully short of anything that would strike fear in you. The only thing they really have in common with squirrels and bears is, no, not the food-on-the-brain, but the hiding.
Binge eating disorder (BED) is not your Christmas-induced indulgence. It's not one serving too many because jovial friends keep rolling out a never-ending parade of you-really-must-try-one-of-these type of things.
Bingeing is ongoing. Maybe a few times a week; maybe a few times a day. You can binge when you are not remotely hungry. You can eat well past the point of fullness to the point of discomfort or even pain.
Because it was never about the food. Not really.
This is something some of us do, not to put too fine a point on it, to fill a space. If we feel empty or worthless, a well-timed nom-fest can fill us right up.
Anger, sadness, boredom, anxiety are also fuel for the disorder.
It's there in the name: it is an eating disorder.
Still, I always feel it gets treated differently in several very painful ways. The conversations surrounding anorexia and bulimia have been going on for quite a while. The people who suffer from them are very sick and deserving of our care and understanding. People can die from those things.
We have a long way to go before the general public sees a binge-eater as something other than an undisciplined snackoholic.
Bingers do not purge like bulimics. They do not frantically exercise or go into a period of starvation to kill the calories.
No. Having eaten, the binger does not try erase the actual food consumed.
And this is where I think the beginning of a special kind of public and private torture starts. This is where it starts to get multi-multi-layered for me. Because I think this is the thing the world does not find possible to forgive: why would you keep all that fattening stuff inside you?
Instead, hiding is what happens. Hide the evidence: chocolate wrappers, chip packages, empty ice cream containers. Put them in the trash and then take the trash out before anyone sees. Or shove everything under the bed - you'll clean it up eventually, but it's not visible if someone comes into your room.
Hide an emergency supply: keep a surfeit of your preferred foods tucked away in secret places around the house - sofas are good, also handbags, schoolbags, sock drawers. Definitely keep your safest space well stocked, whether that's your bedroom or the garage. I feel a gardening shed would be a good space, but don't think we have much of a shed culture.
Hide how you eat: quickly, shovelling, like you can't get enough into you. Like you can't sto
