Hello everyone , I hope everyone is well! :) Today's blog post is on the topic of being "Too Embarrassed To Eat." Many people with an eating disorder or are close to somebody with an eating disorder will understand what I mean by saying "I am too embarrassed to eat in front of people."
If you have followed my blog for awhile now , you will be aware I have suffered with Anorexia Nervosa for a long time and I have touched on the subject in previous blog posts. Although I have wrote about my story about having an eating disorder , I have never really gone into too much detail about the embarrassment you feel when eating. Which I am going to talk about today....
When you are put in a situation of having to eat in front of others , such as a family do or party , a cafe/ restaurant or even in front of others at home , you feel ashamed of eating. You feel judged for not eating but you feel MORE judged for eating. I tend to hover and crouch over my food to hide what I am eating when I am out in public , I only take bites out of my food when people aren't making eye contact with me or I don't feel as though people are watching me. After eating I feel embarrassed and ashamed of myself for eating and mood is at its lowest for the rest of the day. Often I start to cry over the embarrassment I am feeling and become distressed in public , which often means my outing is cut short because I can't handle the shame. When eating at home I will cut myself of from everyone else and go to my room and eat where there is privacy , but just because you have privacy doesn't stop you from feeling the guilt of eating. If I have to eat in front of people at home , I will sit on the couch and hide my food down the side of the couch where nobody can see it and I will lean over to eat my food. The shame and guilt just doesn't go away , often I feel like I have to hurt myself as punishment for eating. My head tells me you have done a bad thing for eating , you deserved to be punished. You feel people are judging you for eating and when somebody says "oh you have eaten it all" or " You have eaten more than normal" it doesn't feel like praise , it feels like an insult! You start to feel more and more repentant about eating that meal and then the cycle starts again when it is the next time to eat.
Personally I am finding it hard to eat at the moment I feel more and more pressured to eat as much as possible because I am almost 5 months pregnant with my first child. I feed myself for my baby's sake even though it makes me very unhappy eat , I want my baby to be healthy and I keep reminding myself every time I eat it is for my baby. I feel more under pressure now as I feel like I am being watched 24/7 by people making sure I eat. It is taking a mental and emotional toll on me , I want to be brave but I am struggling to cope. My head can't seem to separate " Pregnancy" and " fat" in my mind all I see is I am fat and eating makes me feel worse than ever. I feel so appalled at myself for eating but then not eating for my baby makes me selfish. I know eating is something I will always struggle with but I am hoping I find the strength to handle eating for my little baby's sake.
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