Anxiety bingeing on insulin

[DaftThoughts]

Soooo I'm going through one of my anxiety phases right now. It happens, I do my best to deal with it but most of the time it's a 'hang on and keep your arms in during the ride' kind of deal.

While depression makes me stop eating, anxiety can make me binge. I never realized before how bad it can get but because I carb count and inject even when I binge, I become painfully aware just how much goes down my gullet. Carbs are stupidly cheap so it's easy to fill up on the cheap staples. This makes me feel guilty and in turn feeds into the anxiety and bingeing. Dumb vicious circle.

I'm going to be bringing this up with my therapist at my next appointment, but this is a month away.

How do other insulin users who go through compulsive bingeing deal with this? I've considered not injecting to avoid weight gain but I'm also extremely aware of how bad and ruthless that cycle is, so I'm injecting for everything. In my teens I purged and it's crossed my mind too but, again, I'm extremely aware of how bad it is and I haven't done it.

It's all sorts of effed up that out of all the things I can do to help my anxiety, food is the easiest and quickest way to make me feel better. Yesterday I took a 40 minute shower to calm down, but it wasn't until I had half a tub of gross and cheap ice cream that I slowly felt better. Didn't even enjoy the ice cream but I felt good. I really hate it, but it's like someone pressed the off button in my head to say no to food and there's no way to override it. I have so many periods where I'm able to make good decisions and stick to a healthy diet and say no to overeating, which actually makes me feel worse when I go through the bad periods.

Experiences and thoughts, tips and tricks are much appreciated on this.

 

[Diakat]

The hugely positive thing here is that you are seeing a destructive pattern and at least partly mitigating by injecting.
Possibly by having recognised it you can start to reduce it and find other coping mechanisms.
I hope your therapist can help.

 

[Scott-C]

@DaftThoughts , have you ever thought about learning how to juggle? That's not a flippant question, I'm serious. I used to juggle a lot, started with three balls, learned some tricks, then learned them again with clubs, and then again with clubs with double spins on each throw.

I was thinking if you're feeling anxious, it's a good displacement activity instead of food which really gets you focusing on learning each new trick, and a modest sense of achievement once learned. Once you get fluid with it, it become almost Zen like, meditative, just that idea of knowing where something will be in space, and seeing the "shape" or pattern of the three balls instead of seeing them individually.

As a starter for ten, check this video of a guy (from the Netherlands, coincidentally!) tutoring on how to do the classic Mills Mess.

It takes a while to learn to do that, but it feels really good once you do it. If you've got any young nieces or nephews, you'll be their favourite aunt if you can suss that one out!

 

[Pauntiep]

Soooo I'm going through one of my anxiety phases right now. It happens, I do my best to deal with it but most of the time it's a 'hang on and keep your arms in during the ride' kind of deal.

While depression makes me stop eating, anxiety can make me binge. I never realized before how bad it can get but because I carb count and inject even when I binge, I become painfully aware just how much goes down my gullet. Carbs are stupidly cheap so it's easy to fill up on the cheap staples. This makes me feel guilty and in turn feeds into the anxiety and bingeing. Dumb vicious circle.

I'm going to be bringing this up with my therapist at my next appointment, but this is a month away.

How do other insulin users who go through compulsive bingeing deal with this? I've considered not injecting to avoid weight gain but I'm also extremely aware of how bad and ruthless that cycle is, so I'm injecting for everything. In my teens I purged and it's crossed my mind too but, again, I'm extremely aware of how bad it is and I haven't done it.

It's all sorts of effed up that out of all the things I can do to help my anxiety, food is the easiest and quickest way to make me feel better. Yesterday I took a 40 minute shower to calm down, but it wasn't until I had half a tub of gross and cheap ice cream that I slowly felt better. Didn't even enjoy the ice cream but I felt good. I really hate it, but it's like someone pressed the off button in my head to say no to food and there's no way to override it. I have so many periods where I'm able to make good decisions and stick to a healthy diet and say no to overeating, which actually makes me feel worse when I go through the bad periods.

Experiences and thoughts, tips and tricks are much appreciated on this.

Just wanted to say I understand and you're not alone. I do this too