60-Year-Old Woman Shares The Everyday Habit That Secretly Fueled Her Disordered Eating
The effects of childhood trauma can last a lifetime.
Brothers91, Gemütlichkeit | Canva My urge to eat late in the evening feels overpowering. Like the pull of gravity, my desire to eat before bed pulls me down no matter how hard I attempt to resist it. And believe me, I’ve tried.
There are countless times when I’m extra quiet in the kitchen because I’m embarrassed by my compulsion to eat. Other times, I’ll select something healthy to eat, like a handful of raw macadamia nuts, hoping to feel better about my habit. On nights we’ve eaten dinner late, I tell myself that I’m not hungry and use logic to hold my urge for food at bay, but this only stirs my anxiety. Eventually, the anxiety elevates enough that I relent and grab something from the fridge.
Whether it’s a piece of cheese, a few carrots, or a bite of the dessert I made a few days ago, I have to put something in my mouth before brushing my teeth and heading to bed. Then, I’ll berate myself for my weakness.
I was sixty before I discovered what secretly fueled my disordered eating.
It was a few months after my mother died, and the revelation felt monumental. One night, while belaboring my need to eat late at night, I remembered something important about my childhood.
My mother was preoccupied with her life, and my brother and I were often left without food. Many nights, I went to bed hungry, and most mornings, I went to school without breakfast.
The realization that I ate before bed because I often went hungry as a child shattered me. The reality that my mother didn’t prioritize feeding her children was excruciating and dredged up issues I’d dealt with in therapy years prior. I wondered again why my mother didn’t value me, and now that she was gone, there was no chance for explanations, resolutions, or forgiveness.
Once I understood the reason behind my compulsive eating, I assumed I could change the behavior easily — but that wasn't the case.
I quickly realized that, like someone dependent on drugs, it would take more than a decision to quit to change my behavior.
Gaining understanding is the first step to altering our habits. Unfortunately, making headway in the fight to change an unhealthy behavior can be epically hard. This is especially true when the behavior is steeped in an emotional wound.
Figuring out “the why” behind my late-night eating habit was enlightening. I thought all I needed to do was remind myself that I had access to all the food I wanted.
But instead, as the evenings wore on, my intention to not eat fueled my anxiety. When it got close to bedtime, I would tell myself that I didn’t need a snack to feel safe and secure. But instead of being comforted by the truth, I grew agitated and unsettled. To stop my anxiety from growing, I would find a little something to eat, and then I’d feel defeated and embarrassed, which only made things worse.
At this point, I hadn’t yet told my wife what was going on because I felt ashamed of my behavior and my inability to change it. Every night, the same thing happened, and it seemed like my problem with compulsive eating was getting worse with the addition of anxiety and shame to the mix.
Because of my childhood trauma, I’ve done quite a bit of therapy and reading about emotional healing. As I dissected what was going on, I saw that I needed to find a way to heal the little girl in me who was deprived of food, as well as the adult woman in me who felt shame about the situation I was in.
If I’ve learned anything in my sixty-five years, it’s that keeping things hidden gives power to whatever it is we are hiding.
Being secretive sends a message to our brains that we are doing something wrong. Hiding our behavior leads to feelings of shame and disconnection.
Hiding my disordered eating and the struggle to change it from my wife caused me to feel suffocated by shame. The more ashamed I felt, the stronger the foothold compulsive eating had in my life. It was a horrible pattern that left me feeling hopeless and defeated.
One day, when I felt particularly desperate, I shared what was happening with my wife. As usual, she was compassionate and supportive. Just bringing it to light lessened the emotional burden. No longer fighting shame, I felt hopeful that I could find the key to unlock change.
We’ve had many discussions since then as I’ve attempted to find ways to create a sense of safety for myself. What I didn’t expect was that it would take about five years before I started to see a definite change in my behavior patterns.
In the same way that muscle memory develops over years of exercise, it also takes years for our emotional patterns to heal and for new behaviors to form.
While I do believe there is a place for behavior modification tools when a pattern is rooted in trauma or formative experiences, it takes a lot more than a new habit to authentically change us.
Unhealthy compulsions and toxic behaviors often find their genesis in trauma or woundedness. When that link happens, changing our patterns can feel nearly impossible.
My disordered eating was tied to a lack of safety and nurturing as a child. Being denied food caused me to reject the notion of denying myself as an adult. In addition to my compulsion to eat before bed, I lacked willpower.
When it came to dessert or some type of special food, I refused to deny myself the pleasure of enjoying whatever it was, whether it was good or bad for me. The mere thought of going on a diet to lose weight sent me straight to my favorite French bakery for a pastry.
Five years ago, I was motivated to change when I finally saw the reason behind my disordered eating. It seemed slightly easier to deny myself a special treat from time to time because I wasn’t cutting myself off from food, but rather a specific type of food.
One of the things that has helped me the most this past year is realizing I don’t like feeling out of control. Little by little, I’ve taken the opportunity to choose not to eat a sweet treat just to prove to myself that I could do it. And when I followed through, I noticed I felt empowered. That empowerment encouraged me and helped me believe there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Throughout this process, I have seen the need to address the root of my eating issues rather than just the behavior.
Understanding that I am fully capable of providing food for myself has allowed me to feel safe enough to slowly curtail eating before bed. Now, in the evenings, I stay in touch with my body to determine if I am hungry or acting out of my damaged emotions. Seeing the difference has helped me to forgo eating at night about 75% of the time.
Choosing to skip dessert or refrain from using food as a reward may seem like a small thing. But doing this has allowed me to feel empowered and in control. This is monumental for me because I spent my childhood and much of my adult life feeling weak and without personal power.
As I spent time processing my unhealthy relationship with food, I saw a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to a scrawny little girl with a pixie haircut and sad brown eyes, alone and hungry in her dark bedroom.
Severing my emotional connections to food has been surprisingly freeing. A therapist once said to me that true freedom comes when we are both free to and free not to choose to do something.
A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I had stopped snacking before bed without being consciously aware of it. I am stunned to finally be in a place of peace and trust where food is concerned.
Letting go of the fear that I will go hungry and the anxiety I felt when I tried not to eat late at night has felt monumental. I’m sure there will continue to be challenges but I’m hopeful that the biggest battle has been won.
Eating disorders are very common.
According to the ANAD (Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders), eating disorders affect 9 percent of the population worldwide, and 28.8 million Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime. Eating disorders disproportionately affect BIOPC, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities.
Second to only opioid overdose, eating disorders are among the deadliest mental illnesses with 10,200 deaths each year as the direct result of an eating disorder — that’s one death every 52 minutes. If you or a loved one are struggling with disordered eating, contact the National Eating Disorder Helpline’s toll-free phone number: 1-800-931-2237.
Kim Kelly Stamp (she/her) is a writer and speaker who writes about authenticity, retirement, relationships, and life on the road.