Binge Eating, Bulimia and Gender Dysphoria *TRIGGER WARNING*

[Tristyn]

Does anyone see the correlation here? When I get really depressed, and often I do, I want to eat alot more unhealthy foods (burgers, pizza, fries, hot dogs, e.t.c.) than usual as if to bring some comfort and then I get the urge to force myself to puke it up and I don't even know why. My mom did it, so maybe I unconsciously wanna be just like her like my dad always tells me over and over and over and over and over. I think it has to do with the fact that I am abnormally afraid of getting overweight again like I did when I intentionally presented myself as female in the past (which I have recurrent nightmares about returning to one day).

I also think it has to do with me wanting to have a heart attack. Not sure but I plan to really do this in a bit once my step mom buys me some food this evening. I am so miserable that I cannot even concentrate on my seminar and need some kind of relief. I wish there were an alternative. But there isn't. Really. I have tried numerous times to call Trans Lifeline; no answer, as usual. Am I the only one dealing with this? I really don't know. The more dysphoric I get, the more I want to eat, the more I wanna puke, the more I want to die.

[Dena]

Eating is one of the things people do in order to reduce emotional pain. Often we have good emotions attached to some foods and that the reason for the term comfort foods. Most often these food are not the healthiest food but they have a good deal of flavor or some enjoyable memory attached to them. One food that is consider as such is macaroni and cheese. For some people this is the ultimate comfort food. I don't have a pleasant memory associated with it and I often compare it to eating library paste because of all the starch.

When you are in pain, self medication can take many forms and eating is one of them.

[Tristyn]

Eating is one of the things people do in order to reduce emotional pain. Often we have good emotions attached to some foods and that the reason for the term comfort foods. Most often these food are not the healthiest food but they have a good deal of flavor or some enjoyable memory attached to them. One food that is consider as such is macaroni and cheese. For some people this is the ultimate comfort food. I don't have a pleasant memory associated with it and I often compare it to eating library paste because of all the starch.

When you are in pain, self medication can take many forms and eating is one of them.

For me, my comfort food right now is burger, fries, soda and a chocolate sundae all large. I really like pizza because it is nostalgic; brings back great memories of hanging out with my bro before he got married and left me by myself. Everyone grows up I guess, but I haven't; I am a boy in a woman's body who cries and throws tantrums at the slightest upset when things do not go my way. I feel so sick I have to puke, even if I don't force it. Why do I want to puke so much. I hope I faint and never wake up. Go into a coma and die. Better than living a facade.

[Dena]

At one time I was a woman in a mans body. I didn't cry often because the male role was pounded into me by society that men aren't supposed to cry.  You need to work on making the best of a bad situation because many times in life things don't go the way we want them to. You need to take care of yourself and work your way though school for that day when it will all pay off and you will become the master of your destiny. Like you, I had to put up with a good deal for years but I am proof that it can happen. Just take one small step  at a time and after a while you look back and see how far you have come.

[Tristyn]

I wish I could Dena. I am not strong like that. I think some of my psychiatric behavior can't even be helped; my mom smoked and drank while pregnant with only me and I am almost certain the doctors gave her DES cause she miscarried right before she had me. I am a freak accident that should be destroyed; a stain on society. I hate being this way. I want to be a normal girl! I don't want to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans. I want to be a cisgender female the way I was supposed to be. I swear I just wanna be normal. I hate this. And I am black too. That makes things even worse. You know? I don't know why but it does somehow and I won't get into it.I just wanna feel like a human for once in my life. Ok? "Cheer up!" I wish I could but I can't right now. I am on my last wing here!!

[Dena]

Non of us are strong or brave. Many of the metal of honor winner and heroes felt fear and knew they might die but they saw no other option. They faced their fear and did what needed to be done. One such person is Audie Murphy who played the lead role in the story of his life. I remember most of the 50's and 60's when the black community fought for the freedom you enjoy today. What we face is difficult but no more so than others have faced. The way we do it is to live one day at a time and each day we make decisions that bring us closer to our goal. In your case, you need to treat your body and mind well so you will be ready when your time comes. The mind is the most difficult but keeping busy and planing your future will help you avoid thinking about your discomfort. It's not easy and sometimes the emotions will slip in but if it's what you really want, you can do it.

[Tristyn]

Non of us are strong or brave. Many of the metal of honor winner and heroes felt fear and knew they might die but they saw no other option. They faced their fear and did what needed to be done. One such person is Audie Murphy who played the lead role in the story of his life. I remember most of the 50's and 60's when the black community fought for the freedom you enjoy today. What we face is difficult but no more so than others have faced. The way we do it is to live one day at a time and each day we make decisions that bring us closer to our goal. In your case, you need to treat your body and mind well so you will be ready when your time comes. The mind is the most difficult but keeping busy and planing your future will help you avoid thinking about your discomfort. It's not easy and sometimes the emotions will slip in but if it's what you really want, you can do it.

I don't really even care about being male or female anymore. I just want happiness in my life and I don't have it. As if I am forbidden to feel such an emotion. I don't care about improving my situation. I just want death now so I can sleep. I am tired.

[Sno]

[a big old virtual bear hug]

I find that if I can do just one thing each day for my inner self, can help to make the day bearable; but the struggle can be exhausting.

Sometimes its enough to log in to chat and see the conversations happening, to be reminded that we are not alone.

[off to bring extra blankets for the fort, and a good book]

Sno

[Tristyn]

Ok.

[Semira]

If you feel like you're stuck and there's absolutely no course of action that will make you feel better, instead focus on making someone else feel better. Some of it might splash back in your direction.

[Tristyn]

If you feel like you're stuck and there's absolutely no course of action that will make you feel better, instead focus on making someone else feel better. Some of it might splash back in your direction.

Oh, I know! I'll put on a dress, some makeup and high heels and twirl around like a ballerina; that will make EVERYONE around me feel much better and less uncomfortable while making me feel much worse and more uncomfortable. Especially my dad, who really cannot stand LGBT things.

[Semira]

Oh, I know! I'll put on a dress, some makeup and high heels and twirl around like a ballerina; that will make EVERYONE around me feel much better and less uncomfortable while making me feel much worse and more uncomfortable. Especially my dad, who really cannot stand LGBT things.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of helping other people who are struggling with life in one way or another. Don't do anything that would make you feel worse.

[Tristyn]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of helping other people who are struggling with life in one way or another. Don't do anything that would make you feel worse.

I apologize for earlier. I know you meant well, I am just having a hard time seeing anything good in life right now.

[bumblebreeze]

please please PLEASE be careful with the purging. Developing an Eating Disorder will only make this harder.... Bulimia will take so much from you.... do you have someone to talk to about all this?

[Mariah]

It's very easy to do that when you get depressed, stressed and anxious about things. Just be careful please. bumble breeze is right it will only makes harder and for those of us like you and I with kidney issues even harder. Hugs
Mariah

[WarGrowlmon1990]

I am a freak accident that should be destroyed; a stain on society. I hate being this way.

I've had the same thoughts, Tristyn. It can get so hard when dealing with dysphoria on top of having depression/anxiety among other things. The day I joined this site I got to such a low point that I was telling myself the same things you were telling yourself. It got so bad I ended up self-harming and damn near knocked myself out. It can feel unbearable when you don't have anyone in your life to support you and accept you as the person you truly are. I started purging too  back in high school, but it wasn't an every day thing. I think I did it often enough to do some damage cause I get crazy bad heartburn and have been having issues with stomach pains; although the stomach issue could be something else (it might have something to do with my interstitial cystitis). My IC is very debilitating and I can't even work or contribute to society because of it. When things get low, I start believing that I'm a stain on society, a waste of space and that somebody struggling worse than me is more deserving of my life. I'm honestly not sure what's kept me going. I guess I've always believed that everybody has a purpose in life to fulfill and that everyone has potential to make a difference. I know I sound like a hypocrite when I say don't harm yourself, but I guess it's cause I don't want anybody to go through the same things I'm going through. I can tell you're a good person and you don't deserve to feel like this, and although I don't have the exact same experience as you, I know how it is to struggle with dysphoria and suicidal thoughts. I wouldn't wish dysphoria and being trans on anybody. Sorry I can't be of much help.

[FTMax]

Binge eating, yes. Never considered throwing up afterwards. Bulimia is really damaging to a lot of other parts. Food is a coping mechanism for a lot of people, and the only way to stop treating it that way is to change your relationship with it.

It helped for me to see food for what it was - fuel - and to start treating eating like a chore instead of something enjoyable. I stopped buying low quality fuel (no junk food, no soda, very few shelf stable items) and did the math to figure out how much I needed to fill the tank for the day, and what that should look like when spread out over 8 hours. Once a week, I can cheat and have things I love to eat. But that's it - just once a week, and even then, it's in limited quantities.

Fed Up is a good food-related documentary I like. I recommend it to everyone who is struggling with food or their weight. It really changed the views I had on food.

I understand that dysphoria is tough, but what you eat is one of the few things that you have control over and it can actually help you in terms of making small changes to your body.

[Kylo]

It's very common. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a biological stress response to binge-eat. I know that when you have to smoke a hive of bees to check it, the bees who assume the hive is on fire immediately move into the parts where they store honey and eat it right away. This is because under stress the first thing they think of doing is to consume fuel for the coming stress of having no hive and nowhere to live. In humans, I think a similar mechanism plays out, although more subtly than with the bees, especially in the modern day when life itself is more subtle in terms of how we live and how we become stressed. Many people usually don't need to worry about never having any food again in our modern nations, but the wiring of the brain isn't from modern times... it's from caveman times and before when food was scarce. When a person is stressed it can put their body not only into binge-mode but fuel-saving (weight gain) mode too.

Unfortunately modern food isn't designed for human bodies. It's full of sugar and sugar is bad news all around in the quantities we now consume it. We were never built to eat so much of it.

I'm pretty much resigned to the idea that loving food - esp. junk food - is an addiction that some of us are going to have to break from or suffer the consequences. And I love eating. But in the end, a lot of diseases come from eating too much and I'm just going to have to begin to build self-control toward eating. And sadly, I think it's going to be a lifelong struggle - there's a lot of delicious food out there that I want, but the only way to maintain health is going to be to limit calories.   

[JoanneB]

Does anyone see the correlation here? When I get really depressed, and often I do, I want to eat alot more unhealthy foods (burgers, pizza, fries, hot dogs, e.t.c.) than usual as if to bring some comfort and then I get the urge to force myself to puke it up and I don't even know why. My mom did it, so maybe I unconsciously wanna be just like her like my dad always tells me over and over and over and over and over. I think it has to do with the fact that I am abnormally afraid of getting overweight again like I did when I intentionally presented myself as female in the past (which I have recurrent nightmares about returning to one day).

I also think it has to do with me wanting to have a heart attack. Not sure but I plan to really do this in a bit once my step mom buys me some food this evening. I am so miserable that I cannot even concentrate on my seminar and need some kind of relief. I wish there were an alternative. But there isn't. Really. I have tried numerous times to call Trans Lifeline; no answer, as usual. Am I the only one dealing with this? I really don't know. The more dysphoric I get, the more I want to eat, the more I wanna puke, the more I want to die.

They are called "Comfort Foods" for a reason. 

Some reasons are more perverse then others. I am a former fatty. By some odd reason I started packing on the pounds as a kid not long after mom told me in no uncertain terms boys do not wear skirts or dresses. Me and my body has had a hate-hate relationship for a long long time.

Near the end of uni, thanks to a major illness I had dropped 50 or so lbs. The following summer with hard work out in the sun I dropped another 50. So I was well in the normal range but still hated my body, and being in it.

Seven years ago I needed to take the trans beast on for real. During the preceding 3 months I had packed on 30 lbs. I was a few tick marks away from topping 200lbs, a territory I swore NEVER to be in again. What got me to realize the root cause was being more depressed over not being able to fit into my female wardrobe if I wanted to.

I came a long way since then. I now have a body I am happy to be in. Not perfect but far better  , I can even look in mirrors now. Due to many compromises as I seek balance in my life I need to live and present primarily as male. During the early years I had many what am I doing meltdowns, these days few.

I know when the dysphoria is peaking is when the binge eating, and drinking, starts to ramp up. It doesn't take much more then a deep lung full of air passing a bakery for me to gain 2-3 lbs. Going off my regimented feed shows up fast during my daily weigh ins. I tend to think it is a sub-conscious means of derailing my progress and the 'Old Me' wanting to drag me back into that lifeless soulless abyss I lived in.

If I once again hate being me, hate living inside my body, then the bigger questions about life and a future no longer matter. I'm just that lifeless, soulless 'Thing' once again that existed only to do "What is expected". No hopes, no wishes, no dreams. They only cause pain in the end

[sigsi]

It helped for me to see food for what it was - fuel - and to start treating eating like a chore instead of something enjoyable. I stopped buying low quality fuel (no junk food, no soda, very few shelf stable items) and did the math to figure out how much I needed to fill the tank for the day, and what that should look like when spread out over 8 hours. Once a week, I can cheat and have things I love to eat. But that's it - just once a week, and even then, it's in limited quantities.

I dealt with an unspecified eating disorder (anorexia/binging/exercising/fasting). In a twisted way, my old eating habits similarity lines up to how your healthy eating is now (healthy food all week, eat what I want one day at the end, food is fuel type of thing). I eventually stopped eating, but yeah. I eat mostly "normal" now, but definitely not what is considered healthy. I'm afraid if I attempt to eat healthy and exercise, I'll spiral back into my habits from three years ago. Not to mention exercise itself now causes panic attacks from old thought patterns.... I know I need a therapist, I'm working on the process with insurances.
I don't know how you are, but if you were ever fearful of spiraling, did it ever reach a point where you didn't fear that anymore?
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Apologies to Tristyn for the slight derail. To your post though, I tend to want to eat unhealthy stuff when I get dysphoric around "that time of the month". Most other times I just end up in a panic attack and avoid food for a few hours. Basically it sucks no matter which form of eating disorders one has. As a few others have said, eating is one of the countless ways to help people cope with their inner demons. Short term, the only thing I can recommend trying to reach a point where your body isn't going to be harmed. Binging/Purging/Starving/etc can all affect how the body is long term, and can make transitioning and recovery harder or even impossible. As much as it sucks, I would rather be a bit fat for a while than ruin my chances of top surgery. Long term, I've heard that therapy and meds can help (but I'm not one to quote that right now). Good luck and please stay safe.