“Hey Dad! Mom’s using again!”
I was imagining my son calling my husband at work as he watched me rummaging through the kitchen cabinets looking for a fix.
For weeks, I’d managed stress eating and avoided my drug of choice — nuts. Macadamia nuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, peanuts. I wasn’t picky. If it was salty, crunchy, and nearby, I’d eat it. When I committed to avoid snacking, the truth was hard to face. I wasn’t eating to hunger. I was eating to emotions.
I began to focus on hunger, asking myself before eating, is this hunger or emotion? If emotion, I decided to do something. Taking a walk, cleaning a drawer, scrubbing a toilet, walking up and down stairs, phoning a friend, or sending an email were all distractions that I used to manage stress eating.
Then came the “big one.” A stressor that caused a tsunami of emotions including fear, frustration, anger, sadness, insecurity, and helplessness and knocked me off my feet. There I was reaching for a lifeline in a bag of macadamia nuts.
My son was watching as I went into the kitchen and began digging. His eyes met mine, and it was obvious he recognized that it was stress I was trying to soothe. That’s when I imagined him calling my husband and saying, “Dad, Mom’s using again!”
In reality, he asked, “Mom, what are you doing?” What was I doing? His question gave me enough pause that I recognized that I wasn’t hungry for food, and that respect, understanding, and support weren’t lurking in the kitchen cabinets in a bag of nuts.
“I’m going for a walk,” I replied. “Would you like to join me?” He declined as I grabbed my tennis shoes and bolted out the front door. My feet hit the pavement. Thud, thud, thud, thud, faster than I usually walk. The tears came, and I let them. Within a few minutes my pace slowed, and my head slowly began to clear.
Minutes later, I was greeted by one of the neighborhood’s friendliest dogs, an old fella, Mulligan, who seems to know that his primary purpose in life is to make everyone feel special. I had a nice chat with his owner while he snuggled against me and let me stroke his fur.
I turned to head back to my house thinking that kids and puppies were much more therapeutic than macadamia nuts. They brought me perspective. The walk had given me energy, and I walked through the front door with a very different mindset then when I’d walked out of it.
My son was watching, reading my face. “I got to see Mulligan!” I said, reassuring him with a smile. He smiled and turned back to his homework. Mom was okay. She wasn’t using food again.
/ Kristie Sullivan, PhD
2020: A year of dieting deliciously (for members)
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