Dealing with disinterestedness for eating and anxiety while doing it.

[OlavS]

Hello all, this is my first post. I figured I will ask around about this since I can no longer take it.

About two years ago I came off medication- against doctors approval. I was taking Remeron and Celexa. I tapered down both. While off them completely, however, I got horrid anxiety, everyday for a while. I am not normally that anxious of a person. The reason I was on SSRI's to begin with was because doctors thought I was depressed due to a bad heroin addiction I had from 15-17 years old- yeah I know that sounds bad, but I was not really depressed.

After that anxiety went away, my anxiety while eating came, and that was the worst thing I have ever experienced. During this time I was doing MMA. The lack of eating greatly impacted my training, made me lose weight, my training shorts began to be too loose.

Then that went away.

Now it is resurfacing. Though not daily. It happens only on the weekends, I think being distracted from work helps. Instead of the heart racing anxiety I got before, I get a very mild anxious feeling, that is followed with no desire to eat anything, even when hungry. I also feel a blandness, then a desire to just sleep. Drug cravings hardly come like they use to- I am 20 now- however I do fantasize about having them saved for bad times. I will never do drugs again, though.

So, how do I deal with this eating anxiety?

[raggamuffin]

What was the first time you recall anxiety around eating? Try to delve and see where this introspection takes you. Was there a problem or worry when eating as a child? Was there some risk or danger involving food, choking or vomiting? Try and work out where these initial worries came from. Try to note the negative emotional beliefs you have/had around eating and rationalize them. Break down the negative emotions and replace them with positive one's.

Anxiety can cause a tightness or sensation of a lump in the throat. Ergo people can sometimes feel panicky when eating, as if their food won't go down properly. Some people even regurgitate a bit of food if they burp. Other people wind up with acid rising from the stomach such as heartburn or GERD. The reality is, with enough stress your body can cause all sorts of symptoms. I had symptoms 24/7 for over 5 years. But you can overcome this.

So you feel symptoms more when you're at home. You are right, distraction can help reduce and disperse anxious feelings or symptoms. But notice the symptoms you've listed - one seems to replace another. This is very common. Eating anxiety came and then it went and then resurfaced again. Heart racing is another common anxiety symptom. Read about the fight or flight response if you haven't already done so. Each time you have negative thoughts around danger or symptoms you are giving your body another shot of adrenaline which makes symptoms last longer. Your body is in a constant fight or flight mode when anxious and the slightest perceived "threat" or "danger" triggers it to fire up again.

A good idea is to write down every worry you have, no matter how big or small. Once you've done this highlight the top 3 and rephrase the worry or statement as a question. A how to or how do I in order to brainstorm positive ways to overcome these issues. Anxiety has a habit of making our brains take a worry and run away with it. The brain is an incredible organ which is capable of many thousands of thoughts every second, both concious and subconcious. In fact subconcious thoughts vastly outweigh concious thoughts in sheer volume each second in our lives. So when you are worried your brain will run with those worries and continue to expand upon them. This is how anxiety can become an anxiety disorder. You become trapped in your own little world. Stuck in a vicious circle of worry -> symptoms -> more worry -> more symptoms.

So rephrase these 3 main worries with questions. Brainstorm how to tackle these issues. One step at a time mind you. But I can guarantee that the symptoms you feel are common. I've had such symptoms many a time during the past 5 years.

Something to leave you with that is paramount to recovery. Anxiety does NOT control you. YOU control anxiety. Without the fears and worries you feed anxiety it has nothing. It's not a tangible and material object in life. It's in your mind and can become as weak or as powerful as YOU make it.

Ed

[OlavS]

I do not really remember the first I got anxiety while eating. It just happened randomly. I have not had any problem eating, ever. There are no bad memories surrounding it.

When it was bad, I would be having a good day, no anxiety at all. I go to eat, boom there it is, and I could not finish eating.

Thank you for the reply.

[1Bluerose68]

There are support groups nationally called OA and NAEDA for more info on anorexia(intermittent) cases sounds like. Also telephone crisis lines help me when I feel like eating too much or having eaten too much and need support over a food binge. They also listen to you if you have trouble nourishing yourself too. I have found that taking a walk actually helps induce an appetite in me. So after I walk i always have a calming routine or i bing on junk food as my sugar level is low after exercising. Have you been tested for diabetes. My relative had those signs or symptoms in the early stages of her diabetes, lost tons of weight, and appetite too. It probly should be ruled out as a factor in case you were diabetic there are meds for that too. Good luck and I hope you stay sober and healthy too.

[ctb1988]

I can relate to this a little bit. I was diagnosed with anorexia when I was 21 and was treated for it (along with depression, anxiety and substance abuse) for a few years. Even though I have completely restructured the way I think about food, I still have an incredible amount of anxiety around my health / nutrition / eating / food, etc. Even when I want to eat and know I need to eat, I frequently get that "nervous stomach" and feel like I have to force something down (even when hungry)- and even then I can get down very little food without my body wanting to absolutely reject it.

My best guess is that even though you seem to have a healthy attitude towards food and your body, your diet was pretty important as an MMA fighter. When you were training, did you ever focus on what the "best" foods for you were, what would help you gain muscle, give you the most energy, help you remain healthy, etc? Sometimes it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad memory or a bad experience about eating, just thinking about a subject in general and what you can do to improve can be an anxiety trigger. And anxiety, in turn, causes nausea and a lot of other negative digestsive issues, making it a vicious circle when you're trying to eat and nourish yourself. As your body and health got worse and affected your training, I'm sure you were putting more pressure on yourself to eat well and be healthy.

I guess I really don't have any good advice for you, just kind of lending some support. Have you ever taken a probiotic? I just started taking one a couple of weeks at the recommendation of my doctor, and it's helped me a lot. Whenever I have a couple of days where my anxiety is bad and can't eat, this helps restore my "good bacteria" and resets my stomach a little bit. A lot of people also subscribe to the idea that a lot of your serotonin receptors lay in your stomach, so your diet and the bacteria in there is pretty important in mood regulation (not very educated on the subject myself, but it's interesting to think about). You can get a probiotic supplement at CVS / Walgreens / any pharmacy, really. As far as I know it's harmless, so it may not hurt to try.

Good luck with everything! You seem pretty strong willed after reading your story, so I'm sure there are a lot of great, stress free meals in your future.

[OlavS]

My best guess is that even though you seem to have a healthy attitude towards food and your body, your diet was pretty important as an MMA fighter. When you were training, did you ever focus on what the "best" foods for you were, what would help you gain muscle, give you the most energy, help you remain healthy, etc? Sometimes it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad memory or a bad experience about eating, just thinking about a subject in general and what you can do to improve can be an anxiety trigger. And anxiety, in turn, causes nausea and a lot of other negative digestsive issues, making it a vicious circle when you're trying to eat and nourish yourself. As your body and health got worse and affected your training, I'm sure you were putting more pressure on yourself to eat well and be healthy.

I guess I really don't have any good advice for you, just kind of lending some support. Have you ever taken a probiotic?

Thanks. I was focusing heavily on my diet a while before this happened. By the time the anxiety came, my new diet was already normal. But, I did use to count every calorie, gram of protein, etc. that I ate. Not that I was worried about it that much, it is just what I did for some reason.

So I can see how that could have caused the issue. I still train now, and eat pretty much whatever, mostly pasta, rice, salads and some meats. I have put on weight since then, around 10-15 pounds.

What did help originally was making a huge meal replacement shake. I'd blend up a lot of healthy stuff that would amount to large amount of calories, and everything I needed.

As for probiotics, I drink Kombucha which has naturally occurring probiotics, as well as my protein and 'Green food' supplements which have them.

Hope all is well for you!

[1Bluerose68]

How is your lack of appetite today?