I'm wondering if others use food (I like sugar and protein in particular) in an attempt to sedate/change your state?

Yes! Although sometimes it is salty-like green olives with jalopeno's, then protient like chicken, then sugar. It is an immediate strong emotional need when confrounted with anxiety. SucKs!

Using food to sedate made me what I am today...

Good Grief, you mean that food has any other use? ? ? I thought that food "was" suppose to make me feel better.

This thread has brought to mind something that happened when my daughter was real little, maybe 5 or 6 years old. She was upset about something and before I even realized what I was doing I had given her a plate of oreo cookies with milk and I actually said to her---and I quote---"Here honey, this will make you feel better"

Is that a scary senerio or what? Kinda settles the issue now doesn't it?

I asked mother if she ever did that to me and of course, she said "I don't remember" But it is a pretty safe bet that she did the same thing.

Ha Ha "Food for thought!" Sorry, just could not help myself

No, but I use to a long time ago.

And then, I used it quite awfully so, to sedate myself. Sugar then was like a powerful dose of valium to me that would sedate and put me in a withdrawn, trance-like state in which I felt numb, struggled to see at times and parts of my body and mind would like stop working, ....freeze or something. Yet always I'd regain limb mobility and consciousness enough that I might feel the complete range of doom, helplessness and hopeless, from such a disorder which I developed.

I really thought then that my then serious problem of first bingeing and gorging myself to sedation, on everything high in sugar, (and sometimes when really weak and hungry, on great amounts of carbs) would kill me and I didn't want it to but I just couldn't make myself stop that cycle.

....daily sugar binges, sedation, numbness and deeper trance state, my body craving nutrition, gorging myself, the self-loathing of it all, the immense fears, vomiting, relief, consciousness outside of trance-like state, then helplessly start all over again.

I'd throw up at will, right down to the bile, anywhere's from 12 to near 20+ times a day.

So, though I don't now and for a long time haven't, (knock on wood) I use to use food to sedate myself.

Now if I absolutely must be sedated I accept a PRN sedative. And, the simple truth is, I don't suffer without self-defense, perhaps other defenses as well. I am no longer an enemy of myself. Though I do still inadvertently sometimes sabotage myself and my well-being. I generally do this out of still yet unresolved fears related to my traumas, struggles with fluctuating self-worth issues and/or out of my own lack of time or knowledge.

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Good idea for a poll Dylan.

Hope

Yes I do, but I have also been anorexic and bulimic too. Eating disorders for me swing both ways. I now try to eat very healthy, but still slip up at times.

Food has always been a way that I feel better. And my weight has been a battle for a long time. I love to cook and eat food...it just makes me feel a bit more in control. For the last 8 or 9 years I've been cooking and eating much better food for me and my family. I still eat pretty much the same amounts, but it's now the good stuff that I can eat lots of and not balloon up.

Although a chocolate bar and a cold beer after a hard day still works better than just about anything. *grin*

Lisa

Yes but it's a recent thing. I've never been one to have a sweet tooth but I have noticed at times when I have increased anxiety I crave sweets, especially chocolate.

And one way I've always used food to "sedate" or "change" my mood, is to cook; I absolutely love to cook and when I get in the kitchen it calms me. I go into a different world almost, almost never use recipes or cook books; in a weird way, it's like the food "talks" to me, the end product just flows out and happens. Food is a wonderful healer in so many ways, in creation, in giving and enjoying. If my physical health was better and able to handle working in a kitchen all day, I know what I would do for a career change. :)

Nigela Lawson (the TV chef) says that everything succumbs to chocolate as that is the natural order of things ... i am so relieved, thought I had PTSD or something.

Yes, absolutely. I've binged to get into a "food coma" so that I can sleep. I don't do it all of the time. Now it's just every few months or so.

There was a time, a year after I was shot, that I did it every day for about 10 months. I wasn't in therapy, so I wasn't on meds. I gained 100 lbs. I would eat until my whole body hurt. Somehow the pain from eating so much so fast made me feel better than the reality of my PTSD. I would just "pass out". I used food instead of alcohol or illegal drugs.