Can overeating be described as self harm? Mostly we think of self harm as cutting or physically harming ourselves, but in actual fact, any compulsive behaviour is harming ourselves. Why? because when we have these behaviours we are not comfortable with them, we feel a certain amount of anxiety, and that is what harms us. Many of us live with anxiety almost as if it is a part of our identity, but it is not, we have acquired those behaviours. I am not talking about the occasional blowout of food, when we know we have eaten too much. I am talking about eating too much because we have emotional problems. We turn to food as though we might turn to smoking or drugs and alcohol. How does it harm us?
We first get the enjoyment of eating the food, and usually it will be high fat foods we crave. Then we feel guilty afterwards and wish we had not done that. Then we might feel sick or even make ourselves sick and feel worse than ever. And then, the next time we feel bad we do the same thing over and over again. Emotionally it harms us, and physically it harms us as too much high fat food is damaging to long term health. Our internal organs have to work even harder to digest and eliminate the food, and if we make ourselves sick our stomach, esophagus, throat and teeth are being harmed.
So we are self harming ourselves. There are ways to stop doing this and lead an easier peaceful life
