Lol. Me too. Its interesting.

The time stamp on your post says it was very early in the morning. I'm usually up with insomnia at 2 am too. I recommend meditating when the cravings come. This is absolutely the hardest time to do it. I get cravings when I am both trying to find comfort from some wound/pain just under the surface of consciousness. And I get them when I really do not want to feel this freaking pain. For me it's an avoidance tactic. I know sometimes pain is so relentless that it feels impossible to live with it, unless we can distract from it and give ourselves comfort. But I don't think the cravings will pass unless you figure out the very feelings you are avoiding. There is a time for everything. Sometimes life is just barely safe enough to challenge compulsions and learn about ourselves and sometimes life does not feel safe nor secure enough for the challenge. When you have to have cheese, my favorite is Gorgonzola with a fresh Gala apple, but that's just me.

Sometimes very specific cravings (as opposed to just having the munchies) reflect the body's need for some (possibly obscure) nutrient.

Food cravings in pregnancy are so widely known, and are often tied to a nutritional need of the mom or fetus.

My ex-husband, as a young child craved dirt and would sneak outside and eat it. When he kept doing this his mom took him to the doc and discovered he had a mineral deficiency. When he started taking mineral supplements, he lost interest in dirt.

A specific food craving could also be symbolic, on some level we associate that food item with comfort or a happy time etc. We all talk about comfort food. And what brings comfort obviously varies among people.

You've been through a lot lately, maybe this craving you're having is a form of self-soothing or etc. I would cut yourself some slack about it. Liking something a lot may be a good thing for you at present..

I heard on some tv show a few weeks ago that cheese has some sort of chemical that is like a drug that makes us feel good.
Just found this when i googled it:
"When we eat cheese, molecules of casein (milks primary protein) are broken down and digested by our stomachs and intestines, and this action releases tyrosine for absorption into our bloodstreams. Casein is also broken down into a feel-good chemical called casomorphin, which is an opioid (in the same family as morphine and heroin) and likely accounts for the addictive properties of cheese." from www.thecheesehaus.com

I tend to crave sugar, starch and chocolate...
At one point I had full-blown Binge Eating Disorder-I was 16 and weighed 320 pounds. My happy pills helped.

letitibe's past about how cravings can be about real physical deficiencies rings true for me. I found out 18 months ago that I was diabetic in addition to having PTSD. So I have sugar highs and lows I now monitor with self-administered blood sugar tests throughout the day.

Now that I'm mindful of blood sugar, I can see how sugar ups and downs made me feel emotionally, realize it was always thus. As a diabetic I am only more extreme in this, but our physical presence/absence of elements in our bloodstreams affect us all the time.

That's why I'm realizing it's good to eat a regular intervals, and to eat foods that are good for us, just the basic food groups. Cheese is in one of them, and then there are veggies and fruits, which I now eat more of than carbs. I don't have sugar crashes hardly ever any more, like from skipping lunch because I'm too busy. And I eat at least one salad per day. Now I feel emotionally better more often, too.

Have you had anxiety by chance? There is some evidence to suggest that anxiety triggers low blood sugar. Low blood sugar makes your hunger intensely strong.

You also may want to have your doctor check your blood sugar levels to ensure it is not something else causing the problems like diabetes.

Never hurts to check when things like this change rapidly.

While you are there it might not hurt to get your hormone levels checked. Stress can cause women to go into menopause and hormone levels to drop off.

I'm diabetic too. I think what Mujica said is exactly right but I would add to it that I think our mind and body interplay on each other. I have noticed major upsets hike my blood sugar when I haven't eaten. I have found myself very upset when my blood sugar is too low and I'm too hungry. I think it's a cyclical affect-and-reaction interplay between mind & body. It's important to eat healthy and in a stable routine. It's very important to nurture physical body as well as PTSD mind. It all works together and requires as much balance as we can create.