Geneen Roths book, When Food is Love

This was just so moving for me... thought it might be for others! If you are looking for help with the head stuff,  Geneen Roths book, When Food is Love, and many of her others are a wonderful tool to go with your pouch/sleeve/band tool ************************************************When Food is Love ****************************************************************************** (p 18-19) Compulsion is despair on the emotional level. Compulsion is the feeling that there is no one home. We become compulsive to put someone home. All we ever wanted was love. We didn’t want to become compulsive about anything. We did it to survive. We did it to keep from going crazy. Good for us. Food was our love; eating was our way of being loved. Food was available when our parents weren’t. Food didn’t get up and walk away when our fathers did. Food didn’t hurt us. Food didn’t say no. Food didn’t hit. Food didn’t get drunk. Food was always there. Food tasted good. Food was warm when we were cold and cold when we were hot. Food became the closet thing we knew of love. But it is only a substitute for love. Food is not, nor was it ever, love. Many of us have been using food to replace love for so many years that we no longer know the difference between turning to food for love and turning to love for love. We wouldn’t recognize love if it knocked us over. Not because we are ignorant but because if we’ve never been loved well, we don’t know what love feels like, what love is like. And it follows that if we have not been loved well, we cannot love ourselves well. Compulsive behavior, at its most fundamental, is a lack of self-love; it is an expression of a belief that we are not good enough. (p 20) I know this is going to sound corny, but I think what I am afraid of is not being good enough. That something deep down is wrong with me and that I am not worth loving Food and love. We begin eating compulsively because of reasons that have to do with the kind and amount of love that is in our lives or that is missing from our lives. If we haven’t been loved well, recognized, understood, we arrange ourselves to fit the shape of our situations. We lower our expectations. We stop asking for comfort. We stop expecting to be met. And we begin to rely on ourselves and only ourselves to provide sustenance, comfort, and pleasure. We begin to eat. And eat. ****************************************************************** end ************************************************************************************** Of course we are all different... and have different food issues... but this... well, I read it while I was sitting in the car waiting for hubby to come out of work and had the tears just a rolling down my face! I have so many issues hung over from my 1st marriage... And this hit so many of them dead center!
 
edit: someday I'm going to post something that does NOT have typos! LOL! (but not today )