Miss Angel, 39, shares her experience of turning to food for comfort during a difficult time in her life during her early twenties.
-What would you define as mental health?
I wouldn’t know what to answer there. I think it’s really wide isn’t it? I think it can be from anything.
-Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?
From feeling sad, to even being euphoric because sometimes drugs can do that. It’s all mental health isn’t it because some people take drugs I can imagine to get high and that’s mental health because they’re doing it for a certain mind aren’t they? Some people get really down and they take anti-depressants to try and fix themselves.
-Are you saying that people ‘get high’ to affect their mental health?
I think it does, because if you’re taking drugs for a purpose, like eating food, that’s a sort of drug kind of. You take it for some sort of purpose. I’m an emotional eater, I know when I’m sad I want to eat food and that will cheer me up.
-So when you’re sad, you want to eat food?
Yeah; whether I’m happy, I’m sad or whatever, something going on and I want to eat food.
-What would you say is your ‘go to’ comfort food or meal?
That’s really hard, I have so many. Cheese is up there at the moment. Steaks and lamb chops are my thing at the moment.
-Very interesting! So, going on from that, would you say you have a specific mental health experience that comes to mind?
Well I’ve had a food addiction forever. There was a time after all the deaths where I was just constantly eating. I remember one night, (there were two occasions I vaguely remember) I came into work and ate two slices of toasts and cup of tea and then I had biscuits and another cup of tea. Then around lunchtime and I was really full because of the biscuits but by this point I thought to myself what can I eat next? So I ended up having a chicken drumstick and I knew that I was eating but there was no, you know, feeling of being full? That wasn’t there at all. I just didn’t feel full and obviously I knew it was because I had a hole, an emotional hole, with that deaths and I was just trying to fill it with food but I just couldn’t feel full. I think it happened over a period of time, so it wasn’t even that one day I woke up and I was like ‘I am going to eat the world’ but it was that over a period of time, I was just eating more and more and more. I remember another time I was at home and I bought this Sainsbury’s lasagne, one of those family size lasagnes and garlic baguettes, obviously Coke and then a dessert. I finished the lasagne all by myself, finished the garlic baguette all by myself and whatever the dessert was I also ate that too. And I thought ‘this is quite a bit I’m eating’ but I still finished it, with a cup of tea (laughs).
-But did you end up feeling hungry afterwards?
Well the point is that I never felt hungry. I wasn’t eating because I was hungry. I was just eating.
-Did you ever question it at the time?
I must have done this for about six or seven years and ‘the drumstick’ and ‘the lasagne’ were the only two times I ever questioned it. Well, the two occasions I can remember. Even now I think to myself, well this isn’t right is it?
-Did you ever break the habit?
Well, you know I tried the whole ‘going on diet’ but I never really stuck tom them. Well actually, during that period of six or seven years, no I didn’t and I was gaining weight. It was only when a work colleague said ‘you know you are gaining a lot of weight and eating a hell of a lot more than normal’ did I question it. Then from there I started trying, not a huge amount, but trying to do something to fix it. To try and work through it.
-How would you feel after you finished a meal?
You know the thing is, some people say 'after I eat I feel awful' or 'why did I do it, I feel disgusting'. I never felt that way. It just felt like somehow it filled up the hole that I had and then I just continued. It felt like there was a hole there and I was filling it with the food.
-Did you talk to anyone about it at the time?
The weird thing was I had a counsellor at the time but I never shared it with them. It never occurred to me to talk to her about the amount of food I was eating but then again, like I said to you, I can only remember questioning it on two occasions. So it's only when my friend said to me 'you are eating a hell of a lot' is when I really looked at it.
-At the time, what were you seeing a counsellor for?
It was more for the deaths than anything else. There was a whole year when I first moved out I had roast dinners every single night for the whole year because they were just a thing I loved. They were the things that I absolutely just adored (laughs).
-That's a lot of effort. Did you cook everything yourself?
No. At that time I didn't know how to make roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings properly so I turned to Aunt Bessie. I think at that time, the roast dinners were what I needed.
-Why?
There was something missing and I think I was still in trauma. I read this thing on Twitter recently about a young guy who was sharing his experience about grief. I don't even know if he'd lost anyone but he was saying 'you need to pick yourself up and need to focus on your life and get on with it’. No mate, grief is grief. Grief is something that is tragic, it hits you and it hurts you. And it effects people in very different ways and that's why some people turn to food, drinks, drugs or relationships, you know? It's something that causes a hole. You have a person in your life and that person goes and then you realise actually, there was something there; that link. Now it's missing and you can't just turn around and go 'oh I am going to pick myself up and carry on'. That's not normal. I mean in one sense you have to work or otherwise how are you going to afford to live, to eat and carry on with life but some people find it difficult to do that because the grief is so severe. I totally understand because everyone sees it differently and grief is one of the weirdest things in the world. You know it can break you and I know it has a few people but it takes a long time to get over that and some people turn to relationships for help. Somehow that does help them but I knew at that time that I was broken and I knew at that time that I was angry so I didn't want to get into a relationship so I could just to heal myself and f**k somebody else up. That's not the right thing to do.
-How old were you when it happened?
The whole deaths? So you're looking from the ages of eighteen to twenty-two. Three deaths.
-When did you start the developing an eating habit?
It started after my mum passed away and I moved out of the house so when I was around twenty-two years old. With the deaths before this, I had support to deal with the grief but it's only when that all went that I started to eat so much.
So I've been looking into eating habits - so we form habits and connections with our past experiences that occurred during our childhood and I know with my family, we were all about eating food when we were happy. They say that the only way you can stop this habit is by replacing it with something ‘non-food related’ but something just as good. That's the thing, finding something that I would enjoy to replace this is what I'm trying to figure out. When I'm sad how do I change my habits to something else that I like. If you can find something that isn't food, then it works.
After the first and second death, I remember I was eating a lot of crap and the third death just did it because I was paranoid that I was going to die or be the next one to die because three out of five family members, you know? I mean, it does have a huge effect on me mentally because I was lost for a very long time and then I remember my therapist used to tell me “you can’t see the woods from the trees because you are in the woods” and I totally understand it because I couldn't. I would wake up and wouldn't see the point of life. Like this is it, there is nothing else out there for me and it's just a black vortex. I remember one of my friends back then thought I was the Devil. She was a Christian and I was very good at just being pessimistic about life and how s**t it was. She used to tell me later on that she thought I was the Devil because she thought Satan came to test her. I thought to myself, what are you on about? I was just going through a depressive stage at the time that's all.
-Thank you for sharing this. You mentioned you felt paranoid after the deaths. Would you mind explaining what you meant by this?
Well, three people had died by that time and there were only five people in our family so I kept saying to my sister at the time “just be careful because it could be one of us next”. For about three years I was quite certain that one of us was going to die and it had to happen because the other three had gone so we were going to go one after the other. When I turned thirty-three or thirty-four years old, it stopped because that was the year my brother died so I thought “okay so I passed that age” and somehow in my mind I was like “well, I'm alright at the moment” but it took a long time to get to the point where I would think to myself “actually you're not going to die”. I was afraid that if I walked out on the road then I would get hit by a car or something like that. I mean, I know that eventually I was going to die, it's inevitable but it was not going to happen in the next year or so. It'll happen when it's going to happen.
-That’s a lot to process on your own.
It is but I'm kind of lucky I had a therapist. If I didn't have her then I think I would have been in a far worse state. I'm glad that I didn't go to abuse drugs or alcohol. Yes, I had a food addiction and yes I compulsively ate but that's still better than, you know, drugs and alcohol. I know they are all addictions but I think they would have been harder for me to get rid of if I had developed either one.
-Have you ever met anyone that's dealt with a similar experience?
There was a weird time that I met some guy that was a lawyer. So we were talking and I found out that his mum had passed away. This was maybe four years after it had happened to me and then shared with him that I think it's effected me in terms of the type of work I do. He told me the death didn't really effect him and I thought to myself, I’m sorry but this isn’t a competition. I also found out that he was in a long term relationship at the time and I was thinking to myself; mate, you've had support there anyways in terms of a long term girlfriend but I haven't had that so I don't even know why we are comparing. It really has had a major effect on my life but I'm not saying I would have been some sort of “superstar amazing person” right now but I think I'd be in a better job, maybe more grounded or have my own place but I have deep insecurities about buying a place. To even buy a car was a lot. Obviously it’s just a car but for me it was just too much. In terms of family, nobody had done that before and it was a huge commitment. Maybe there was that thing of say if I die, what's going to happen to the car? What does it matter what's going to happen to the car (laughs).
-Where do you think your insecurities stem from?
The deaths I think. I honestly think it effects every part of your life. Everyone is different but for me it's had an effect in every single part of my life. I feel like I'm ten years behind from where I should be. I had ideas of getting married, having kids and eventually buying my own place but then all these deaths happened and I went through a period of thinking “I'm going to die” so there was a focus on that and then a focus on “life is so shit”. It's taken me a long time to get out of that and when I met you, I was starting to get out of that. In effect I feel like I've wasted ten years of my life by going through depression, going through sadness; trying to get myself out of it and that's a long time. Maybe in those ten years I could have been productive. I beat myself and say “you are thirty-nine years old now and you haven't done anything” but then I think to myself be kind to yourself because in a way you're only twenty-nine years old if you take away those ten years, you know?
-So considering where you are now, would you say that these insecurities still have a hold on you?
Yeah. I think to some extent they do. I just can't commit to anything but I'd love to. Let me tell you about my car, you know I wanted a car and I didn't want to buy it at all. If my friend wasn't there at the time, then I wouldn't have bought it from the car showroom. If my friend wasn't there then I wouldn't have done it, I know this for a fact. I still needed that push.
-In terms of the insecurities, is it something you're trying to change? How do you approach it?
So at the moment, I'm only do one thing at a time. I can't do multiple things, so at the moment my focus is on my ketogenic diet so once it becomes a part of my lifestyle, then I will most probably look into the insecurities.
- I think we should close it there. First of all, I just want to say thank you for being so honest about your experiences and allowing me to share them on this platform.
No problem, it’s my pleasure.
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Beat is the UK’s eating disorder charity. Eating disorders are widely misunderstood and stigmatised illnesses so Beat work to change this at every level.
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