I think it’s really hard for people living without “food noise” to understand that food noise is real.
Like man, there’s pizza in the fridge and for hours ive denied myself the pizza but now the circular thinking feels like an anxiety attack, and if I just eat the fucking pizza, my mind will calm down. And so the pizza gets eaten. Then the food noise starts about the sugar cereal in the cupboard. It’s fucking wild.
And there’s finally super expensive medication that can help turn that food noise down and that would likely save people from early deaths, but it’s expensive and obesity is so stigmatized as a laziness/self-control problem that getting the medication brings connotations of its own.
Most people just don’t have food noise. And they dont understand what it is. 99.9% of the obese people you meet, if you asked them if theyd like to be instantly thinner would say yes, but there are legitimate health/mental health barriers to it that prevent them from losing weight in conventional ways.
As someone who has spent the vast portion of their life clinically underweight, oddly, I know exactly what you’re describing when you say “food noise”.
See, I don’t really get hungry like “normal” people do, I usually only realise I’ve not eaten when I get to the stomach cramps stage. Never have done. I assume it’s an artefact of my autism or ADHD. (No, it’s not the stims I take as meds either, I wasn’t diagnosed till I was 33.)
However, the latest attempt with Mirtazapine to treat the chronic depression has given me an insight I would have lacked otherwise. One of it’s side effects is an increased appetite, which manifests exactly how you describe it. Once the dose hits my system, I become very aware of everything in the kitchen, and my brain won’t STFU about it.
It’s real, and you’re not imagining it. Which is all I can offer unfortunately. It’s not much, but the validation can be important sometimes. 💛
I think it’s really hard for people living without “food noise” to understand that food noise is real.
Like man, there’s pizza in the fridge and for hours ive denied myself the pizza but now the circular thinking feels like an anxiety attack, and if I just eat the fucking pizza, my mind will calm down. And so the pizza gets eaten. Then the food noise starts about the sugar cereal in the cupboard. It’s fucking wild.
And there’s finally super expensive medication that can help turn that food noise down and that would likely save people from early deaths, but it’s expensive and obesity is so stigmatized as a laziness/self-control problem that getting the medication brings connotations of its own.
Most people just don’t have food noise. And they dont understand what it is. 99.9% of the obese people you meet, if you asked them if theyd like to be instantly thinner would say yes, but there are legitimate health/mental health barriers to it that prevent them from losing weight in conventional ways.
As someone who has spent the vast portion of their life clinically underweight, oddly, I know exactly what you’re describing when you say “food noise”.
See, I don’t really get hungry like “normal” people do, I usually only realise I’ve not eaten when I get to the stomach cramps stage. Never have done. I assume it’s an artefact of my autism or ADHD. (No, it’s not the stims I take as meds either, I wasn’t diagnosed till I was 33.)
However, the latest attempt with Mirtazapine to treat the chronic depression has given me an insight I would have lacked otherwise. One of it’s side effects is an increased appetite, which manifests exactly how you describe it. Once the dose hits my system, I become very aware of everything in the kitchen, and my brain won’t STFU about it.
It’s real, and you’re not imagining it. Which is all I can offer unfortunately. It’s not much, but the validation can be important sometimes. 💛