Even emotionally and physically healthy, well-intentioned parents can miss the mark if they themselves missed out on the right kind of emotional nurturance in infancy and childhood and failed to learn skills for caring for themselves and others. Milder forms of parental misattunement in early childhood, such as a regularly distracted or overwhelmed parent, can also affect a child’s brain development and result in behavioral challenges like eating disturbances.
Early in life, we may seek comfort, calming, and pleasure from external sources, like thumb sucking (I still have the bump on my thumb), favorite objects (I had a special doll that went everywhere with me), and favorite foods. Food is like medicine: it alters our brain chemistry and, like a thumb or favorite doll, it’s readily available, soothing, and predictable. But when we miss out on the right kind of emotional nurturance early in life, and routinely turn to external sources, we fail to develop optimal brain circuitry. And when our brains don’t develop properly, there is a high probability that our emotional life, thought processes, and behavioral patterns will be derailed. Rather than acquiring self-care skills that will last a lifetime, we end up with skill deficits that can have lifelong consequences.
Lacking appropriate self-soothing and comforting skills, we may have difficulty regulating our emotions, bodily sensations, impulses, thoughts, and behaviors. We are more prone to have difficulty focusing and concentrating and a limited tolerance for frustration. Perhaps we lack patience with ourselves and others. We may be hypersensitive, highly reactive, and lacking in emotional endurance and resilience. We may relate to others in immature ways. We may have trouble motivating ourselves. Basically, we grow up with an emotionally starved, very young inner child running our lives.
Stopping the Blame Game
This book is not about blaming parents and caregivers: parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Rather, it’s about understanding what you may have missed out on as an infant and small child and the effects this lack may have had on your brain development and ultimately on your eating behavior.
This is a sensitive subject, as parents, especially mothers, often feel blamed for not raising well-adjusted children. Parenting abilities, often passed down through generations, are limited by our own psychological issues, life circumstances, and challenges. In many cases, poor self-regulation is not necessarily the result of bad experiences in your childhood but rather of a lack of the sufficient nurturing, attuned experiences needed for optimal brain development. And if you had the misfortune of experiencing abuse, neglect, or loss at the hands of difficult and unkind caregivers, most likely they too were the victims of challenging early experiences. The blame game serves no purpose.
Growing and Strengthening Brain Circuits
When you understand how your brain works, you can learn to pay mindful attention, or become internally attuned, to your emotions, bodily sensations, needs, and thoughts. You can also learn to relate to yourself and others in ways that create and support healthy brain connections and facilitate learning and growth.
In this section of the book, you’ll discover
• why infants and small children need more than proper nutrition, safety, and secure shelter;
• why emotional nurturance is so critical when we are young;
• the importance of a secure attachment to one or more caregivers;
• how shame and criticism can lead to insecure attachments and chronic, lifelong states of shame;
• how early attuned experiences with our caregivers activate certain pathways in the brain, strengthen existing neural connections, and enable the forming of new connections;
• which parts of the brain are involved in self-regulation;
• why it’s never too late to strengthen connections and rewire the brain;
• which part of your brain is in charge when you have a strong urge to eat;
• why you often act before you think;
• how early relationships influence the development of the body’s system for regulating stress;
• how chronic high emotional arousal can tear down the body and result in a myriad of health challenges; and
• how even well-intentioned caregivers can fail to meet their children’s developmental needs.
Among the detailed cases that follow of clients struggling with overeating challenges, some may seem more relevant to your situation than others. It is, however, important to read them all carefully. Each case illustrates key concepts and principles that will facilitate your understanding of your own relationship with food as a source of comfort.
Even though your personal history is unique, you’ll find elements in these cases that you can relate to. Some of them may bring up unpleasant emotions and memories from your childhood. This is normal and to be expected. Be gentle and patient with yourself as you work through the book. Take it slowly; there is no rush. Hopefully, the path will be exciting and illuminating as you begin to see the pieces of your own emotional eating puzzle.
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
Children whose parents are reliable sources of comfort and strength have a lifetime advantage — a kind of buffer against the worst that fate can hand them.
— Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
I could tell when I entered the waiting room of my office that Liz was having a bad day. Her eyes were puffy, and her mascara was smudged. Usually she sat comfortably in the large, cushioned chair, distracting herself with her phone or a magazine. Today she was sitting on the couch, her body tense and rigid and her hands clasped tightly on the edge, like a bobcat ready to pounce. When her eyes met mine, her body softened, and she began to cry.
As we walked down the hall to my office, I could feel her desperation. On her drive home from work, she had an argument with her mother, and on her way to see me, she did something that she hadn’t done in six months. She stopped at her favorite donut shop and bought a coffee, four donuts, and two cream puffs. Only one cream puff was left in the bag. She had begun to lose weight in the past couple of months, and she was furious with herself for slipping back into old patterns.
Her mother, whom she described as a “controlling and domineering woman,” had offered to throw a fortieth birthday bash for her, and in trying to firm up the plans, Liz asserted herself and suggested a restaurant she liked. Her mother quickly dismissed her choice as too expensive. And she shamed Liz, accusing her of choosing “an overpriced hole-in-the-wall with fattening food that you don’t need to be eating.” Her mother continued the tirade by highlighting Liz’s high blood pressure and failed attempts at weight loss, reminding her that she wouldn’t have many birthdays left if she didn’t change her ways.
Even though Liz described feeling some anger toward her mother, the bulk of the feelings that came up as we discussed the conversation were about herself and about how she couldn’t ever measure up. Liz often doesn’t feel heard and understood by her mother, who regularly overreacts and dismisses, criticizes, or ridicules Liz’s feelings. As Liz put it, “My mother always wins every argument.”
These repeated misses in communication with her mother, which began as far back as Liz can remember, always leave her feeling bad about herself. Her mother’s support is unpredictable: at times she is very supportive, but at other times she can be highly critical. Liz personalizes these attacks, which leave her feeling ashamed, inadequate, unworthy, and lonely. She feels bad about her abilities to make “grown-up” decisions, ashamed of her body (she inherited