Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] Hey. Hey. Welcome back. And welcome to the latest episode where we are going to talk about why food can become so sooth during a toxic relationship. This is something where the more women that I talk to around food and body image and weight and their long history with struggles with that as like an afterthought or something that comes out later down the road is also this toxic relationship. And it also works in reverse. The women who find me because of their toxic relationship or they're unsure if they want to stay or if they should leave their marriage or if they are post toxic relationship, they're working on their healing journey and trying to figure out who they are, what they want, what is it that they want to do with their lives and moving forward. And then, oh, yeah, by the way, they also want to stop emotionally eating and lose 30 pounds. It's like no matter how or where people find me, these two are so connected. And I want to talk about why. Because it's not that we always start emotionally eating in a toxic relationship, but I think it's a very easy place and an easy pattern for it to happen. Sometimes it starts afterwards, but the dynamic is still the same.
[00:01:31] So we need to understand that food is not randomly soothing. This is not an anomaly. This is definitely not a coincidence. When I started really waking up and noticing how it works both ways, it doesn't matter which one somebody comes to me for, it almost always comes out that they are wrestling with both. And if it's not with food, it's typically with alcohol. But when you're in a toxic relationship, food can provide something that is so safe and predictable. And I think that's often when we are in toxic relationships, one of the key aspects is unpredictability. It's somebody's unpredictable mood, their unpredictable emotions, their unpredictable outbursts. And so we crave that predictability.
[00:02:16] That's what we really want. We want predictable love. And that's why the love bombing, I think in the beginning can feel so soothing. Because we didn't get emotional needs met as a kid. We often felt abandoned, shame, unloved, unwanted. And so to find somebody where they have this really big, intense love for us, where initially it feels predictable, we're like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. I finally found my prince Charming.
[00:02:42] But beyond that, when we really look at food now as being predictable, it creates that rapid, reliable, effective sense of relief. It creates joy and pleasure, comfort, distraction. It helps you to numb out, to avoid the bad parts, and to bring the pleasure, joy, excitement, the fun. It brings a very predictable source of something good. And this is why food can easily become the highlight of your day.
[00:03:10] Because we know what to expect, we know what comes with it, and so often, sugar can do that for us. Sweets can do that for us. That's why I'm specifically talking about sugar cravings at 8pm in this upcoming masterclass, because that is so often what we're wrestling with. But it's not the sugar, and it's not because we're addicted. It's that our brain has simply learned. When I eat something sweet, I feel good, I feel better, I get a sense of relief. I get that hit of dopamine. And that's what your brain is really seeking, because it's hardwired to seek extra dopamine because of the dysfunction that you grew up with and the dysfunction you may be living with in a toxic relationship as well. So now our brains are heightened to seek out extra. And because food is so easily available, because you can get it at the gas station, at a fast food restaurant, in a vending machine, at grocery stores, it's relatively inexpensive for the most part. But you can get that pleasure and relief almost any time of day, literally 24 hours a day. Whether you've hit that 2pm slump at work, or you're wanting a little pick me up on your way home, or you're running your kids around town and you finally get a little me time at the end of the night, or you're on a road trip, or you're flying and you're traveling somewhere, it is all around us.
[00:04:31] And one of the questions that we can really explore is like, okay, so why do we need so much relief?
[00:04:37] And really, the answer I see here, there's two parts of it. On one hand, it's because you're spending an enormous amount of time and energy managing your emotional environment.
[00:04:47] So you're managing everyone else's emotions so that you can feel calm, loved, regulated.
[00:04:54] You learn to manage your partner's mood reactions, conflict, disappointment. You learn to manage their unpredictability.
[00:05:01] And so you are trying to say the right thing, do the right thing, walk on eggshells, not wake the bear, not poke the beast. And because you knew how to do this growing up with a parent or a Caregiver. It's almost like it's second nature now in a romantic relationship or maybe even with friends or in your work environment.
[00:05:23] Now add to that you have kids who are literally trying to do this for the very first time, and they're looking to you and maybe your spouse to help them regulate and learn how to regulate, but they don't really know how to. They are very dysregulated, and they rely on us to help them calm.
[00:05:39] But now you're getting dysregulation from all sides, right? It could be your spouse or your ex, it might be your kids. And then as you wake up, it's like, now we see it with friends, with religious communities, maybe coworkers, your boss.
[00:05:53] And really what happens is ultimately, I have a lot of compassion for these people because this is coming out because they are emotionally immature, they're emotionally stunted, and typically that's due to trauma. So we can have a lot of compassion for them. Let's put your kids to the side because they're just learning how to do this for the first time. They're doing their best and trying, and they need somebody to guide them. They need somebody to teach them.
[00:06:14] And that's why it can feel like a lot. That's why, see, single parenting can feel so much. It can feel so draining and so hard at times because you're not just learning how to re regulate yourself after a lifetime of dysregulation, but you're also trying to help these little humans that you gave birth to or that you now are in charge of. It's helping them to regulate their emotions as well and to do it in healthy, proper ways. We seek relief because we are spending so much time, energy, bandwidth, trying to manage everybody else's emotions and keep the peace.
[00:06:51] And then we now add to it the second layer of As a kid, you learned that your emotions were not safe, so you learn to stuff your emotions not because emotions are inherently dangerous, but because you learned that certain emotions come with consequences.
[00:07:07] And this often gets reinforced as we grow up. Or maybe it's in your marriage or in that dating relationship.
[00:07:14] It's like the same experience you had as a kid just gets reinforced.
[00:07:19] And so this is why we learn to stuff our emotions. A lot of times it's like, I don't have time to deal with my emotions if I'm trying to manage everybody else's.
[00:07:28] And the other thing is, ultimately we learned that emotions are unsafe because emotions came with consequences.
[00:07:36] So anger might lead to conflict.
[00:07:39] And because the issue or Conflict is always your fault. You learn just to stuff it down.
[00:07:45] Why bring it up when it's just gonna get put back on you, right? Like, you learn to stuff the anger, to avoid the conflict, to avoid working through anything so that you can avoid the shame or guilt. Because if it's always coming back on you and you are always the problem, you're always the issue, it's like, why bother?
[00:08:03] Why would I do this?
[00:08:04] Like, why would I bring something up with my spouse if he's just gonna flip it back on me? And I'm the problem now? I stop bringing things up because it does me no good. All we do is we fight. We don't get anywhere, and it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall.
[00:08:19] You might have learned that sadness or tears trigger their anger or their outburst.
[00:08:26] Maybe you also get accused that you're trying to manipulate them with your emotions or with your crying, which I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but that came up in my marriage where my ex said he yelled at me to stop crying and stop trying to manipulate him with my tears.
[00:08:42] And really I was crying because I had emotions and those emotions needed to move and go somewhere. But because of that, I tried so hard in the future not to cry, to just keep stuffing it down.
[00:08:56] Which is no wonder why I kept binge eating. Right? Of course I'm looking for relief, because tears are a normal human response and it's how your nervous system re regulates.
[00:09:08] So in my world, we do not apologize for tears.
[00:09:12] But this is something that even as a kid, we learn that tears come with consequences. If I'm crying and I'm upset and my parent doesn't know how to handle their emotions, nor can they help me manage mine, what do they do? Maybe they send me to my room.
[00:09:29] They don't teach me how to regulate myself. They don't teach me how to handle, how to process. They don't give me a hug, they don't sit with me through it. All they do is send me to my room. So what I learn is that my sadness or my tears, my negative emotions, will ostracize me from my community.
[00:09:48] It makes me feel unloved, I feel unwanted, I feel abandoned. I am no longer allowed to be a part of the group, a part of the tribe, and on a very primal level, that's very scary.
[00:09:59] The other thing that you might have learned if you were crying, it was, stop your crying or I'll give you something to cry about.
[00:10:07] So we learn we are not allowed to Express our emotions to show our emotions, or we are not allowed to show certain emotions.
[00:10:16] We can be grateful for them, maybe we can love them, but how dare we feel upset? How dare we feel disappointed?
[00:10:25] I don't know if you've ever experienced this with disappointment because your disappointment might trigger their criticism.
[00:10:31] What do you have to be disappointed about? You should be more grateful for what I've given you. You should be happy with what you've got. You get shamed because you're disappointed instead of recognizing, I know you're disappointed, honey. It really sucks. I know.
[00:10:47] Sometimes we just have to sit with a disappointment.
[00:10:50] You might learn that your desires trigger shame, especially if they're desires that they don't think you should want or that you should pursue.
[00:11:00] So you get shamed for wanting more. You get shamed for wanting something different or wanting something better.
[00:11:07] There is coercive control and manipulation and once again, things get twisted around and you learn you're not allowed to have this want to have this desire. I think this is part of why so many women wrestle with figuring out what they want.
[00:11:21] So many women have a hard time identifying and acknowledging what they even want, let alone creating a path to get there.
[00:11:29] Or maybe you learned that when you're stressed, it triggers shame, guilt, a condescending attitude. And this I experienced a lot in my marriage. I don't know if I experienced the stress piece as a kid as much, but I would feel stressed and then my ex would shame me for it. He'd be like, what do you have to feel stressed about? You're so ungrateful. How in the world can you be stressed when I give you such a good life? Women would kill for your life. Women would kill to be married to me. You're so ungrateful. It's like everything got twisted around on me just because I was having a human emotion.
[00:12:04] One of the other ones that I think can sink in is like, why can't you just be happy with what you get?
[00:12:09] Anytime we're disappointed or we're upset or we're stressed, it's like, why can't you just be happy with these breadcrumbs? Why can't you just be happy with what you get? And this can come in marriage. It could come with childhood. And I don't know if you remember this phrase as a kid of, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. We learn and we have these little chants, these little phrases to reinforce that we are not allowed to feel disappointed if we don't get something that we want or if we get something that we don't want.
[00:12:35] It's subtle, but it seeps in everywhere. And there's a difference between throwing a fit or throwing a tantrum or having a complete meltdown and also acknowledging, oh yeah, this is not what I wanted. I really wanted the blue popsicle. I did not want the red one.
[00:12:50] But we get shamed into, how dare you not want this red popsicle. How dare you want the blue one instead?
[00:12:57] It's like it could be simple, small little things and yet it gets used against us. Why? Because we grew up with caregivers who did not know how to manage their own emotions.
[00:13:08] We grew up with emotionally stunted 6 year old kids running around in 40 year old bodies.
[00:13:15] For some of our parents, they did the best that they could. They were kids themselves when they had kids and they probably had no business raising kids at that point, but they did the best that they could. They tried to make the right decision, but inevitably one of them was most likely very narcissistic.
[00:13:32] And so what we find too, especially with this phrase of you get what you get and you don't throw a fit, is that it came from someone who didn't know how to regulate their own emotions and so they needed you as the kid to stuff yours down so that they could feel okay.
[00:13:49] It's this over responsibility. This is why it's generational cycles of trauma. This is why despite our best efforts, we keep getting into these relationships, we keep replaying out these dynamics, even if on a conscious level we're trying not to.
[00:14:05] But the other way that it came up, and I think that it comes up a lot with romantic partnerships and marriage, is that saying no or saying not tonight will trigger their withdrawal or the silent treatment or maybe even some form of coercive control?
[00:14:20] Maybe they say things, well, I guess you don't love me if you're not going to sleep with me tonight. Like, well, I guess you just don't love me. I guess I'm just this horrible monster that you're not attracted to.
[00:14:30] If you loved me, you would say yes. If you really loved me, you would give me what I want.
[00:14:36] And really there's this subtle sense of if you really loved them, you would give them whatever they want, whenever they wanted it and however much they wanted. It's very selfish.
[00:14:47] And when we look at these romantic relationships and where sex comes into play in any sort of emotionally abusive relationship, I guarantee there was also sexual abuse because it wasn't always safe emotionally to say no.
[00:15:02] That's the worst part of all of this, because we learn that emotions aren't safe. And I think this is my big takeaway. The big reason why I left is because I also recognized that so many of my patterns I learned as a kid, which meant I need to be so cautious not to subject any of my kids to this type of dynamic.
[00:15:24] I left and I divorced for my son because I wanted him to grow up better than I grew up. I wanted him to grow up at least part of the time, living in an emotionally healthy environment.
[00:15:36] I hope that he is going to be able to break cycles faster than I was.
[00:15:41] But this is where we really want to recognize the impact of your staying in that toxic relationship has on your kids.
[00:15:51] And I don't say this to shame you or to beat you up in case you stayed longer because you didn't see it for what it was.
[00:15:57] But when you do see it, the question now becomes, okay, why am I not getting out? Why am I not seeking support?
[00:16:05] What's getting in the way?
[00:16:07] And I think a lot of times there's this fear, especially for women, but maybe with men as well. But I hear it the most from women who say they're afraid of breaking up the family or they're afraid of blowing up the family, and they're really afraid of how they might be seen as the villain and the bad guy by their kids. They're really afraid of their kids blaming them.
[00:16:30] But we don't always stop to think about what it's like to grow up in this environment.
[00:16:35] Because I wish my parents would have gotten divorced when I was a kid. I really do. I wished, I hoped, I felt so much shame and guilt over that, too. But I wish they would have divorced then.
[00:16:47] I did not like growing up with an emotionally neglectful and emotionally abusive stepparent. That was not a fun experience.
[00:16:55] And we don't always realize or we don't always think about what they're learning, what they're internalizing, and what they now are unfortunately doomed to recreate. Because four out of five children who grow up in abusive homes either become abusers or they marry abusers.
[00:17:14] Four out of five, that's 80%.
[00:17:17] This is an important thing that we recognize because I think for a long time the narrative was, you stay for the kids. And I think we're getting to a point where we're starting to acknowledge that the inverse is true, that we actually have to leave for the kids and for their emotional health and for their physical health because of the way that complex trauma damages the body. From the inside out. It literally kills you from the inside out.
[00:17:45] We just can't see it until it shows up as an autoimmune condition, as some sort of diagnosed health condition. And even then, we're typically not tying it to the emotional abuse and the trauma.
[00:17:57] But what we learned here, the growing up in this type of dynamic, is that emotions aren't safe. You might have also been told that you can't trust your emotions, you can't trust your memory, you can't trust your perception, and you definitely cannot trust your emotions.
[00:18:11] And this is where food becomes really interesting, because food gives you a way to change your internal state quickly, and it gives you a predictable way to change it quickly.
[00:18:22] So instead of sitting with that anger, you eat. Instead of the loneliness, you eat. Instead of the anxiety or the overwhelm or the emptiness, you eat not because you're broken, because it works, at least temporarily.
[00:18:38] So beyond looking at what am I feeling and being able to identify what am I feeling, we actually need to look at what is eating doing for me that I haven't learned to do another way.
[00:18:51] That is an essential piece that we look at if we want to really address our dysfunctional relationship with food or alcohol, or if we want to really understand how and why we keep getting into these dysfunctional relationships with people.
[00:19:04] We have to look at what is this doing for me that I haven't learned to do another way.
[00:19:10] This becomes the work that we need to do because it's not just food, it's not just alcohol, but it's also not just leaving that toxic relationship. Because even for the people who leave, they're often still reaching for food, for comfort food, for pleasure food to be the highlight of their day.
[00:19:28] And this is what we want to address and what we have to really get to the heart of so that we can really get to the root and change and transform the root issues, not just these surface layer aspects.
[00:19:40] So if you find that you are wrestling with cravings, especially cravings for sweets at night, I'm hosting an all new masterclass that is designed to help you better understand what is actually happening and how to break free. And I'm going to walk you through my process and teach you exactly what that looks like. Because it is much simpler than we realize. But we keep trying to solve our cravings and our emotional eating as if it's a food problem. So we keep making the solution be something about, well, I have to remove the food, take away the food, limit the food, we make food the solution. Instead of recognizing that Food is doing something for you.
[00:20:18] So rather than taking it away, we need to understand what it's doing for you and then learn how to do that for ourselves.
[00:20:25] It's looking at what brings you little bits of joy and pleasure, how you can create more fun. And sometimes it means we have to try new things. We have to get outside of our comfort zone. We have to be willing to feel a little awkward and uncomfortable, y'. All. I went line dancing. Oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm gonna tell you this story and then we're gonna cut it for today. But I went line dancing this past weekend, and it was like hip hop line dancing to hip hop music. It was the coolest line, I swear. This was not real line dancing. This was.
[00:20:52] This was some kind of combo. But it was so fun. And so I jumped into a couple of songs and I was terrible. It was not good. I did not know the steps, and the instructor was next to me and he was trying to tell me what we were doing, when and everything. He did a really great job.
[00:21:06] But I just felt like I had two left feet. And I was like, you know what? That's okay. I'm gonna get better and better. But I had to be willing to feel awkward. I had to be willing to look stupid, to look dumb, to feel like I don't know what I'm doing or I can't get my body to do that as fast as you and to not give up and to be willing to still enjoy the process.
[00:21:26] Now, maybe for you, it's not dancing. Maybe it's art, maybe it's theater. Maybe there's something else. Maybe there's an athletic event or something sporty that you wanna do, give yourself permission to do that, to try it, to have fun.
[00:21:41] This is what we need to do when we create a life full of fun, joy, pleasure, relaxation. We're no longer seeking it at the bottom of a box of cookies. We're no longer seeking it at the bottom of a bag of chips. As I am teaching what is actually happening and what we need to work on. Part of it is working on allowing ourselves to feel certain emotions. But the other part of it is also looking at how do we make life more fun and enjoyable so that food's not the highlight of my day, this becomes our work. And if you would like a process and a system for how to do this and how to do it well, how to do it so that you can stop emotionally eating and stop binge eating for good, so that you can really focus on meeting your own internal emotional needs so that you're also not seeking them in. Toxic Partners Moving forward, I can help you. The link to register is going to be in the description. Make sure you come and join me. If you are an emotional eater or binge eater or you find that you are constantly in toxic relationships, you do not want to miss this.
[00:22:41] All right, y' all have a fabulous week. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:22:51] If this episode resonated with you, it's time to break free from destructive cycles around food, alcohol and toxic relationships. Your next step?
[00:23:00] Book your free Break the Cycle call where you'll finally see why your binge eating and relationship patterns are so deeply connected and how to break free from both for good.
[00:23:11] You'll walk away with fierce clarity and a game plan to step into a life full of fun, adventure and self love. Grab your spot now at www.bodyyoucrave.com VTC.
[00:23:26] It's time to break the cycle. I'll show you how.
