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FRIDAY, MAY 07, 2010

It's doubt that makes you eat too much

In the last few blogs I ‘ve tried to illustrate the various major themes underlying the emotional eating pattern, which as you know, I believe is the biggest single cause of obesity. We looked at how marriage makes you eat, then how defiance and rebellion makes you eat. Today I want to write about how doubt makes you eat.

Of course none of these actually MAKE you eat. Instead, each of them tempt you to respond by eating because each in their own way make you feel temporarily powerless. And Overeating temporarily relieves you of that awful feeling.

The doubt I am talking about is not doubt about whether something is true or not. It is not doubt about another person’s motives or interests. It is not doubt about how the world works or whether god exists. It’s doubt about your own self worth.
[more]
What is it we doubt about ourselves?

We doubt whether we are good enough; whether we are a fake or not; whether we love enough; whether we are smart enough, or pretty enough, or strong enough, or perfect, or talented, or ambitious enough; or kind enough, or too jealous or too competitive, or not a good enough daughter or sister. There is no end to this list.

When we doubt ourselves, we are measuring ourselves, and comparing ourselves to some standard. The standard we use is the critical factor that divides self doubt into two halves. One half is good useful doubt. The other half is destructive and corrosive self doubt. Good doubt does not make you eat. Destructive doubt makes you eat because, if you are an emotional eater, you don’t know any other way to get away from its hold on you.

Good doubt is helpful because the standard that is used is based in reality. It is time limited, temporary and reasonable. It serves a good purpose. It’s okay to watch and measure yourself as a serious student, or a good enough mother or a kind enough person. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and becoming better at something by recognizing you could do more or put in more effort is a healthy way to approach life. Measuring your weaknesses or weak commitments to certain goals and making changes you decide are right for you is a process that takes place in real life. It takes place over time, allows for lapses and sprints, time outs for leisure and fun, the right to change your mind and shift interests, and all the other things that most human beings do as they figure out how to spend their time and energy in life. Good doubt is an essential part of ongoing intelligent decision making.

Bad doubt is exactly the opposite. It is anchored in some station inside your mind that is disconnected from the processes of daily life. Perfectionism captures the essence of the bad doubt that makes you eat. Since it’s impossible to be human and be perfect, perfectionism is an impossible standard to meet. That’s why bad self doubt is so corrosive. It is endless.
In fact, you could almost say that once you have established a deep self doubt based on impossible rigid standards disconnected from reality, that you grow this self doubt every day, and unwittingly strengthen the self doubting, self accusatory part of yourself.

I once treated a woman who had been repeatedly told she was stupid by her father. She was telling me about how she became an accountant, and how that proved to her that she was really stupid. She took night school classes and graduated at the top of her class despite the fact that she was 40 years old, raising a child, working full time in a clerical position, and English was her second language.

I asked her how that success story was evidence that she was stupid? Well, she said, “I am hard of hearing so I had to sit in the front row but I didn’t hear everything the teacher was saying so I may have missed things.” I was stunned. She overcame even another hardship which only further demonstrated her native intelligence and she turned it into false evidence to fit the label her father gave her 35 years before. If she wasn’t perfect, i.e. knew everything the teacher said, then she must be stupid.

If you already have the emotional eating habit, you will have to feed yourself plenty of food to suffocate or stuff down that self doubting, self accusatory voice you hear in your head.
When you eat like that to push away your self doubt, you create a new self doubt to add to the pile. You doubt your will power or your resolve to control your weight. You accuse yourself of all kinds of character defects when the compulsion to drown out one self doubt becomes the next layer of, and evidence for, the self doubt related to your eating and your weight.

This will cascade until you find relief in a new and better way to understand and resolve what is happening to you. I continue to be amazed on how hard we are on ourselves and how painful that is, and how absolutely unnecessary it is. That’s why we spend so much time in the Shrink Yourself program on helping you work on, and work out, your old self doubts.

If you decide to comment on today’s blog, please share with others the self doubt label you acquired sometime in your life, and whether you have mastered it or are still struggling with it.

POSTED BY !DR. GOULD! | 1:14:16 PM

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20 COMMENTS

￬￻ said...

I have too many self doubts also. Others did not really put this on me. I just grew up in a very critical family. I doubt whether I can be a good manager at work or whether I'm a fraud. I criticize myself for being disorganized at home. I've actually been pretty successful and raised a good family but have a hard time turning off the doubts

Millie said...

I can hear my father's voice in my head, "You're never satisfied." And so I am not. I'm a perfectionist and never satisfied with anything. I don't know if he said this often or once, but it certainly made a lasting impression. It's a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" type of thing. Was I never satisfied which lead him to say this I was probably about 6 or 7 years old at the time or did his statement become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Juda Bacon said...

Please be gentle with yourselves I am saying this to myself too. The paradox as I see it, is that self doubt empties us of the fullness we need to feel after eating a healthy amount of food for the day. With the help of Shrink Yourself I am going to work on maintaining my emotional fullness every day. And if I miss a day do my best not to beat myself up. My gratitude to all.

Anonymous said...

I believe Jesus has forgiven me because He forgives so many others who have done so much more than I have. But can I find a Christian man who, being human and imperfect, will ignore my past and focus on the caring, loving, sympathetic Christian that others say I am today and who I don't believe!??? If I can't, then I am doomed to live my life alone or settle for somebody who isn't good enough for me, thus ensuring a life of unhappiness. How to erase my parents' tapes in my mind? The taunts of mean kids growing up? Mistakes I made due to being raised wrong, critically, and abused? Why do I always blame myself for everything when I was a child and not even able to defend myself or control my situation? Shouldn't I think myself fantastic just because I survived it all?!?!?!?! Where is the most self-doubt located: in "Me The Adult" OR "Me The Child"???? If I heal the child, will the adult be healed also? I have a great therapist, but the more I discover, the more I hurt sometimes! But I am staying away from the food with the help of my church involvement. "If you want to get out of the pit, you have to put down your shovel!" Or FORK!

Gina said...

Am I bad person, but it makes me feel better knowing what are other people doubts? Obviously, I have plenty of self doubts myself, but main one is whether I am lovable. Since childhood I never had anyone expressing that they care about me. They all did, but in their own way, it has rarely been simple "How are you?". As long as I was fed, I was meant to be ok. Therefore, simple caring scares me, I remember I got really panicky once, when I felt someone honestly caring about HOW I AM. I guess that's why I always doubt, whether I'm worth loving, especially by opposite sex. I fancy someone and then I find millions of reasons, why I'm not good enough: too fat, too boring, too serious etc. Or if things start moving forward, I find reasons to convince myself, that he doesn't really like me that much and there is no point of continuing as it's going to hurt much more later on. Then I end up feeling lonely and still longing to be loved. I try to convince myself that I'm wrong, but I still have that horrible feeling inside me. I'm simply lost.

SL said...

Oh TeresaB and Karen's statements so touch home with me as does this blog - it made me cry to think that since I was a child I have been full of perfectionist tendencies and south doubt/loathing. I see myself as dumb, ugly, fat and a pig. Yet I am much like the woman in the blog. I am 47 years old! Yet the imagery remains. I struggle constantly with realizing I don't have to do everything 'perfectly' I was a straight 'A' student despite a job, family, volunteering yet still felt that way - stuffed it over iwth food to stop the hurt and for the last 10 years have been trying to figure out how it all fits. I am better now - so much better! Yet still there is this small child hiding inside crying because someone called her a cootie bug, and she thought it was true. Thank you Dr. Gould. I neededhtis more than I needed a diet!

Karen B said...

jstango mentioned the word "fraud" and that resonated in me instantly. I am constantly doubting that I have the right to be where I am - career-wise in particular. I look around me and assume that my colleagues are all so much smarter than me, and better than me in what we do. Years of being told by my mother, in fits of rage, that I was stupid, no good, won't amount to anything sank in. They had to. I had no one telling me otherwise. What alarms me is that I can "know" these things, yet not change them ... yet.

Anonymous said...

this is it for me. i doubt myself into oblivion and then find myself needy and helpless because i dont trust that i can get myself out of a dark situation on my own account. i am not sure when i started doubting myself or what "label" it comes from. i think it is because when i was younger i did drugs and was not as "perfect" as my siblings who are always punctual, cheery, and in shape. it aggrivates me just to think that i have never seen either of my siblings show negative emotions. i screwed around as a teenager probably to rebel against the image of perfection that i have always felt was necessary to belong in my family. then two years ago i had cancer. i had to move back home and everyone was lovingly-ish focused on me. in order to live up to their focus i lost myself and moved toward their ideal image of me. in order to justify their concern and emotional investment i felt i needed to become perfect. i did survive cancer wohoo! but changed my entire life to fit their ideas and aspirations for me. no wonder i am not happy in my current life situation! and i still have that perfection part following me. in order to be a part of my family, who are the people that supported me while i was sick, i feel like i need to be perfect. it kills me. i kill me. all while knowing exactly how important and fragile life is. but the good new is- i didnt realize any of this before i began typing and as i frantically write this i feel pounds heavier and much more wise.......thanks Dr. Gould and the SY blog. insight will release us.

gusty said...

I waited until I was 40 for my mother to say she loved me, all my life I was the fat daughter and my sister was the pretty skinny one, my father abused me at 13 and all my life I have had bad relationships, today the self doubt rears its ugly head again when on mothers day, only 1 of my 4 kids came to see me, again I feel that I have failed and so it goes on......when will I be able to forgive myself and be happy, I am nearly 60 years old.......thank you for the opportunity to talk

lpk said...

There are so many harsh judgements of people all around us all the time for such trivia. It is difficult not to get caught up in it. I am recognizing it now and choosing not to participate. I will not judge others harshly for minor mistakes. This helps me treat myself more kindly too.

mary lillis said...

the bible says, "sow to yourself in righteousness, and reap in mercy---theres more but it's a good idea to love your self in the " right" way. mary

Anonymous said...

I doubt myself in so many ways- I feel I've screwed up life so many times that I am stuck in doubt that I can make positive and successful changes. I am afraid of making changes for fear I will fall flat on my face again. My mind goes through all the possible horrible outcomes my decisions might have. I really needed to read this today, because it's helping me to see that the only way out of this eating pattern is to start making changes- to address the real reasons I eat.

Lara said...

the answer to self doubt is self love...and not in overeating.

TeresaB said...

Overcoming my perfectionism has been a huge step for me and something I continue to work at. These days I'm much more comfy in my skin and not nearly as hard on myself as I used to be, but there are still pockets of self doubt to be addressed, "Bad mother" is a label I gave myself for shouting at the kids a little too often and is one that I have found hard to let go of, as well as a"lazy" label my Dad gave me over 25 years ago, which is a perfect excuse the pun! label to beat myself up with wheneer I feel my house isn't clean enough or I haven't got stuff done. Recently, rather than trying to get more done better, I have been concentrating on the art of self-acceptance, on getting comfy with NOT being perfect, with NOT feeling guilty for shouting at the kids or not getting stuff done. The weird thing is, the more I practise self-acceptance, the more I get done and the calmer I get! Being kind to myself and not beating myself up really seems to make me want to do stuff. I guess it's the old story that we all respond to love better than to hate - the carrot rather than the stick. So my advice is to quit perfectionism - there's no such thing - be kind and loving to yourself instead and if you can accept your "flaws" they really do become less of a problem. I still shout at the kids and wish I didn't, but I don't feel guilty about it, I just see it as A proof I'm human and not perfect and B work in progress - feedback so that I can do better next time, not failure!

J said...

So am I getting this correctly. we eat because we are trying to be perfect or because we are trying to control. I definitley say that I eat to much because I doubt that I can follow some really strict plan forever and so why bother?

y said...

We live in a Schizophrenic world and are constantly being bombarded with double messages and doubts so we'll buy more and more to make us 'perfect' as our parents before us bought into it. No one is perfect, everyone fails at something. No one likes everyone. No one gets it right all the time or is loved all the time. If only our culture was honest instead of trying to 'rob us' blind to fit corporate America's government agendas we'd all feel alot better about our selves that includes not dieting because you're 5, 10, 20 pounds overweight then putting on another 50 pounds because of the restriction. Good topics.

Keona said...

I doubt myself every day I am a true perfectionist, I have been this way forever and I will continue to struggle. But I will mske it!!

jstango said...

Shan's comments hit spot on with me. This week's topic of therapy was the mistakes I've made as a mother and my inability to stop beating myself up about it. Overall I'm a good mom but I ruminate over a couple of mistakes I made years ago. My daughter has moved past it, I have not. It feels like I have these dark spots at the core of who I am and if people knew about them it wouldn't matter what I've done well, they would know that I am a fraud.

Shan said...

just readiing Shirley's comment above stirred up my self doubt of whether I am a good enough parent. I wondered if I too had made my kids feel as though they were not good enough by my tendency to expect perfection from myself and others I think my most apparent self doubt label is that I often feel "unlikeable" and yes, I still struggle with this label and often find situations and examples mostly in the workplace to confirm thsi self doubt.

shirley61 said...

I started answering this blog and my self doubt got in the way because the first time writing, it sounded blah. So I started again. We can relate to this article because that is how we got here in the first place. We doubt ourselves all the time, my list is endless. As a child I thought I wasn't good enough, and I had a mother who after I did a chore would do it over because I didn't do it right. This self doubt and low self esteem followed to adulthood. Now still struggling with my self doubts and am I good enough syndrome. We are always working on getting passed the barrier of self doubt. As a member of this program it has opened up a lot of feelings and now I can try and deal with them. Thank you for this blog, I really needed to read it.

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