Food withdrawal syndrome

Funny thing, hunger. Makes you behave in a totally weird and illogical ways. I don’t know if anybody has this as bad as I do. People with diseases like diabetes, probably. But I do not have diabetes nor, to any of my knowledge, any metabolism-related disease. But when I’m hungry, I do strange things. When I’m hungry, I’m angry. So I thought I’ll write about this thing I have, this thing that I call food withdrawal syndrome.

See, everybody gets hungry once in a while. And mostly, if they can’t eat at the moment, they will resist the urge to eat, and eat something later, without any consequences. Only after they haven’t eaten for a few hours, they start to feel something. My husband can go a day without food. But me? NO.

The reason I call this food withdrawal syndrome is because my syndromes will not be so different to those shown by drug addicts when they couldn’t get their fix. So what does happen to me? I can go from OK to freaking starving in seconds. No “I think I might eat something” to “I’m a little bit hungry” to “I’m very hungry” to “I’m going to kill you if you won’t give me something to eat NOW”. See, I just pass the middle stages and go straight for the killing- you- stage.

I might have a nice conversation with you one second, and the next second I’ll be staring hollow-eyed at the wall because my head is spinning and I’m seeing dark spots in front of my eyes. I might get dizzy and nauseous. My thoughts disappear save for the one: “FOOD”. Or I might start yelling at you TO GIVE ME SOMETHING TO EAT.

People have been shocked by the change in my behaviour when this happens. And it happens without warning. See, my parents actually know that I’m hungry and they know that when I get food, I’ll be back to nice and normal. My brother is actually the same. But imagine me, sitting with my in-laws and I suddenly leash out on everybody just because I went too long without food. And usually, I am such a gentle, well-behaved person. But when hunger hits me, I want to hit someone, just anyone, except for the person who brings me food.

I could never take the glucose intolerance stress when I was pregnant. Just the thought of going somewhere without breakfast and take that gross shot of sugar made me dizzy. And when I actually did go to take that test, I did get dizzy and nauseous and sick. The doctor saw this and we decided that we won’t do this test. Speaking of pregnancy, the only time when I actually could go longer stretches without the need to kill out of hunger was when I was pregnant. Might be that the no-body-fat-theory is actually right.

Other than that, the food withdrawal hits me bad.  I feel my cognitive abilities shutting down, one system after the other: thinking, moving, talking, understanding. When somebody starts talking to me, all I hear is “blah blah blah blah”. I might understand sentences like: “This is your food”, or “You can eat now”, but no more. I go into survival mode, with the only possible movement possible being lifting a fork and a knife to eat. Funny that I don’t fancy sugar at this point, I want a whole meal. Snacking won’t help. Eating more at meals won’t prevent it. Eating more often might but I never know because it sometimes happens even if I just ate 3 hours ago.

But funny things happen when I eat. See, I don’t drink much save for the occasional drink with my mommy friends. I don’t smoke cigarettes, nor do I do drugs. But I think I'm the only person who can get high on a chicken curry. I can feel the nutrients from the food enter my bloodstream, and I totally space out. Talking to me would be wrong at this point. No, I am not interested in how your day went because I am eating and doing two things at the same time is just so difficult. And when I’m done with eating, I am tired but happy and feeling like a human being again.