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.
And I thought I had it bad :) I get really cranky & bitchy when I don't get my food. Something that Daniel never gets because he (just like Nikolai) can have only one meal a day - dinner!
ReplyDeleteSame with my husband. I don't get this all the time, not even each time I'm hungry. But when I do get this, yes it is bad and ugly.
ReplyDeletegreat post. I happen to have the same, just in a more mild version. But I do get unpredictable and cranky. Food is a blessing, from got or whoever wants to give it to me.
ReplyDeleteThank you!Yes, food is a blessing, and also it is delicious, healthy and colorful!
ReplyDelete