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hizgeorgiapeach -> RE: submissives and self-injury (7/4/2006 11:41:03 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sublizzie
quote:
ORIGINAL: hizgeorgiapeach
I have to wonder though, how many people would see issues like remaining overweight and smoking - which are known to potentially be self destructive - as simply another form of the same situation that we're discussing here. Obviously they can't be compared on some levels, and I'm Not intending to imply that they can, or to mitigate the seriousness of actions like cutting or burning. I am curious now, though, as to whether anyone happens to see a possible correlation between those two sides of things as inappropriate coping mechanisms.
Being overweight is not always something that is easily overcome. There's genetics involved. There's long-term habits, both physical and emotional, that are involved. There are a lot of things that can go into being overweight that are not necessarily about coping mechanisms. They could be but they aren't necessarily.
The same with smoking. It may be a coping mechanism or it may not be. I have a friend who was a smoker for years. When she quit she realized that her smoking wasn't merely a habit, it was something she truly enjoyed. She loved the hit of nicotine. She didn't use smoking to cope, it was something she did out of love. She quit out of love of self.
I actually brought up those potentials due to self examination.
I'm a smoker, and I've attempted to quit a few times in the past. The time I was most sucessful (came closest to actually putting them down for good) was while I was on a medication - developed as an anti depressant, but with the noted side effect of being effective in helping people stop smoking, so in the long run it quit being prescribed as an antidepressant and is now almost exclusively marketed as a stop smoking drug. That experience led me to start questioning whether the Physcial dependance on nicotene, and Enjoyment of smoking, didn't originally spring (at least in my own case) from smoking being a Relatively acceptable form of coping mechanism when I Started. (I've been a smoker for close to 30 years, and attitudes about it have changed Drastically over the past 3 decades!)
As far as the weight portion - I understand that one far to well. I'm not a Petite woman myself. Coming from a family that seems to gain weight if we even look crosseyed at a piece of food - yet for which food played a central role in all our family gatherings (weddings, birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, family reunions.. .even funerals) I have been asking myself much more frequently over the past couple of years (and especially today, while I thought about this thread relative to the family gatherings going on for the holiday) whether or not one of the Subconscious coping mechanisms I was taught wasn't to turn to food. Granted, things like childbirth, hormone changes, genetic influences, etc - they all play a part in how easy it is to gain and/or lose weight. The question is more a matter of speculation that perhaps we are Taught the habits that contribute to weight issues as an "acceptable" strategy to cope with the rest of life, without forethought to the problems that such subconscious strategies can induce.
Ticia, both you and Denika mentioned the love/hate relationship of the binge purge cycle, and that you both see food as a source of Comfort. Which, in the long run, I suppose could equate to Stress Relief. I have never been in a binge/purge, though I do understand the equating food to comfort - because of how my family treated holidays and social gatherings as an excuse for a giant buffet. Is it a spiraling problem? You eat to feel comforted, that causes weight gain (or other negative internal issues for yourself) ... only that leads to a "need" to purge... which creates it's own sort of stress, and back you go again to the binge portion?
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