Oh, definitely easier to eat when the food is just sitting there 24x7 in a handy fridge or cupboard, no doubt about that!
I'm going to go into 'amateur shrink' mode again - so be warned!! You say 'I want to be in control bveing being able to let someone else into my life'....'
Ok, so turn this around a moment. If your relationship with your kids' dad came to sticky end (??), you may 'think' you want a new, better relationship with a 'new, better' man, but DO you??? Or are you scared it might end badly too? If the latter, then you can keep that risk 'at bay' by not yet being 'fit' to start a new relationship??? In other words, your binge eating is keeping you 'unfit' (unsuitable, overweight, however you want to describe it), so 'phew, now I don't have to risk another potentially failed relationship'......
Do you think there is any mileage in this 'inverted logic' I wonder?????
(I'm just throwing out 'possible possibles' that's all - might be utterly wrong of course)
(Inverted logic can be very powerful psychologically - I use it in respect of make-up - or did, when I was younger anyway. The inverted logic went: If I am not beautiful like my mother, I could improve my looks with make up and nice clothes etc. However, what if I spent two hours primping myself with hair, make up and clothes, and STILL looked like the back end of a bus?! That would be SO depressing!! So, to 'stay safe' I won't bother with hair,makeup clothes, and that way I can still fool myself that if I DID bother, I WOULD look more attractive....')
As for not wanting to have been seen eating too much as a child, that can run very deep. Feeling guilty at being 'greedy', feeling ashamed of it, can really haunt. Were you ever 'named and shamed' so to speak, even by passing remarks such as 'Well, we always know who'll finish that last slice of cake, don't we, ha ha!'. Remarks that were 'supposed' to be funny, but you felt hit you on the raw. Perhaps others, like your parents or siblings or friends, felt ashamed of your 'greedy' eating, and had to 'apologise' for you, or make a joke about you or of you??
By the way, for the ultimate 'shame' about eating in public, did you know that Victorian maidens invited to dinner parties would have their 'real' dinner before they dressed - this was partly because of their tight corsets (!), but also because at the dinner parties it was considered 'unladylike' to eat anything except tiny morsels of food..... so the whole 'shaming' business about women who 'eat too much' has gone on a long, long time....
You say you don't know what triggers the binges, nor what stops them - but, as I say, there 'must be' a cause (nothing is without one!). I wonder if you are unconsciously 'blanking' awareness of the triggers? So that you don't have to feel any responsibility for them? You can 'suddenly' find yourself reaching for the cake without any apparent conscious volition, so hey, it's not your fault, is it?
That said, I think it's more important to understand what ends your binge sessions, because, as I say, I personally don't think 'a bit' of food indulgence (eating any food that is of no nutritional value!) is in itself 'bad', it is the AMOUNT that we eat overall. So in practical terms, if you could, say, get to a state whereby everynight you have 'one' slice of cake BUT NO MORE, because you have triggered the 'end binge' response, then that would actually show you were managing the situation a lot more?
