I've been binging for years. But the cause of it, at least what I think of as the cause - my father's anger - ended years ago. I experienced less of it when I left home for college and only had to experience it on vacations or visits home and then it disappeared almost completely when I moved out into my adult life. But I still binged. So my question is - is the binging now a habit more than a need to stuff down the emotions or reactions to all that anger? When I asked a psychologist the same question she told me that habits are similar to tire ruts in a muddy road. If yours is the first car to go down a muddy trail it slips and slides but leaves an impression in the mud. Those cars that follow deepen that impression, forming a rut until eventually, car tires  automatically find their way into those ruts. Every time I stuffed food in my mouth I helped to form a rut in the part of my brain that deals with emotion. I was imprinting my own brain with the message that when hurt, apply food. Particularly sweet food. Sugar. So when hurt or lonliness or rejection or sadness occur, I think my tires find their way back into the trail I created. I'm certainly not hungry and there is very little enjoyment in the process. The food blots out the emotion and leaves me in a self induced coma. And the result of all that stuffing is a an inflated unhealthy body. I look in the mirror and hardly recognize the fat woman who looks back at me. Those stomach rolls, those chins, all the lumps and bumps that I don't want were created by me in reaction to a threat that no longer exists. My adult life is fulfilled - great kids, job, husband - but somewhere along the way I failed to adjust. I'm still blotting out the sound of his voice and the impact of his words with food even though I haven't been a victim of his anger in many years. Perhaps because he always made me feel that I was never enough, could never please him, perhaps I have made myself into his image of me. What I would love is to stir up a little anger of my own and direct it where it belongs - with the unhealthy foods that I harm myself with. It's time to shake myself off and stand up for myself. It's time to stop letting him control me.