well, texas. there's probably NOTHING you can say to your daughter. she's 14 - and NOT ready to hear much of anything from mom... but she's obviously grappling with some serious issues. and she's probably scared. i wish i could help here...

as for the emotional eating, it's really hard. no two ways about it. therapy helps. not everyone chooses that road. i've found that 'substitution' works for me. so i knit. take a walk. i realized that the eating was stuffing emotions down my throat and that i was stressed and needed comfort, and then the job was to find comfort without food.

it's a struggle on many many days. and, as noted above, feeling your emotions isn't all that pleasant. but as one of my friends has said, just hold on tight, let the emotions sweep over you, like standing in a stream, and then it'll be over.

the trick is to not do any more damage to yourself while the stream is rushing by.

it's hard.

TXMomof3, you are such a good Mom. Your post made me cry. I wish all parents felt the same way you do, and were as supportive.
You might even think about a session of councelling for both of you. Sometimes it helps to have someone uninvolved in on the conversation.
I'll be thinking of you, and saying lots of prayers.

TXMomof3 I have a 14-year old dd myself and can see it is such a difficult age. You are handling this so wonderfully, your dd will have an easier journey knowing your love is unconditional.

My own dd wondered if her feelings for her best friend indicated her sexuality, but I told her women often have very close bonds of friendship which is different from sexual feelings. I made it clear that whatever those feelings end up being will be fine with her dad and me, but she needn't jump to define herself. These are difficult nuances to grasp, I think, particularly if dd doesn't think mother should know about sexuality at all.

Ahh for the days when she thought she and her brother were 'in there together' waiting to be born. Of course she, being competitive, got out first lol!

I saw the post in the Maintenance Forum--you have some very good tips here. I find that following WW program, including writing down all food and all points, is helping a lot. I have gotten much better at eating in response to actual hunger, not in response to emotions (especially stress).

On the other hand, I did regain 3 pounds, which is frustrating. Not the end of the world, but definitely frustrating. I need to include more raw veggies (0 points) to help me get thru the workday.

Elana

Emotional eaters such as myself eat in response to painful emotional states we are trying to push away. If you want to stop eating over the emotions we all naturally have, we have to develop different strategies with respect to them so eating wont be the ineffective solution.

In fact it is in dealing with the emotions directly that is the key as others have stated. And it takes practice. Another name for 'emotions' is 'feelings'. Anger, sadness, fear, joy, and all their manifestations. And the solution is to accept you have them like everybody else, then actually stay with and feel or experience without pushing away the feeling state. You can think as you feel, you can reframe the feeling into a better perspective, and so forth, as long as you feel them. There are books on the subject.

Feelings have a function in our life, that is why we have them. They are not nature's cruel hoax. Alas well-meaning adults have taught us to 'dont feel that way' etc. And we were very good pupils. I wouldnt even read a chapter that had the word 'pain' in the heading. But feelings are functional and tell us when things in our lives need to be looked at more closely, and perhaps changed.

Feelings are gifts and are not intended to be catalysts to eat. Fear tells us danger is near and to be careful; anger tells us we have been trangressed upon and to act in our own best interests; sadness tells us, among other things, we need to look more closely at something in our life that isnt working and act accordingly when we are ready; and happiness tells us things are going well and to continure what we are doing. Learn from them instead of trying to push them all away as we have learned to do in this society. "put on a happy face" etc. Ya, right. Like that little ditty hasnt packed on afew pounds.

Jan