I feel both attacked and seen at the same time. It’s interesting isn’t it, but I think treating the behaviour is wrong. I can only speak in my experience but I thought for the longest of times I had a binge eating disorder. Then I caught diabetes because of it and eventually started on GLP1s. All of a sudden I could not get my pleasure from food anymore and I was thoroughly miserable. That’s when I started buying perfumes. I even keep a spreadsheet about them, and just like the lady in the article I bought over 400 in 2 years. Although judging from her pic she gets the good stuff (read, expensive) whereas I stick to cheapies, decants and clones so I’m not too deep in debt.
The mechanism is the same though. If there was a way of making my brain stop demanding pleasure at all times I think it would be better than learning other ‘coping strategies’ because that damn thing will never shut up. It’s exhausting.
Marketing types know about this need for constant pleasure and exploit it. I have ditched most of my social media accounts because I found myself making purchases not even 2 minutes after logging in Instagram. Absolutely evil.
Sorry you’re going through it. It seems to me that it’s one of those things where you (not you personally) have to find the root cause and tackle that rather than attempt to treat the symptoms, i.e.
If there was a way of making my brain stop demanding pleasure at all times I think it would be better than learning other ‘coping strategies’
Because treating the symptoms will inevitably lead to a relapse.
Yeah but what if the root cause was a genuinely wonky brain? I’ve displayed this kind of behaviour for as long as I can remember - I vividly remember being told off for stealing sweets from my Nan’s stash at the age of like 6 or 7.
It’s a bizarre thing, but I will say that I’m very fortunate that I’m not into hard drugs or gambling or stuff that truly destroys lives. And even more bizarrely I made a desperate attempt at switching from food ‘addiction’ to cigarettes and alcohol but that never worked. I never managed to get into it, I even tried vaping for fk sake lol.
I wish someone would do experiments on me, I’m clearly not normal! And perhaps I’m not the only one who feels this way. Brain science still has a long way to go.
Yeah but what if the root cause was a genuinely wonky brain?
It’s definitely a wonky brain. Please don’t think I’m being rude, it’s as you said
Brain science still has a long way to go.
I can’t speculate. Even as the article says, the experts are clueless. Was it an experience you had when you were two or is it a chemical imbalance? Or something we haven’t learned to articulate yet? The only way to find out is to fuck around with our brains until we learn more.
Oh not at all I didn’t think you were rude, on the contrary I thought your reply was nice and gentle.
I’m absolutely willing to leave my body to science once I die, hoping that it might help this field progress. But for now, I’ll be sniffing my latest acquisitions to get my dopamine high :D
You should look into ADHD.
