I’m curious about other’s experiences with Polyphagia/Hyperphagia. What was/is your journey like for you?
I had this at one point due to a shitty medication, and I kept asking for a higher dose because I thought I was just eating due to stress and a higher dose would reduce it. It wasn’t until my internalized fatphobia at the time took over, and I asked for a different medication that would make me gain less weight, that my hyperphagia went away.
This sort of hunger can be hell for some. Not just due to fatphobia, but it can be scary to never be satisfied with eating. Remember it can have many causes. For me it wasn’t me on my own, it was a bad med match I needed to opt out of.
I had this as a default. Some mix of autism and the physical effects of obesity. I just always (or never?) felt hungry and wouldn’t feel full until my stomach was in physical pain and I’d often continue eating anyway. My GLP-1 agonist has been a lifesaver, even with the side effects. I feel normal amounts of hunger and fullness after normal amounts of food. It’s incredibly relieving and also incredibly infuriating because people act like fat people are just being lazy.
My experience with self dosing a GLP drug has been that it’s put me right back to the relationship with food that I had as a teen, where basically eating was nearly optional. It’s so incredibly clear that for some the systems in the body that signal satiation/manage digestion speed are compromised from the start or severely degrade.
Back when I had my issue, I’d be in pain from fullness and still eat.
I’m not familiar with that as a symptom of autism. Does it have anything to do with the common symptom of black and white thinking? I heard someone with autism explain how they heard a dietician say “If you don’t want to eat the food in your diet, you’re not actually hungry.” So if they didnt want to eat within their meal plan, they’d eat nothing no matter how hungry they were.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve never met anyone who’s fat just because laziness. I don’t see laziness as it’s own root cause. There are many causes behind people not moving around much.
The relationship between autism and food is really complicated and diverse so I won’t speak for anyone but myself in that regard. I think of it more like an extension of alexithymia which is often comorbid with autism. For me the disconnect from emotions is related to a difficulty with translating physical sensations to meaningful assessments of my state. So not only might I experience my heart racing without realizing I’m anxious, I might experience discomfort in my stomach without realizing I’m hungry or sick (I used to have a hard time telling the difference).
I might not have autism, but I do notice that I experience this at least a few times a day. We may have different sources of similar symptoms, but could I still ask, what helped you become more concious of the connection between physical sensation and concious assessments of your state? I had to deal with some neglect growing up so I had to ignore symptoms like pain and hunger. And of course if you ignore either, you’ll increase amounts of injuries and be far more anxious and ravenous when you do finally eat.
I think ignoring these things counts as ignoring data on your own personhood. The human spirit experiences so much and I’m somewhat out of tune with lots of data from just those two things alone. Pain and hunger.
I really relate to that a lot and appreciate you sharing. For me, it’s been a mix of starting estrogen (for our purposes, addressing part of the cause of the dissociation) and therapy. A lot of focusing on how things feel and recognizing patterns over time. Like I’ve slowly retrained my body to relax while I’m driving in the car and not clench my gut. And then for the hunger aspect, the GLP-1 agonist has made a big difference.
You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to: Is the estrogen for being transgender? Or is it for something else? I’ve had multiple estrogen products in my life before and it wasn’t for being trans. If yours sounds fitting, maybe I could ask my doctor about what you use. I’m tired of eating based on counting grams of protein vs eating based on how I feel and what I see. I don’t really know how to eat satisfyingly otherwise.
The GLP products are something I don’t relate to, but it sounds like some people are doing amazing from it.
Yes the estrogen is for gender dysphoria, although I just microdose for the psychological effects. I had a weird natural hormone profile so I don’t know how applicable what I’m doing is even to enby transfemmes.
I have some gender dysphoria, but I don’t think hormonal treatments would help me. Perhaps I could dress more masculine more often. That could change how much I recognize myself and be more honest to myself about how I feel.
That sounds like it would be nice. I hope that goes well and would love to hear if that helps