The Sound of Silence

It doesn’t arrive all at once

I should say plainly that there was no single morning when I woke up free of it.

What happened was subtler. The gaps between the thoughts got longer. Situations that used to require a whole internal strategy meeting – a birthday, a buffet, a Tuesday – stopped needing one.

I noticed it retrospectively rather than in the moment. Usually something like: I’ve just eaten lunch and I don’t seem to have had an opinion about it.

I noticed the silence afterwards, not while it was happening.

What actually fills the space

This is the part I wish someone had described to me, because it’s the genuinely good bit.

The mental energy that food was using doesn’t disappear. It becomes available.

For me it went into work I’d been putting off, conversations I was properly present for, and exercise I did because I liked it rather than because I owed it to someone. Small things, mostly. But the cumulative effect was that my life got noticeably bigger.

The uncomfortable part

There’s something else worth naming.

Food noise is also, sometimes, a very effective distraction. While you’re fully occupied with an internal argument about bread, you’re not thinking about the job you’re unhappy in or the relationship that isn’t working.

So when the noise drops, other things can come into view. That isn’t a sign something’s gone wrong. It’s usually a sign something’s working – but it can be a lot to sit with, and it’s worth having support around you rather than doing it entirely alone.

Quiet isn’t the same as perfect

Let me be clear about what the quiet is and isn’t.

It isn’t never thinking about food. I think about food most days – I enjoy it, I plan meals, I look forward to things.

The difference is that the thoughts are now about food rather than about my worth. They don’t come with a running verdict attached.

There are still harder weeks. Stress still shows up in how I eat sometimes. But it’s a passing thing rather than an identity, and I know what to do with it.