If I believed in reincarnation I'd be sure I was a canine or a shark or something bitey in a former life, because I'm often compelled to bite when I'm provoked, and as a result I clench my teeth and my jaw a lot. Lots.

When I'm eating to assuage tension, I tend to plow through quantities of food, not even registering what or how much I'm eating. And then later, of course, between the riled-up stomach acid and the indiscriminate and too much food, I'm physically sick, and hating myself for lack of control and emotionally sick, too.

Oh my god, Bev. This is cur-razy. That is eXactly my experience. I'm constantly trying to stretch my jaw. I don't grind my teeth in my sleep, thank goodness, but I DO want to chew through everything. arngharngharngh.

I need to find something other than carrots though. Raw carrots tend to aggravate my stomach acid issues.

Maybe I should find a leather belt to chew on. ARgh.

Bonny, do you like jerky? Or are you vegetarian?

See, I'm having a very hard time not with the calories themselves, in terms of "but I can't eat enough on that!" (except occasional days), but with just WANTING. I am currently full--I had lunch a couple hours ago--bbq chicken, an orange, and a pack of almonds. But do I want YUMMY FOOD in my MOUTH? Hells yeah. ...why can't we just eat and bypass the tummy? My tummy is not saying 'feed me'! Dieting would be so much easier if I could just go cold turkey, though....

I feel your pain. Anxiety/nerves/stress has me wanting to munch. And then if things taste good, I just want to keep doing that which is good. Alas, it's not good in the belly. I agree, can't we have something for taste buds, that takes care of the jaw thing mentioned earlier, but doesn't actually go into your system, so no calories/fat are accrued. If it could *not* involve puking, I would be interested.

Celery?

I used to chew on inedible objects like pen caps all the time but now that I have a tongue ring I just play with that. Not that I'm not also an incorrigible snacker. I went through most of a bag of cheese popcorn watching Bones last night.

Bonny, do you like jerky? Or are you vegetarian?

There is vegetarian jerky, isn't there? Not that I'm advocating it, because it could be gnarly.

Also, a side effect of the Wellbutrin is that I get agitated easily, and the agitation makes me actually snap my teeth together, like an alligator chomping or something. It makes me look crazy, which is ironic, considering it's caused by a drug to make me *less* crazy.

I do like jerky, but I don't eat beef. There is some turkey jerky available locally, but it's super salty.

Celery is good, especially chewing on the strings.

I agree, can't we have something for taste buds, that takes care of the jaw thing mentioned earlier, but doesn't actually go into your system, so no calories/fat are accrued.

In this product, I would buy stock.

ham flavored chewing gum?

ION, i filed my taxes! Sure, the IRS won't accept them until after Feb 14th, but i had clicked all the buttons and printed out the pages. Looking very much forward to that $1500, especially now that i've been told that there is knob and tube wiring in my attic (painfully expensive to abate.) grrrrrrr. That news made me so cranky i wanted to curl into a ball and cry. Instead, i did my taxes.

Slightly exciting thing: this was the first year in memory that my medical expenses were not deductible. I was $200 shy of being able to deduct, so i didn't. If i continue at this level of health, i won't even need to add everything up next year because without all the bills and PT from the broken foot incident i wouldn't have even been close! So boo on doing all the maths and then not being able to deduct, but yay on not spending so much percentage of my income on medical expenses!

Oh my lord, what a crazyass week. I am beat.

Yeah, that's all I've got at the moment.