The Hidden Link Between Anxiety, Emotional Eating, and Codependency
- Nikki White
- Feb 9
- 4 min read
The Hidden Link Between Anxiety, Emotional Eating, and Codependency
When I looked honestly at my behaviors, the connection became clear.
Anxiety wasn’t random.
It flared when:
I felt emotionally unseen.
I feared rejection.
I was overextended.
I was silently resentful.
I was pretending to be okay.
Emotional eating wasn’t about food.
It was about relief.
People-pleasing wasn’t kindness.
It was protection.
One-sided relationships weren’t bad luck.
They were familiar.
I had learned early that love required self-abandonment. So I kept recreating that dynamic in adulthood.
And when the imbalance hurt, I soothed with sugar.
The pattern was tight.
Anxiety → Self-abandonment → Resentment → Food → Shame → More anxiety.
I wasn’t broken.
I was running an old program.
The Truth That Changed Everything
Here’s the part that confronted me:
The only way for my anxiety to loosen its grip was to walk directly into the reasons I lived with it.
Not manage it.Not suppress it.Not optimize it.
Understand it.
I had to ask myself questions that made my stomach tighten:
Why do I feel responsible for everyone’s emotions?Why does silence feel unsafe?Why do I panic when someone pulls away?Why do I equate productivity with worth?
And underneath those questions, I found something simpler.
Fear of abandonment.Fear of being too much.Fear of not being enough.
I had built my entire identity around avoiding those fears.
Of course I was anxious.
When Curiosity Replaced Fear
In the beginning, looking inward felt terrifying.
I worried I would find something wrong with me.Something shameful.Something unforgivable.
But something unexpected happened.
Curiosity started replacing anxiety.
Instead of:“What’s wrong with me?”
I asked:“What is this trying to protect?”
Instead of:“Why can’t I control myself?”
I asked:“What do I actually need right now?”
Instead of:“I have to fix this.”
I asked:“What if I just understand it first?”
That shift changed everything.
Curiosity softened shame.Shame had been fueling my coping behaviors.Without shame, I
didn’t need food as much.Without food as a sedative, I could feel more clearly.With clarity, I could set boundaries.With boundaries, I stopped choosing one-sided relationships.
Not overnight.
But steadily.
Loving the Parts I Wanted to Erase
The hardest part wasn’t identifying my shadow.
It was accepting it.
I had to accept:
The part of me that over-functioned.
The part that manipulated through caretaking.
The part that used food to numb loneliness.
The part that feared abandonment more than I admitted.
I didn’t heal by shaming those parts.
I healed by understanding them.
They weren’t flaws.
They were strategies.
Strategies that once kept me safe.
When I stopped trying to “fix” myself and started integrating those parts with compassion, my nervous system began to calm.
Anxiety didn’t disappear.
It softened.
The urgency lessened.The fear of abandonment stopped running the show.Food stopped being my emergency exit.
Because I was no longer at war with myself.
What Shadow Work Actually Looks Like in Real Life
It’s not dramatic.
It’s quiet.
It looks like:
Not texting twice when someone doesn’t reply.
Eating a meal even when you feel anxious.
Letting someone be disappointed without scrambling to repair it.
Sitting with loneliness instead of numbing it.
Not volunteering for everything.
It’s daily integrity.
It’s noticing your patterns without collapsing into shame.
It’s choosing curiosity over control.
Anxiety Was Never the Enemy
Ten years into remission from binge eating disorder, here’s what I know:
Anxiety was never trying to ruin my life.
It was trying to protect me from pain I hadn’t processed.
Once I listened instead of silenced it, everything changed.
The more I accepted my shadow, the less it controlled me.
The more I understood my patterns, the less I repeated them.
The more I loved the parts I once rejected, the less I needed sugar to soothe them.
And the fear of abandonment?
It softened when I stopped abandoning myself.
If You’re Afraid to Look Inside
I get it.
It feels safer to optimize your routines.Track your macros.Read another self-help book.Stay busy.
But real healing begins when you stop managing symptoms and start exploring roots.
You don’t need to rush it.
Start with one question:“What part of me am I trying not to feel?”
You might be surprised by what answers.
And when curiosity replaces anxiety — even for a moment — that’s when freedom begins.
Not loud.Not dramatic.Just steady.
And steady changes everything.
ARE YOU LOOKING TO DIVE DEEPER INTO SELF-CARE?
I Can Help in Developing A Plan For Self Care
Do you want help developing a self-care plan that works for your own busy schedule? Do you want accountability in implementing a self-care plan? If you or someone you love is struggling to maintain optimal mental and emotional health, consider reaching out to Spiced Life Conversation Art Wellness Studio and Botanica. We are a Metro Atlanta, Conyers Georgia area. We are a coaching and counseling practice with empathetic, skilled counselors and recovery coaches who can help you set goals, develop a self-care routine, and move forward to build a more fulfilling life. Our team would be happy to work with you either just for a couple of sessions to develop and implement a Self-care plan or longer term to work toward overall better mental health within our membership site or other programs.
About The Author: Dr. Nikki LeToya White MSEd-TL, Ph.D. RHN is the founder, director, and full-time board-certified trauma-informed nutritionist, folk herbalist, and wellness consultant at Spiced Life Conversation Art Wellness Studio and Botanica. She created Spiced Life Conversation, LLC Art Wellness Studio, and Botanica to provide the Metro Atlanta area with counseling and coaching services where clients are carefully matched with the right program for healing abandonment and childhood emotional neglect trauma that cause codependency, emotional eating, financial stress, and imposter syndrome as it relates to the fear of success and being abandon. We help you begin your emotional healing journey with ease. Recently, we have expanded to include an online membership site so we now provide support to people living all over the world. All of our recovery coaches provide at least one evidence-based treatment to assist in your recovery. Dr. White is a big proponent of self-care and helping people live a fulfilling life! She has been in full remission with both codependency and emotional binge eating disorder since 2016. In living a life in recovery from sugar addiction. I love my low-sugar balanced lifestyle.
Best Regards
Dr. Nikki LeToya White
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