Food desire

Is it a desire for food or a desire to be rid of a feeling?

There are two ways a desire can manifest, a desire for something, or a desire away from something unpleasant. Both are hedonistic, therefor strongly motivated with passion derived from the unconscious mind. One is toward, one is moving away from something. Now which do I really have?

After examining this desire that I have, I realized that it is a desire for disposal of any uncomfortable anxiety that I interpret as a desire for food, or as a way of removing the uncomfortable anxiety feeling. The threat of withholding food was often used as stick/carrot in molding my behavior. Was this part of the process of learning overeating behavior at the hands of my parents? I was an overeater by age 7 for sure.

It seems that motivations and desires arising in the unconscious or more primitive part of the brain are much stronger than those arising in the conscious rational logical part of the brain. In fact, we have little control over these drives, once they arise. We are sometimes able to satiate these desires or dissipate or distract them confirms that they are generated in the same part as the emotions. We can sometimes consciously change the inputs, and thereby change the desires and motivations.


Either way the desires to eat, at the level I have, are irrational. No reason nor logic here.   Either way, it is terminal and hedonistic, the strongest of desires. Would it help to understand which I have? It seems to be both, but that may be the addiction talking.