“I Can’t Handle This” — The Thought That Triggers the Binge
===

Georgie: [00:00:00] This is the breaking up with binge eating podcast, where every listen moves you one step closer to complete food freedom hosted by me, Georgie fear and my team at confident eaters. /

Christina: Let me tell you about Maya, one of the bravest people I've ever met. Maya had been doing well for weeks. She'd been practicing eating, consistently challenging her food rules, and even started to feel a little more at home in her body. But then one Tuesday she got a text. Her sister was in the ER after an overdose. Maya had seen this cycle before, and that single notification sent her nervous system into overdrive. Her hands shook her stomach turned, and instantly the thought slammed into her like a fright train. I can't handle this. She told me later. It didn't even feel like a thought. It felt like the truth. Like something carved into her bones. Before she knew it, she was in the car driving to the grocery store. She bought all her old binge foods, not because she wanted them, but because she needed something to do, something to take the edge off the helplessness, clawing at her chest. She binged in the parking lot and drove home sobbing. That night, she explained that she kept hearing the thought over and over, "I can't handle this. I can't handle this and the need to shut it up." But here's the thing. She did handle it, not perfectly, not calmly, but she got through the night. She made it through the feelings, and the next day she even showed up to our session. She told me, I think I'm [00:02:00] starting to see binging isn't proof that I can't cope. It's proof that I'm overwhelmed, but I'm still here.

Georgie: Maya's story is heartbreaking, but also incredibly common because "I can't handle this", doesn't just show up out of nowhere. The thought tends to appear in moments of emotional overwhelm when your nervous system is already lit up and searching for relief. The thought feels final, urgent, and completely convincing.

I think it feels something in my mind like a death sentence, like "here it goes. This is the end. I can't handle one more thing."

Christina: And that's what makes it such a powerful distortion. It's not just a passing idea. It feels like evidence. But what it actually is, is a misinterpretation of discomfort. Your brain detects panic, pain, sadness, or fear, and jumps straight to the conclusion, "this means I can't cope."

Georgie: It is a form of catastrophizing, a cognitive distortion where your mind takes a difficult moment and instantly inflates it into an unmanageable crisis. And if you've used food to self-soothe in the past, your brain starts linking emotional intensity with food as the only exit ramp.

Christina: What people don't always realize is that this thought is not a measure of capacity. It's a measure of distress. Just because your body is sounding the alarm, it doesn't mean you're actually incapable. It just means you need help, regulation or support, a binge, or escape, and not shut down.

Georgie: And the real tragedy is this. When you believe the thought, "I can't handle this", it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You panic shut down or disconnect, and that reinforces the belief that you really can't cope even though you just did. [00:04:00] Because even if you binged, I don't think the binge helped you survive whatever it was that you got through.

Christina: So part of recovery is learning to pause and say, this feels overwhelming, but that doesn't mean I'm powerless. You learn to respond to the distress instead of obeying the thought, and that changes everything.

Georgie: So let's talk about what to do when that thought hits. "I can't handle this", and it feels like the only truth in the room.

Christina: You can start by recognizing it for what it is, a signal of distress, not a fact. And then you practice thinking something else. Not something fake or overly positive, but something more grounded, something more true.

Georgie: Here are a few thoughts we often offer clients as a starting point. You could choose any of them. "This is hard, but I've done hard things before." "I don't need to have it all figured out. I just need to get through the next few minutes." "I'm overwhelmed, but I'm not dying." "Support is allowed here. Let me see where I can get support right now."

"I might not feel okay right now, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to be okay."

Christina: Sometimes we even help clients come up with a personalized reminder. They can write down or say out loud when things get rough. Like, "I don't have to handle this perfectly. I just have to stay with myself."

Georgie: It is not about silencing the fear, it's about talking with it, suggesting something wiser, because the truth is the part of you that says, I can't handle this, is scared and shouldn't be denied. But there's another part of you, a steadier, quiet part that knows you have survived every hard day so far, and that part deserves a voice too.

I've mentioned this thought previously on the show because "I can't handle this" is one of [00:06:00] my most devious, sabotaging thoughts. It pops up when I'm really hurting emotionally and something happens to me. When I let it go unchecked, this thought brings with it a feeling that I'm literally breaking. Splintering and collapsing like a bridge or a table that has been loaded with too much weight.

I imagine myself giving way. What I've learned to do in that moment, if I hear this thought creeping up, is to add just one more word. "I can't handle this alone." All my life, I've been what you might call pathologically independent. I grew up having to meet all of my own needs or deal with them staying unmet.

I learned to never call on anyone or ask for anything. That led to me instinctively attempting to handle way too much on my own. Thankfully, I learned that other people are one of the greatest resources I was not tapping into. So now I try to steer myself towards my husband, my friends, even my dog, when I feel like the amount of challenge I'm facing is insurmountable.

Maybe I can't handle it on my own, but I can handle it after a rest, a long hug and an understanding, warm conversation, and maybe some face licks.

Christina: Dogs and animals are just the best. Even them just being there takes some of that emotional burden off, I think.

Georgie: 100%. I actually have trained my dog. We're still working on this one to the command chin. Which is when I'm sitting down and I say that word, I want her to come over and she puts her chin down on my lap.

Christina: Aw.

Georgie: It's like a little chin hug so I can pet her head. And that is 100% Georgie soothing there. So there's , no function other than that.

But I wanted some command to get her like to come cuddle me.

Christina: That's an important function for her to have!

Georgie: It's, it's.

Christina: and that reminds me of another client story. A woman I worked with named Jess. She had a [00:08:00] breakthrough moment during what could have easily become a binge. She had just gotten off a tense phone call with her mom, someone who had a long history of criticizing Jess's weight, her choices, her tone. Jess hung up and instantly felt it, the lump in her throat, the heat behind her eyes, the pressure in her chest. Then, the thought kicked in. "I can't handle this." Old Jess would've turned to food, not because she wanted it, but because it helped her disconnect. Just for a while. That was the pattern: overwhelm led to a binge. A binge led to regret, and so it goes. But this time she paused. She remembered a phrase We've been practicing. "I don't need to have it all figured out. I just need to get through the next few minutes." So she sat down, set a timer for five minutes and let herself feel what she was feeling. She didn't numb out. She didn't bolt. She held a warm mug, texted a friend, cried, and when the timer went off, she realized she was still there, still breathing, still intact. No binge and no collapse.

Georgie: I'm sure that moment didn't erase the pain and she was all hunky dory after five minutes, but it did give her something better, like she had proof. That she could stay with herself, that she could arrive that wave of emotion instead of running from it or trying to hide in food.

Christina: And that's what these alternative thoughts are really for not to instantly fix things, but to buy you just enough space to not abandon yourself.

Georgie: The truth is learning to stay with yourself in those overwhelming moments takes practice. It's a skill and like any skill, it gets easier the more you do it, but it's also a lot easier when you don't do it [00:10:00] alone.

Christina: This is the kind of work we do with our coaching clients every day. We help you identify those panic thoughts like, "I can't handle this." And then build the tools to stay grounded, connected, and in charge even when things feel a bit messy. You don't have to wait until you feel strong to start. This work creates the strength. It's part of our breaking up with binge eating group curriculum too, which by the way, our next group starts this fall, so drop a line now if you wanna secure your spot.

Georgie: We've actually had a good amount of the spots fill up already, which has never happened before. Um, so yeah, I'm excited for it. If you are ready to break the binge restrict guilt cycle and build real emotional resilience, not just with food, but with your whole life, we'd also love to support you if one-on-one is more your style, you can learn more about all our coaching programs at confidenteaters.com.

Christina: And if you've been finding value in these episodes, one of the best ways to help us keep this show going is by becoming a paid subscriber. It's just $5 a month and it gives you access to twice as many episodes, all ad free and all focused on helping you heal your relationship with food and with yourself.

Georgie: I've been listening to more podcasts lately. Uh, I really enjoyed one called Camp Shame, which was written about a weight loss camp that was. An absolute nightmare, and I worked there when I was 20, so it was really interesting in hearing about how this place basically got shut down. And I've also been listening to one called Canadian True Crime, which is just, I love it.

It's so well researched, and although it's a bit dark to hear about Murder After Murder, I do sort of like the, the storylines sometimes are just incredible what people think they can get away with. But the reason I'm saying this is I've noticed that all of these shows run a lot of ads. Like sometimes 30, 40% of the airtime is actual ads.

And [00:12:00] if I'm out for a walk, I have to fish my phone outta my pocket and hit the fast forward 15 seconds, like eight or nine times to get through the ads, and it made me go like, wow. Listening to our show, you don't have to fast forward through ads. That's pretty valuable. So as listeners, you've probably noticed this, uh, we don't take sponsorships, so your support helps us keep this podcast rooted in what really matters, real people, real stories, and evidence-based tools for recovery.

And you don't have to constantly fast forward through underwear ads.

Christina: Whether you join the coaching program, subscribe, or just take one of those new thoughts with you today. Thank you for being here. And remember, even when the voice says, "I can't handle this." There's another part of you that already is.