The Foggy Part and Eating Issues

Bonnie Weiss, LCSW

There are a number of distinct parts that typically show up in clients with eating issues. They are most often tangled in a way that make them hard to distinguish and therefore work with. Of course, not everyone has all of these parts, and we try not to reify them by giving them specific names. However, naming their functions often unlocks deeper understanding. It allows movement on previously difficult emotional issues and shifts in historically stuck behaviors.

The Foggy Part is the part that causes a lapse in conscious awareness of your relationship to yourself and what is going on at the moment or what has just happened. It manifests as dullness, confusion, blankness, emptiness, or an absent-minded feeling. Sometimes the Foggy Part can just muck up and confuse things so it feels like you have lost the thread of a conversation. At other times, it appears as complete dissociation, where actual time is lost and you experience having left the room or left your body.

In my Beyond Eating classes, this is an especially important part for people to identify. It provides clarity about a number of very frustrating experiences. When you can name this part, appreciate its function, and develop a working relationship with it, the work opens and there is often significant movement.

How the Foggy Part Manifests

1. As your Indulger Part (the part that overeats) takes over, the Foggy Part may cause you to dissociate and loose consciousness of what you are eating, how much you have consumed, or when you have passed the "full" point. You may lose sensation in your body and fail to feel, for a while, the impact of eating large amounts of food.

2. As you work on yourself to explore your internal system, your Foggy Part may confuse things, cause you to loose track of what you are feeling or working on so you can't productively follow the thread of your inquiry. This Foggy Part seems invested in keeping the system in place and not allowing any consciousness that would threaten change. You may suddenly feels lost, silly, embarrassed, or distracted. You can't remember what you were talking about or why you were bothering to talk about it in the first place.

3. The Foggy Part defends against awareness of deep conflicts around self-care. If you have a strong People-Pleasing Part that focuses attention on others rather than yourself, you may give other people the nurturing they need while ignoring your own needs. Your Foggy Part may prevent you from being aware of yourself while around others, and you may get confused and muddled if asked what you want. Your Foggy Part may be protecting a Vulnerable Part whose needs were not met when you were a child. It expects that if those needs were brought out into the open today they would ignored again.

4. The Foggy Part creates a smoke screen that makes dealing with eating-related issues impossible. If you have a Helpless Part that believes that you can't change, the fog may roll in and distract or confuse you to keep you from exploring this part. The Foggy Part seems to be holding your system in place. Change may be threatening while helplessness is known and safe. The Fog keeps you from exposing deeper needs, vulnerabilities, and trauma that it thinks are too dangerous.