When Hunger Isn't Working

I hesitate to use this experience for the purposes of illustration. But, in view of the lack of real representation of what its like to have hyperphagia nervosa-HN, also called compulsive eating disorder-CED. I felt moved to point to a rare occasion where something like it appears.

What stunned me most in the story of 12 year old Landon Jones and his year long loss of hunger and thirst was this;

The soundtrack of daily life in the Jones household is a persistent mantra that Michael and Debbie intone for their 12-year-old son, Landon.
Take a bite.
Take a bite.
Take a bite.
Take a drink.
Take a drink.
Take a bite.
These parents have been forced to jabber away like this in the last year because of their son's mysterious illness: He lacks all impulse to eat or drink. And he might be the only person in the world burdened with this bizarre medical condition.
Michael, 43, who prods most often, is a desperate father. He's become a verbal robot in a grim campaign to keep his boy fed.
Take a bite.
Take a bite.
Take a drink.

That was the exact nature of the mantra in my head, when I had HN, except it was to remind myself not to eat. It's basically, the conscious mind replacing stop or in Landon's case, his parents (conscious) direction to start eating. And it is of the things I most remember about having a faulty hunger drive.

Again, I apologize if this seems crass but it leapt out at me more than any representation of having an hyperphagic disorder, ever remotely has. Certainly, nothing I've heard formalized by the eating disorders crowd has felt this real ever.

I remember once trying to compare this to when Lisa and Bart nagging and begging their parents for something the; please, please, please, please....... Except that endless nagging is an impulse inside your head. You have to counter that with the more conscious part of your mind. And at other times, you actively have to almost remind yourself not to eat, or you'll find yourself eating, because your hunger is open-ended.

In the hunger mechanism has shifted outside little Landon's as he has the problem in reverse. His hunger mechanism has either ceased to function, or is being blocked or overcome by something. He not only doesn't feel like eating, it feels almost like an assault. Just as being prevented from eating can feel like an assault to someone who's hunger is hyperactive.

His parents have become the conscious directive replacing the lack of inner drive. His father tells how they've taken it upon themselves to research and study the problem as he is said to be the only known case.

He said he's narrowed it down to the hypothalamus as the only part of the body that can take away thirst [which he's also lost]- as many things can undermine/block hunger.