...then I’d gamble on her bigger issue being what most victims of dysfunctional families suffer from—CPTSD. It’d further gamble on her being what
Pete Walker calls a Fight or Freeze-type (or a hybrid of both because that is apparently also a thing) from the
4Fs of Trauma (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) and that her coping mechanisms (eating and splurging) are simply a result of being neglected as a child and not being given the love she needed.
She cries for food because it gives her attention, thus she is loved. When she isn’t being fed, or given attention, she is unloved. She spends money on pointless shit that makes her happy, and makes some repressed part of her psyche happy, but it’s short-lived happiness. Her coping mechanisms don’t address the bigger problem, and thus she stays in a perpetual state of fat, bitter, misery.