Why do people eat paper?

Answer 1

i have eaten paper since i was sixteen, it started harmlessly enough, i was chewing the edge of an envelope while waiting in line at the post office...

i stop occasionaly sometimes for months then i get stressed and i feel compelled to start again, the more stressed i get the worse it is, i cant say i have suffered from any ill effects from it apart from having to make sure i had a secret stash of perfectly white A4 and feeling that i was a weirdo. i never spoke about it, my kids and hubby were never aware of it. i believe it is hereditary as all my kids have a form of it although not as intense as i have, but they are young yet.

i decided that i would be open about it when i was in my early forties, i realised that it was a part of my life and to hide it all the time stressed me more, my friends laugh at me and my fella thinks i am strange but in a way thinks its quirky and cute to find bits of ripped paper everywhere. pica is a lot more common than people think, i think all us magpies should come out of our closets, its not like we are serial killers or anything we just have odd little quirkes... so what. as long as its not harming that the main thing.