The Luv Doc: My Girlfriend Is Eating Our Walls

Dear Luv Doc,

My girlfriend is eating our walls. We have been living together for a little under two years. Things have been going so well and I know she’s my forever person. She has such a stressful job, working insane hours as a nurse assistant. The past year has been especially hard for her, but she’s kept working to help pay the bills and work her way up. She usually works all day and is asleep by the time I get home (I’m a bartender). She’s been so anxious and restless in her sleep, I can hear her grinding her teeth and getting up in the night. To make matters worse, I started noticing patches of paint missing on our bedroom walls! I was sure we had rodents, and it was keeping her up more. However, I got off early one night last weekend, and came home to find my girlfriend picking at the drywall… apparently it’s been her this whole time. All the crunching noises have been her in the night. We didn’t really address it and just went to bed. How do I even approach this or talk to her about it? I really love her and see a life with her. Now I’m concerned about her health, and the fact she couldn’t talk to me about this. We had also been stressing about getting our security deposit back, since our lease is up soon. Aside from this, she’s the perfect girl. I’m so conflicted, what should I do?  Thanks Luv Doc!

 – Anonymous

I mean, yeah, aside from literally eating your walls, she probably is the perfect girl. I’m not even sure how many points to deduct for wall eating, but I kind of think it might take her down to at least a 9.8. To be honest, I was really expecting that “eating our walls” thing to be some sort of trendy euphemism that hadn’t yet caught up to me. You know, like, “She’s really coming out of her skin” or “Her head is about to explode”  … that type of thing. This, however, is more of a “the kids are eating Tide Pods” deal; something that sounds made up until you see the YouTube videos and decide that our tax dollars would be better spent educating American schoolkids rather than bombing Iranian ones. And no, Governor Roomba, I’m not talking about school vouchers for rich kids. If rich people want their children to learn about how Jesus hated foreigners and libtards, they can finance that shit themselves.

Anyway, like you, Anonymous, I have so many questions. Here’s one: When you came home early and caught your girlfriend eating the drywall, did she freeze like a deer in headlights or did she scurry away in a guilty panic? I know if I were caught with a slab of drywall hanging out of my mouth, I might be tempted to prevaricate – or possibly even fabricate an explanation to explain said behavior that might include a list of things like satanic possession, alien abduction, or a feigned calcium deficiency. I think at that point there are no bad ideas. I know you might be tempted to run with that calcium deficiency deal, but the most likely explanation is that your girlfriend is experiencing a huge amount of anxiety and stress and perhaps picking at – and eating – the walls is helping her regulate these emotions. In fact, she might be so deep in her racing thoughts that she might not even realize she’s doing it. I’m not a psychiatrist, but anecdotally I know there are nearly as many wacky ways to self-soothe as there are people, and right now, for good reason, a lot of people are stressed out. You surely see them at work. They’re ordering doubles instead of eating drywall, but the underlying anxiety is the same. 

Therefore, I think it’s best to not lean too much into the “my perfect girlfriend is a drywall-eating freak” thing and take the softer approach of expressing genuine concern about your girlfriend’s anxiety – maybe talk to her about what you and she might do to alleviate some of it. Some type of therapy couldn’t hurt. Talk? Massage? Aroma? Anything that might get her off the wall and out of her head. You’re also going to want to invest in some spackle and paint, but first repair your girlfriend’s peace of mind.

This article appears in March 13 • 2026.