You've probably heard of Anorexia and Bulimia, maybe Binge Eating Disorder. Here's an overview of all the eating disorders that I know about (let me know if I missed any).
Anorexia Nervosa. This is essentially starving yourself, or eating far fewer calories than you burn, to the point of being underweight. People who have this also fear gaining weight or becoming fat and don't have an accurate idea of how their body looks. In some cases the person also binges and/or purges.
Bulimia Nervosa. The person binges (eats a lot of food in one sitting) and then does something compensatory, like throwing up or exercising excessively. This must happen once a week on average for at least 3 months. The person has a body image problem as well.
Binge Eating Disorder (BED). This is where a person compulsively eats more food than they need, like in bulimia, but without the compensatory action afterwards.
Pica. This is an eating disorder where the person eats things that aren't food, like dirt, paper, cotton, etc. Babies eating everything on the floor don't count - you have to be old enough to know better.
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). This is similar to anorexia, except that the person isn't starving themselves in order to be thin, it's because of something about the food. Maybe they hate most textures, maybe they can't stand the taste of almost anything, maybe they are afraid of mealtimes for whatever reason, or fear swallowing.
Rumination Disorder. This is where the person regurgitates or re-chews their food after eating, not because of a physical problem or other eating disorder. This is more common in babies and children than adults.
Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED). The old diagnostic manual, the DSM-IV, had a thing called Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS). The new manual has OSFED and UFED. OSFED has sub-types:
Atypical Anorexia Nervosa: like anorexia but weight is at or above normal range.
Binge Eating Disorder (of low frequency and/or limited duration): like BED but with less frequent binges or hasn't been happening for 3 months.
Bulimia Nervosa (of low frequency and/or limited duration): like bulimia but with less frequent binges or hasn't been happening for 3 months.
Purging Disorder: Like bulimia but without the binges.
Night Eating Syndrome: Frequent night eating that causes distress and isn't caused by other things, like BED or social situations.
Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED). Any other eating or feeding disorder causing significant life impairment.
Here are two more specific ones that are still not in the diagnostic manual, and I would guess fall under UFED:
Orthorexia. This is an obsession with healthy or clean eating.
Muscle Dysmorphia (or Bigorexia). It's almost the opposite of anorexia - where in anorexia, the person is quite thin but believes they are too big, someone with muscle dysmorphia is usually fit and muscular but imagines themselves too small and scrawny.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Sunday, June 14, 2015
My unique eating disorder - the happier part
This is kind of a continuation of my story, but I split it up so 1) I wouldn't have the longest post ever, and 2) I am hoping this part won't be triggering, so you can read this post even if you couldn't read the other one.
I was one semester into my university education, living very far from home, and I had agreed to get help so my roommates would leave me alone to destroy myself with my eating disorder. And maybe about 1% of me hoped I could get actual help, but I was pretty much trying to kill that part of me. One of my roommates came with me to an intake appointment where we determined I would do individual counseling and join the eating disorder recovery group.
I had done counseling before and was wary still about saying anything that could land me in the hospital, but not as wary as before. I felt I knew the ropes of counseling. I don't really remember much about counseling that semester. It was with a PhD student. I liked her well enough. That's all I remember about counseling. All the important parts of my recovery came from the group.
The group was called Fed Up With Food. I'd seen posters for it the previous semester and secretly had been intrigued but I was too scared to make any effort to inquire about it. The group was based on the 12 steps, but also had a religious focus, and unlike a traditional 12-step group where you are expected to choose a sponsor, we had mentors assigned to us - one mentor to one participant. We were to meet with our mentors for an hour each week and attend group (1 1/2 hours) each week. We were given workbook/journals to write in during and between group sessions. In group, we weren't allowed to discuss specific symptoms or behaviors related to our eating disorders (because it could be triggering), but with our mentors we could discuss whatever we wanted.
I was full of doubt. 50% of the member of this group (of about 20 people) were mentors and said they had completely recovered from an eating disorder. I had read for years that this was impossible. I thought they must be where I had been so many times, in a good spot but ready to relapse at any moment. I was quiet and felt superior in my knowledge, like I'd been around the block with my eating disorder and knew more than anyone else. In my first one-on-one meeting with my mentor, I told her I didn't believe in recovery and thought all the mentors would relapse eventually. She didn't seem to mind that I felt that way. She also gave me a book, The Secret Language of Eating Disorders, which I promised to read. I'm glad I did.
Every week in group, we started off with successes. Everyone in the room was expected to share a personal success from the previous week. That was really hard for me, because I was so used to beating myself up about everything. Looking back, I think sharing a success once a week was really helpful. I knew the whole week that I would be expected to share a success, so it made me look for something I had done that was good. It forced me to find something nice to say about myself, which I was not in the practice of doing. Here are a few successes I remember sharing:
At first, like in the example, the negative mind controlled the conversation, taking up most of the real estate. As time went by, though, I started to get better, and was able to give the actual mind more control and more real estate in the conversations. I started believing the actual mind more and recognizing how false and crazy the negative mind was.
At group, we worked through the twelve steps, not exactly in a linear, one step at a time, way, but kind of clumped together. When we worked on the steps, we usually did something imaginative and symbolic. One book I had read about eating disorders, Eating by the Light of the Moon, indicated that symbols and metaphors speak especially strongly to women with eating disorders. I don't know if it's always true, but it was true for me. A lot of times we drew a picture at group - I remember one time being tasked to draw a picture of our eating disorder; another time we were supposed to draw our path to recovery.
Another part of group and recovery was letting myself be as little as I needed to - not physically, but emotionally. If I needed to be held like a baby, that was okay. If I needed to draw and do crafts like a little girl, that was okay. If I needed to be talked to like a grown-up, that was okay. I think I needed to identify with Heather the baby and Heather the toddler and Heather the little girl and Heather the teenager and Heather the college student in order to become whole. All of those Heathers needed healing.
Another thing I worked on was eating. Even though my eating disorder was a disease of the mind, it certainly took its physical toll. By the time I was ready to put forth the effort into recovery, my body didn't feel okay eating normal amounts of food, and it hurt to do so. I had also caused some food aversions by telling myself for years that I didn't like certain things because I believed they were bad for me - like mayonnaise, for example. So, to work on eating, I first turned to something familiar - I set a calorie goal that seemed reachable but healthy, and tried to get as close to it as possible. I didn't pat myself on the back if I was under it, like I used to. I also didn't try to go over it, because I was sure if I ate a lot more than the amount I'd specified, I wouldn't be able to handle it. I stuck to that for about two weeks. I felt my stomach stretching out. The physical pain was intense. After those weeks were over, I moved on to what I knew I really wanted and needed to work, intuitive eating.
Truthfully, I've never read much of the book Intuitive Eating, although I've read parts of it and own more than one copy (for sharing, obviously). But I understood and embraced the concept that my body had once been capable of knowing exactly how much to eat (think of an infant, nursed on demand - I had been that, once) and I could get there again. Having stretched out my stomach to an appropriate size, I began to trust my body to tell me what to eat, and I listened to it. One of the foods it really wanted was peanut butter, which is high in fat and contains some protein. It makes logical sense that I wanted it. When I told people at group how much I wanted peanut butter, there was almost universal acknowledgement that peanut butter was an amazing food for those recovering from a restriction-based eating disorder. When I told my mom that I was so excited about peanut butter, she recommended I choose something less fattening to love. I got mad and hung up on her. I'm sure my mom was trying to be helpful, but what I needed then was complete acceptance about anything I felt I needed to eat.
I began to have success understanding what my body needed to eat and how much. I still detested the feeling of being full, so I found that if I ate until just full, and then went to the bathroom - not to throw up, but to actually use the bathroom - I would feel okay to "sit with myself." I was in a really good place by the time the semester was over and it was time to go home.
Once I left college, things started falling apart a little bit. I was relapsing. I called my mentor in complete distress. She assured me that she loved me no matter what I did. Her love was not conditional upon my success at recovering. And also, she believed that I would recover completely. I think I might have implied she was stupid for believing in me, but it didn't phase her or change her mind. She believed in me completely, even though I doubted. So I decided to work on recovery, again. I spent the summer in a general addiction recovery program and also in counseling. I leaned on my friends for support and was honest with them. I called my mentor every so often.
Toward the end of that summer, I was at my addiction recovery meeting, and as usual, one of my friends had come to support me. She said something in that meeting that was kind of the last piece of the puzzle, for me. She said that in the bible, people would offer animals as burnt offerings, as sacrifices to God. But, when people offered an animal, they left it at the altar...and left. There was no taking back their sacrifice. But with addictions, it's so easy to place our addiction on the altar and say we're going to sacrifice it, but then take it back and use it whenever we feel stressed or upset. It's important to leave the sacrifice at the altar, and leave it. With all the work I'd put in, this was the last step. I needed to leave it and walk away forever. I chose to do that that night. I let it go and promised myself to never return to it, no matter what.
And this time, I didn't return to it. And I never will. Not ever.
I was one semester into my university education, living very far from home, and I had agreed to get help so my roommates would leave me alone to destroy myself with my eating disorder. And maybe about 1% of me hoped I could get actual help, but I was pretty much trying to kill that part of me. One of my roommates came with me to an intake appointment where we determined I would do individual counseling and join the eating disorder recovery group.
I had done counseling before and was wary still about saying anything that could land me in the hospital, but not as wary as before. I felt I knew the ropes of counseling. I don't really remember much about counseling that semester. It was with a PhD student. I liked her well enough. That's all I remember about counseling. All the important parts of my recovery came from the group.
The group was called Fed Up With Food. I'd seen posters for it the previous semester and secretly had been intrigued but I was too scared to make any effort to inquire about it. The group was based on the 12 steps, but also had a religious focus, and unlike a traditional 12-step group where you are expected to choose a sponsor, we had mentors assigned to us - one mentor to one participant. We were to meet with our mentors for an hour each week and attend group (1 1/2 hours) each week. We were given workbook/journals to write in during and between group sessions. In group, we weren't allowed to discuss specific symptoms or behaviors related to our eating disorders (because it could be triggering), but with our mentors we could discuss whatever we wanted.
I was full of doubt. 50% of the member of this group (of about 20 people) were mentors and said they had completely recovered from an eating disorder. I had read for years that this was impossible. I thought they must be where I had been so many times, in a good spot but ready to relapse at any moment. I was quiet and felt superior in my knowledge, like I'd been around the block with my eating disorder and knew more than anyone else. In my first one-on-one meeting with my mentor, I told her I didn't believe in recovery and thought all the mentors would relapse eventually. She didn't seem to mind that I felt that way. She also gave me a book, The Secret Language of Eating Disorders, which I promised to read. I'm glad I did.
Every week in group, we started off with successes. Everyone in the room was expected to share a personal success from the previous week. That was really hard for me, because I was so used to beating myself up about everything. Looking back, I think sharing a success once a week was really helpful. I knew the whole week that I would be expected to share a success, so it made me look for something I had done that was good. It forced me to find something nice to say about myself, which I was not in the practice of doing. Here are a few successes I remember sharing:
- I did well on a test.
- I ate peanut butter.
- I called my mom and was honest with her about my eating disorder.
We also worked on the 12 steps (usually a few at a time, kind of clumped together) in group and did some sort of activity, and processed our thoughts through sharing. We also made goals every week, which we wrote in our books.
After several weeks of this, I started to believe that my mentor was actually recovered. This was probably the biggest turning point in my recovery. There is this belief I have about most things that if other people have done it, and I want it badly enough, I can also do it. So, once I believed that real recovery was possible, and even had access to someone who had done it, I threw everything into it. And it was really, really hard.
I read the book my mentor had given me. One of the helpful things it got me to do was to differentiate between the negative mind and the actual mind. I bought a steno pad and recorded "conversations" between the negative mind and actual mind. Things like:
| Negative Mind | Actual Mind |
| I want a cookie. | |
| You can't have a cookie. You don't deserve a cookie. You're too fat to have a cookie. And you're bad. You're a bad friend. You're a bad person. Why would you ever think you can have a cookie? And if you get a cookie, you'll probably eat a whole bunch of cookies and then you'll regret it. | |
| I'm not that bad. I think probably even rapists eat cookies. I'm not a rapist. | |
| You're not any better than a rapist. You shouldn't ever eat again. You should just starve to death. You'd be doing everyone a favor. You're just a burden anyway. Nobody wants to listen to you, they just do because they're scared not to. You scare everyone. | |
| My mentor says I'm not a burden. | |
| Of course she says that. It's her job. It doesn't make it true. You're a burden on her. You're a burden on everyone you tell the truth to. |
At first, like in the example, the negative mind controlled the conversation, taking up most of the real estate. As time went by, though, I started to get better, and was able to give the actual mind more control and more real estate in the conversations. I started believing the actual mind more and recognizing how false and crazy the negative mind was.
At group, we worked through the twelve steps, not exactly in a linear, one step at a time, way, but kind of clumped together. When we worked on the steps, we usually did something imaginative and symbolic. One book I had read about eating disorders, Eating by the Light of the Moon, indicated that symbols and metaphors speak especially strongly to women with eating disorders. I don't know if it's always true, but it was true for me. A lot of times we drew a picture at group - I remember one time being tasked to draw a picture of our eating disorder; another time we were supposed to draw our path to recovery.
Another part of group and recovery was letting myself be as little as I needed to - not physically, but emotionally. If I needed to be held like a baby, that was okay. If I needed to draw and do crafts like a little girl, that was okay. If I needed to be talked to like a grown-up, that was okay. I think I needed to identify with Heather the baby and Heather the toddler and Heather the little girl and Heather the teenager and Heather the college student in order to become whole. All of those Heathers needed healing.
Another thing I worked on was eating. Even though my eating disorder was a disease of the mind, it certainly took its physical toll. By the time I was ready to put forth the effort into recovery, my body didn't feel okay eating normal amounts of food, and it hurt to do so. I had also caused some food aversions by telling myself for years that I didn't like certain things because I believed they were bad for me - like mayonnaise, for example. So, to work on eating, I first turned to something familiar - I set a calorie goal that seemed reachable but healthy, and tried to get as close to it as possible. I didn't pat myself on the back if I was under it, like I used to. I also didn't try to go over it, because I was sure if I ate a lot more than the amount I'd specified, I wouldn't be able to handle it. I stuck to that for about two weeks. I felt my stomach stretching out. The physical pain was intense. After those weeks were over, I moved on to what I knew I really wanted and needed to work, intuitive eating.
Truthfully, I've never read much of the book Intuitive Eating, although I've read parts of it and own more than one copy (for sharing, obviously). But I understood and embraced the concept that my body had once been capable of knowing exactly how much to eat (think of an infant, nursed on demand - I had been that, once) and I could get there again. Having stretched out my stomach to an appropriate size, I began to trust my body to tell me what to eat, and I listened to it. One of the foods it really wanted was peanut butter, which is high in fat and contains some protein. It makes logical sense that I wanted it. When I told people at group how much I wanted peanut butter, there was almost universal acknowledgement that peanut butter was an amazing food for those recovering from a restriction-based eating disorder. When I told my mom that I was so excited about peanut butter, she recommended I choose something less fattening to love. I got mad and hung up on her. I'm sure my mom was trying to be helpful, but what I needed then was complete acceptance about anything I felt I needed to eat.
I began to have success understanding what my body needed to eat and how much. I still detested the feeling of being full, so I found that if I ate until just full, and then went to the bathroom - not to throw up, but to actually use the bathroom - I would feel okay to "sit with myself." I was in a really good place by the time the semester was over and it was time to go home.
Once I left college, things started falling apart a little bit. I was relapsing. I called my mentor in complete distress. She assured me that she loved me no matter what I did. Her love was not conditional upon my success at recovering. And also, she believed that I would recover completely. I think I might have implied she was stupid for believing in me, but it didn't phase her or change her mind. She believed in me completely, even though I doubted. So I decided to work on recovery, again. I spent the summer in a general addiction recovery program and also in counseling. I leaned on my friends for support and was honest with them. I called my mentor every so often.
Toward the end of that summer, I was at my addiction recovery meeting, and as usual, one of my friends had come to support me. She said something in that meeting that was kind of the last piece of the puzzle, for me. She said that in the bible, people would offer animals as burnt offerings, as sacrifices to God. But, when people offered an animal, they left it at the altar...and left. There was no taking back their sacrifice. But with addictions, it's so easy to place our addiction on the altar and say we're going to sacrifice it, but then take it back and use it whenever we feel stressed or upset. It's important to leave the sacrifice at the altar, and leave it. With all the work I'd put in, this was the last step. I needed to leave it and walk away forever. I chose to do that that night. I let it go and promised myself to never return to it, no matter what.
And this time, I didn't return to it. And I never will. Not ever.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
My unique eating disorder - the sad and confusing parts
One of the most important things I learned in my journey of recovery is that my eating disorder was my own. It didn't have to fit any mold, it didn't have to be like someone else's. It was unique. I had read a lot of other stories of people who had eating disorders, and they were sometimes similar to mine and sometimes not. Sometimes I felt that where our stories didn't meet up, I must be somehow lacking, and it could trigger me into something worse. If you think reading my story might trigger you in a similar way, please stop reading skip this post. Read any other post.
So here's my story...sort of. I'm going to do my recovery as a separate post.
As a young girl, I never worried about my weight or my body image. I had a lot of things that crept in and filtered my view of the world, but I've already written about that. Unlike most people who develop eating disorders, I can pinpoint the day the eating disorder began.
I was 14 and working full time at McDonald's for the summer. Most people don't know you can even work full time that young, but you can in the summer. One night, I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, when I realized I hadn't eaten dinner. All of a sudden, a new thought crept in to my head, completely unfamiliar to me but very entrancing. It went something like this: I could just not eat it. I could just never eat dinner again. I could become so thin. I could be thinner than anyone I know. And I went to bed, feeling powerful and elated, in a sick way.
The next morning, everything felt different. I thought about skipping breakfast, but decided against it since I'd be on my feet working all day. The ride to work was interesting. I was inwardly focused and noticed things like the color of the sky. I didn't speak. Work carried on pretty much as normal, except lunch was strange for me. I got my usual lunch, a chicken sandwich, but I was thinking about how it would be the last thing I ate that day.
When I got home, I began chatting with some of my friends online. I felt so different, so powerful, having decided never to eat dinner again. But I also felt some discomfort, like I was doing something wrong and owed it to my friends to be honest. I told one friend about my plans, and she pleaded with me to change my mind. Around 11 pm, I caved and had a bowl of cereal - not because I was hungry, but because I felt I owed it to my friend to comply with her pleadings. I was pretty sure that would be the end of it, but it was just the beginning.
As time went by, there were more times when thoughts like the ones I had that first night became overwhelmingly powerful. I learned, eventually, to call that the negative mind, but I had no word for it at this stage. Truthfully, I don't remember how many times I went in and out of my eating disorder. I remember some specific moments. I remember being at a dance sleepover and stressing about having eaten pizza, and doing sit-ups and push-ups and feeling like I had to, and couldn't stop, and the other girls thinking I was crazy. I remember one day at dance there were doughnuts left over for something, and we were allowed to eat as many as we wanted, and I think I had about six, and then I wanted to make myself throw them all up, but I was too scared I'd be caught. I remember when I was 15, I called one of my best friends to tell him something had "clicked" and I felt I'd be able to give up my eating disorder...but I called him too late at night, and he was really upset with me, and didn't want to be my friend anymore, which hurt terrifically. And then it wasn't even the end of my eating disorder after all, because I slipped back into it a few months later.
My eating disorder was taking over my life. I spent hours reading about eating disorders online. I read a lot about what supposedly caused them, what the symptoms were, all the different types, stories from individuals, books about recovery, even a book detailing the lives of fours teens struggling with eating disorders - which was very triggering and damaging to me. I learned that there are online communities of people who feel that living with an eating disorder is a lifestyle choice, not an illness. There are people who devote their time and talents to finding and/or creating "thinspiration," which is media, typically photos or photo-shopped photos, aimed at inspiring those suffering with an eating disorder to keep making themselves sicker. I read about awful diets and tricks to keep losing weight even after your body was in starvation mode. I watched a video documentary about girls with eating disorders entering rehab facilities. I tracked celebrities noted to have eating disorders, obsessively following their stories. I counted calories. I ate ridiculously sized portions sometimes, like a half of a piece of bread. I loathed myself for bouncing back and forth between my eating disorder and a healthier lifestyle. I wanted to choose one or the other, but I couldn't seem to stick with either. One of the most harmful things I read, and kept reading, was that there was no such thing as true recovery from an eating disorder - that it would be something I'd struggle with my entire life. I later found that to be a harmful lie, but at the time, it made the struggle to choose a healthy lifestyle seem even less appealing, since it seemed like a sham, something I could never really have.
At some point, I intentionally caused myself to vomit. I was successful the first time I tried it, and I was proud of that, because I'd read most people couldn't do it the first time. My throat was so sore the next day. I didn't make myself vomit often, but as the months and years went by, it got easier and easier, to where I could often do it without much more than a decision to throw up. I started worrying that I wouldn't be able to control it anymore. I was also terrified every time I excused myself to the bathroom that someone would discover me. I lived in constant fear of being found out, especially by adults who could enforce something. I was scared my parents would feel compelled to admit me to a rehab facility, and I knew we couldn't afford it.
It turned out I needn't have worried about that - I finally told them I had an eating disorder when I was 16, and they didn't even really believe me. I asked to be put in counseling and I went for a few months. I don't remember why I stopped going. I don't remember it being all that helpful. I was terrified to tell the counselor anything because I was a minor, and she was legally obligated to tell my mother anything I said of a serious nature, which was pretty much anything I wanted to say. Besides the eating disorder, I was cutting myself occasionally and I was depressed, sometimes suicidal. And my parents were completely lost and had no idea how to cope with me being so messed up, so I didn't get any help for fear it would hurt them more if I told the counselor, who would then tell them.
When I was 17, it was more of the same. Hiding everything because I was a minor, bouncing back and forth between eating disorder and healthier lifestyle, sometimes being honest, sometimes lying to protect those I cared about, maybe to protect myself. When I turned 18, I was finally an adult. I think I went back to counseling, and had a little bit more freedom, but I still had to be careful how honest I was because I didn't want to end up in the psych ward for admitting I wanted to kill myself at times. I had adult friends, too, and some of them had a lot more life experience than me. They were pretty kind to me. I'm thankful for them. And then I was 19, and it was more of the same, and then when I was nearly 20 I graduated from community college (I started attending at age 16).
When I was 20, I moved across the country to attend a university. I lived with roommates and felt ultimate freedom to finally choose to embrace my eating disorder fully, not that I would be away from my family. And I did. I went drastically, crazily into my eating disorder. I still danced every day. I cut my calories to 300 per day. I threw up if I wanted to. I could feel the effects on my body. I was cold all the time and practically lived in front of a space heater. My heart pounded at everything I did. I got shaky. I stopped being able to walk up stairs. I was pretty much killing myself and I was freaked out, but also elated that I was finally doing it 'right.'
I did that for a whole semester. I admitted to my bishop (ecclesiastical leader) that I was starving myself and it was probably killing me, and did that make me a sinner for intentionally harming myself? And he kind of chastised me and told me to STOP IT, and I went away sorrowing because I didn't feel that was within my power. I don't really blame him for not knowing what to say. Sometimes I don't even know what to say to people with eating disorders, and I lived through one.
So really, it might have gone on indefinitely, or until I died, except that I had roommates, and they couldn't stay quiet about it anymore. Two of them banded together to get me to seek help. I was pretty firmly planted in the idea that I could not be helped by that point, but I agreed to seek help. In my mind, I know I had two thoughts. The most obvious, powerful one came from the negative mind, which had almost completely taken over my actual mind by that point. It was that if I was "seeking help," surely my roommates would leave me to my own devices and stop worrying about me and threatening to call my parents. By agreeing to see a counselor and attend a group, I was giving myself ultimate freedom to starve myself to death. But the second, very, very small thought wondered if I could possibly not be a lost cause, if maybe there really was someone who could help me...
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Why did I have an eating disorder?
Why did I have an eating disorder? I got this question a lot from the people who knew about my eating disorder. I asked myself this question even more. The short answer is really "I don't know." But there's a long answer too, so we'll explore that here.
People who have no experience with eating disorders commonly think that people who have eating disorders just want to be skinny. In reality, for most people with eating disorders, that's more of a mask, or a small part of why the eating disorder exists. It's not a diet or weight-loss program. It's an obsession that can take over your life. Or take your life.
I also had a friend ask me if it had something to do with being a picky eater. Maybe I didn't want to eat anymore because I didn't like most food? Well, I became a much pickier eater when I had an eating disorder, but I don't think that was it either.
One of the most common theories is that eating disorders are about control. The idea is that a person feels like she (or he, but since I'm a girl, we'll use she) has lost control over just about everything in her life. One thing she can control, though, is what she consumes, and so she takes that to the extreme in one way or another. It gives her a sense of power and a sense of having control over something. This might have been part of it, for me. I don't think it was all of it.
There's also family history and beliefs that are taught to us. It seems like my parents were always on diets while I was growing up. Us kids didn't have to diet because we were skinny, so we were allowed to eat whole sticks of pepperoni and things like that. I also remember my mom telling me that people who had been molested would eat and eat and get really fat. That may be true in some cases, but the damaging message I got was that if I get fat, it means I was molested, and I didn't want anyone to think that about me! I also got confusing messages from others I interacted with. When I was pretty young, maybe about 8, a girl who was older than me asked if I was anorexic. I had no idea what that meant. Generally, people spent a lot of their interactions with me commenting on how thin I was. I didn't care when I was a kid. But as I got a bit older and stopped getting those comments, I started wondering if that meant I was fat, or something was wrong with me. When I was 13 I was at a routine physical and the doctor asked me what kind of milk I drank. I told her I drank 2%. She said I'd better switch for 1% or skin or I would surely get fat in the next few years. I told her I did dance and gymnastics and swim team and I didn't think I would. She argued that I would. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, I can't believe she is allowed to be a doctor, telling teenage girls things like that.
Another theory is that it is societal pressure. I competed in dance, gymnastics, and swimming. I practically lived in a leotard/swimsuit. How could I walk away from all these activities unscathed? Especially when the media bombards us with images of "ideal beauty" being unnaturally thin, made-up, airbrushed women? I am sure some people could have done all that in a society like this and walked away without an eating disorder. Maybe. But it's probably a contributing factor.
A book I read, The Secret Language of Eating Disorders, has another theory, or maybe a few theories that tie together. The big idea is that people who are predisposed to developing eating disorders are people who care "too much." These are people who watch the news and can't stop thinking about how horrible it is, and want to fix it. These are children who try to take care of their parents, "the parentified child," if you will. These are people who can't stand seeing unkindness, injustice, or devastation. This does fit me pretty well. I desperately wanted to help those starving kids in poor countries as a child and begged my mom to let me sponsor a child somewhere. I sent money every month to a little girl in India for a while when I was about 6. I also took on a role as a parent in my home, creating chore charts and assigning homework to my siblings (we were all homeschooled) and feeling responsible to be sort of a second mother. My mom let me. I'm not sure if she could have stopped me if she tried. She probably enjoyed the help. I don't think she was bad for that.
But somehow I got the idea that I was bad. This is another part of the theory from that book. I developed what the book refers to as the negative mind. Basically, the negative mind is what tells you things like "you don't deserve a cookie, you don't deserve to ever eat any cookies," and justifies it to you with some false reason like because you are fat, or stupid, or a bad friend, or something else that isn't even true. But somehow you believe the lies and do what it says and start to believe the negative mind is actually you, rather than something sabotaging the real you - the actual mind.
So there are a few very plausible contributing factors to why I developed an eating disorder. But here's the most important thing to me: it doesn't actually matter if I can pin down all the reasons perfectly. Sometimes recognizing things, especially the negative mind thing I learned about, can help us to recover. But sometimes we just torture ourselves, demanding to know exactly why we are the way we are, and there isn't a simple answer, and maybe we'll never know the answer and don't have to. I've come to be at peace with not always having to have a reason why something bad - or something good - happened.
People who have no experience with eating disorders commonly think that people who have eating disorders just want to be skinny. In reality, for most people with eating disorders, that's more of a mask, or a small part of why the eating disorder exists. It's not a diet or weight-loss program. It's an obsession that can take over your life. Or take your life.
I also had a friend ask me if it had something to do with being a picky eater. Maybe I didn't want to eat anymore because I didn't like most food? Well, I became a much pickier eater when I had an eating disorder, but I don't think that was it either.
One of the most common theories is that eating disorders are about control. The idea is that a person feels like she (or he, but since I'm a girl, we'll use she) has lost control over just about everything in her life. One thing she can control, though, is what she consumes, and so she takes that to the extreme in one way or another. It gives her a sense of power and a sense of having control over something. This might have been part of it, for me. I don't think it was all of it.
There's also family history and beliefs that are taught to us. It seems like my parents were always on diets while I was growing up. Us kids didn't have to diet because we were skinny, so we were allowed to eat whole sticks of pepperoni and things like that. I also remember my mom telling me that people who had been molested would eat and eat and get really fat. That may be true in some cases, but the damaging message I got was that if I get fat, it means I was molested, and I didn't want anyone to think that about me! I also got confusing messages from others I interacted with. When I was pretty young, maybe about 8, a girl who was older than me asked if I was anorexic. I had no idea what that meant. Generally, people spent a lot of their interactions with me commenting on how thin I was. I didn't care when I was a kid. But as I got a bit older and stopped getting those comments, I started wondering if that meant I was fat, or something was wrong with me. When I was 13 I was at a routine physical and the doctor asked me what kind of milk I drank. I told her I drank 2%. She said I'd better switch for 1% or skin or I would surely get fat in the next few years. I told her I did dance and gymnastics and swim team and I didn't think I would. She argued that I would. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, I can't believe she is allowed to be a doctor, telling teenage girls things like that.
Another theory is that it is societal pressure. I competed in dance, gymnastics, and swimming. I practically lived in a leotard/swimsuit. How could I walk away from all these activities unscathed? Especially when the media bombards us with images of "ideal beauty" being unnaturally thin, made-up, airbrushed women? I am sure some people could have done all that in a society like this and walked away without an eating disorder. Maybe. But it's probably a contributing factor.
A book I read, The Secret Language of Eating Disorders, has another theory, or maybe a few theories that tie together. The big idea is that people who are predisposed to developing eating disorders are people who care "too much." These are people who watch the news and can't stop thinking about how horrible it is, and want to fix it. These are children who try to take care of their parents, "the parentified child," if you will. These are people who can't stand seeing unkindness, injustice, or devastation. This does fit me pretty well. I desperately wanted to help those starving kids in poor countries as a child and begged my mom to let me sponsor a child somewhere. I sent money every month to a little girl in India for a while when I was about 6. I also took on a role as a parent in my home, creating chore charts and assigning homework to my siblings (we were all homeschooled) and feeling responsible to be sort of a second mother. My mom let me. I'm not sure if she could have stopped me if she tried. She probably enjoyed the help. I don't think she was bad for that.
But somehow I got the idea that I was bad. This is another part of the theory from that book. I developed what the book refers to as the negative mind. Basically, the negative mind is what tells you things like "you don't deserve a cookie, you don't deserve to ever eat any cookies," and justifies it to you with some false reason like because you are fat, or stupid, or a bad friend, or something else that isn't even true. But somehow you believe the lies and do what it says and start to believe the negative mind is actually you, rather than something sabotaging the real you - the actual mind.
So there are a few very plausible contributing factors to why I developed an eating disorder. But here's the most important thing to me: it doesn't actually matter if I can pin down all the reasons perfectly. Sometimes recognizing things, especially the negative mind thing I learned about, can help us to recover. But sometimes we just torture ourselves, demanding to know exactly why we are the way we are, and there isn't a simple answer, and maybe we'll never know the answer and don't have to. I've come to be at peace with not always having to have a reason why something bad - or something good - happened.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Introduction to the journey
Here's the really short version of the facts of my journey through recovery.
When I was 14, I developed an eating disorder. The name of the eating disorder is ED-NOS, which stands for Eating Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. Basically that means my behaviors and bodily functions didn't qualify me for any specific eating disorder, although I engaged in behaviors characteristic of any you may or may not have heard of - anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, even some aspects of orthorexia and maybe a run-in or two with PICOS symptoms. I struggled with no fitting in to any specific category, but that's a story for another time.
I struggled on an off with my eating disorder for several years, sometimes believing I had recovered, only to relapse later. I started reading things that led me to believe it would always be that way - recovery and then relapse, recovery and then relapse. I started to feel that recovery may not be worth it if it was always going to be followed by a relapse. I also struggled with OCD tendencies and pretty severe depression.
Life circumstances were that I was active in my church, dancing competitively, and competing in gymnastics. My dad didn't have a job for a few years at the beginning. When I was 16, I quit gymnastics and started classes at the local community college. I graduated with my Associate's degree at age 19 and headed for a university across the country from home, where I'd been living this whole time.
Living with roommates didn't suit me well with regards to my eating disorder. I felt like I was finally free to abuse myself as much as I wished, and I did. Things got pretty bad my first semester there, and my roommates started to freak out a little bit. In January of that year, to appease my roommates and prevent them from trying to reach out to my parents (who had not been at all supportive of me in this, even though they were supportive and loving in many other ways), I started "getting help."
I didn't actually want to get help. I was convinced I would live with an eating disorder for the rest of my life, so the idea of trying to get help for it seemed pointless. All I wanted was to get my roommates off my back so I could starve myself to death in peace. I went to the college counseling center and got myself a student therapist, and I signed up for their eating disorder support group, which was based loosely on the 12 steps, but with a lot of guidance and assigned mentors who had previously had eating disorders.
The idea that my mentor had recovered from an eating disorder was laughable to me. I was sure she was in recovery and relapse was around the corner for her, like it always had been for me. But I was wrong. As I got to know her that semester, despite my initially cynical attitude, I started to believe that she was really recovered. That made a huge difference for me. So I worked on recovery, and was nearly there by the end of that one semester in the group. When I went home for the summer, I relapsed, but got back on track pretty quickly. I joined a 12 step addiction recovery program at home and kept in contact with my mentor, and by the end of the summer I felt confident that I had achieved true recovery, lasting recovery. I lived without an eating disorder for a semester, then went back to the group the following semester as a mentor. I mentored for two semesters, then moved on.
And I'm still recovered. I've never relapsed since that summer relapse I just mentioned. It's been over 8 years, which is longer than the 6 years I had the eating disorder.
It may be true that some will spend their whole lives protecting themselves from, or succumbing to, relapse. I can't tell anyone's story but mine. But I know that for me, real recovery happened, and that means real recovery is possible, and that's really important to me. I hope it gives as much hope to someone else as it gave to me, once I finally believed it.
When I was 14, I developed an eating disorder. The name of the eating disorder is ED-NOS, which stands for Eating Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. Basically that means my behaviors and bodily functions didn't qualify me for any specific eating disorder, although I engaged in behaviors characteristic of any you may or may not have heard of - anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, even some aspects of orthorexia and maybe a run-in or two with PICOS symptoms. I struggled with no fitting in to any specific category, but that's a story for another time.
I struggled on an off with my eating disorder for several years, sometimes believing I had recovered, only to relapse later. I started reading things that led me to believe it would always be that way - recovery and then relapse, recovery and then relapse. I started to feel that recovery may not be worth it if it was always going to be followed by a relapse. I also struggled with OCD tendencies and pretty severe depression.
Life circumstances were that I was active in my church, dancing competitively, and competing in gymnastics. My dad didn't have a job for a few years at the beginning. When I was 16, I quit gymnastics and started classes at the local community college. I graduated with my Associate's degree at age 19 and headed for a university across the country from home, where I'd been living this whole time.
Living with roommates didn't suit me well with regards to my eating disorder. I felt like I was finally free to abuse myself as much as I wished, and I did. Things got pretty bad my first semester there, and my roommates started to freak out a little bit. In January of that year, to appease my roommates and prevent them from trying to reach out to my parents (who had not been at all supportive of me in this, even though they were supportive and loving in many other ways), I started "getting help."
I didn't actually want to get help. I was convinced I would live with an eating disorder for the rest of my life, so the idea of trying to get help for it seemed pointless. All I wanted was to get my roommates off my back so I could starve myself to death in peace. I went to the college counseling center and got myself a student therapist, and I signed up for their eating disorder support group, which was based loosely on the 12 steps, but with a lot of guidance and assigned mentors who had previously had eating disorders.
The idea that my mentor had recovered from an eating disorder was laughable to me. I was sure she was in recovery and relapse was around the corner for her, like it always had been for me. But I was wrong. As I got to know her that semester, despite my initially cynical attitude, I started to believe that she was really recovered. That made a huge difference for me. So I worked on recovery, and was nearly there by the end of that one semester in the group. When I went home for the summer, I relapsed, but got back on track pretty quickly. I joined a 12 step addiction recovery program at home and kept in contact with my mentor, and by the end of the summer I felt confident that I had achieved true recovery, lasting recovery. I lived without an eating disorder for a semester, then went back to the group the following semester as a mentor. I mentored for two semesters, then moved on.
And I'm still recovered. I've never relapsed since that summer relapse I just mentioned. It's been over 8 years, which is longer than the 6 years I had the eating disorder.
It may be true that some will spend their whole lives protecting themselves from, or succumbing to, relapse. I can't tell anyone's story but mine. But I know that for me, real recovery happened, and that means real recovery is possible, and that's really important to me. I hope it gives as much hope to someone else as it gave to me, once I finally believed it.
The reason for this blog
I used to want to write a book about my journey, the journey of recovery from an eating disorder. I never wrote the book. I didn't know how to make the story of my journey into a book. My journey seemed to non-linear. I cold write the story sequentially, but I'd be sure to leave out important parts and some pieces don't necessarily make much sense when looking at it sequentially. That's why it makes more sense to me now, several years after having lived through it, because I've pieced things together that didn't make sense at the time.
There was also the overwhelming prospect of, supposing I ever did finish writing the book, managing to get it published and "out there" enough to help people. It wasn't a money-making endeavor. I just wanted to be able to share some perspectives that helped me, perspectives that changed my life.
It only recently occurred to me that if I wrote it as a blog instead of a book, all those problems go away. I can write the story by topics. I can rewrite the same part of the story many times in different posts. There's no minimum or maximum page limit. I don't have to get it published. I can share it whenever it seems applicable, and anyone else can share it whenever they want, and no one has to invest any money into it.
So here I am, writing my journey, finally. Enjoy the journey!
There was also the overwhelming prospect of, supposing I ever did finish writing the book, managing to get it published and "out there" enough to help people. It wasn't a money-making endeavor. I just wanted to be able to share some perspectives that helped me, perspectives that changed my life.
It only recently occurred to me that if I wrote it as a blog instead of a book, all those problems go away. I can write the story by topics. I can rewrite the same part of the story many times in different posts. There's no minimum or maximum page limit. I don't have to get it published. I can share it whenever it seems applicable, and anyone else can share it whenever they want, and no one has to invest any money into it.
So here I am, writing my journey, finally. Enjoy the journey!
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