Eating Disorders and life with one - Discussions, Opinions, Advice.

I'm listening to your advice. That made a lot of sense to me. If anything I have been helped more from advice from you and others on this thread than by any of the professional help I've had .. Talking of professional help I have the doctors today and I'm meant to tell him about all this.. Any idea how I should say it or what I should say because I worry I won't be able to get the words out ?


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The professionals know what they're on about, it's just you might not be able to connect onthe same level as your peers and fellow sufferers. In fact, one thing that aided me immensely is being offered the chance to meet people at different stages of recovery BY the Eating Disorder and Mental Health departments; knowing you aren't alone AND putting faces to the stories helps a huge amount. In fact, as time went on we found we were actually fighting it without realising, saying things like "I would invite you for lunch but we both know that'd be awkward with us BOTH counting the peas on our plate!" etc - the ability to joke about something like that with someone that understood, it made it more comfortable to approach the problem itself, without trivialising it.

Think of the initial meeting as just Atlas offloading the world from his shoulders. Tell your doctor/specialist EVERYTHING you feel, even if it's tempestuous or fleeting; even if you're thinking it's irrelevant. It's all important. I said stupid stuff like "I can't eat Smarties without counting them and eating them in order of decreasing quantities of specific colour." Things like "I freeze up if people start talking to me and I was about to eat, like a deer in headlights, and I end up unable to talk at all."

Whatever it is, just say it. This carpet-bomb approach means you might bomb him or her with a ton of info, but though some of it might be superfluous, a lot will be important.

Finally, they deal with this sort of thing constantly. Nothing, from piles to fungal infection to hair loss (all things I have dealt with at one point during anorexia) will confuse or shock them. Just tell them. X

Phew! I'm going to try to reply to a few of these briefly, you guys.

Firstly, Riku, dude, the ironic thing is that males by definition are incomplete versions of the species of mammal. We are the mere catalyst for reproduction and birth; we literally only contribute the final ebb required to "unlock" the process of embryo creation. Our "Y" chromosome is quite literally just an incomplete "X" chromosome.

Why, then, should we be so obsessed with superiority? Evolution is eradicating this, of course, but back when we were mere beings of instinct, we were just sex machines (oo! C'mawn! Etc). We were programmed to be aggressive, violent and domineering in order to fight for mates. We evolved bigger and stronger to battle one another and our prey. As intelligence grew and knowledge and understanding broadened, we became more and more accepting of the ability to be civil. We as men became smaller, relied on intelligent planning more than brute strength, and nowadays (and even in our cultural development in the past one hundred years), we've developed a deep, sensitive nature that puts us on almost equal footing physically (in terms of height and weight stature-wise) as our female peers.

What I'm saying in a very long-winded way is we are evolving , developing, to be LESS macho. Our evolutionary arc has us getting smaller, more accepting, civil and sympathetic, more intelligent and less overpowering to our fellow man - and woman. Women are no longer our servants, housewives and caretakers but our absolute equals, in both culture and physiological stature. Know that it's merely your instinct or your "animal brain" teaching you these things.
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As I always say in this thread, nobody can help you with these sort of panic posts. If I were to post "Help help help! Call 999!" would I need the police, fire department or an ambulance? Well, nobody knows!

Nobody can help you if it's just a "woe!" post, you need to give some kind of detail and reasoning for feeling as you do.

Well, what is the alternative? Not eating? Dying?

Would you prefer dying? I genuinely ask people this as it is an important response to hear. Some people are so overcome by phobias they would risk losing life itself to stifle it, and those people are definitely in a group that require an assessment of the magnitude of their priorities. But to those that aren't wanting death, you are FEARFUL, but BECAUSE of harm. BECAUSE of danger. Danger. What IS danger?

Is giving your body fuel to carry on living... danger? No, that's likening a hamburger to being stabbed.

Stop this. You need to eat to be alive, and if you keep stifling that I'll have one less poster on this board. Everything, from studying, to family, to friends and hobbies will have been for nought. You'll have ended yourself because of doing something your body needs to do.

Would you hold your breath until you passed out because it was "safe"?

x

First and foremost AU, I want to forewarn you of my stern tone; I will speak plainly, and I don't do it to shock or humiliate, I do it because it's what works.

You're not convincing me. You are definitely in a state of hysteria; a blind, illogical panic, and if you were, as you say, interested in helping yourself you would have visited other mental avenues.

Tonight I would like you to do something for me. I want you to pick five things you detest - not dislike, ABHOR - about yourself. Be honest. I am completely indifferent to it being five things about your toenails or your hatred of the colour green. I just want to know what the deep-seeded hatred is. Then, for each, I want you to give the most prominent reason.

If the reason comes quickly, subconsciously, then great. If you have to think about it, then perhaps it is not a real subconscious, ingrained issue, and more a considered issue. For example, I hate how I have the McDonalds Arches haircut (that receding hairline that goes in an "M") because I can't have a cool hairstyle. Simple. But when I hate something like my inability to eat in front of certain people, I am left considering why that is. Judgement? Self-judgement? Are they judging the methods I use, or the things I am eating? Am I worried about eating too fast, or too slo.... wait. Wait. I don't even know. You see? If it's an illogical, considered problem, it has no definite root or simple outcome. It requires digging.

This is what I want from you. Five things, and five reasons. Tell me what you come up with, and how long it takes for each.

Here is my initial analysis. Though it may seem brief, It's based on what I grab straight away, and you should heed what I say because the most apparent initial follies from another person's standpoint might be something you spend an eternity on yourself.



You are a comparative person. You constantly compare yourself to you peers, right? You are continuously looking at their frames, their minds, their grades, their motives. It is normal to be competitive, but not obsessively so. Then you go on to consider abandonment. You fear you might not be ... "good enough". Your family abandoned you and your personal analysis was that it must be because of inadequacy as a person.

Then, you started considering what values you should gauge as a person. To "make up" for it. To be "Good enough". What that entailed was being smart or pretty enough to be a success. Vanity. Though in a lot of cases anorexia nervosa presents itself with little or no vanity-based reasoning in your case it seems it's appropriate. You need to know you are both intelligent and attractive physically to warrant your approval from people to avoid "failing them" as you believe you previously did.

I am fixated on the notion you felt the need to talk about your nose. Rhinophobia, or the fear of large or prominent noses, is often the result of a submissive nature. That you feel subservant, or that you feel that you need to be directed. This, like my own nature, is important because we both need objectives in our lives to feel we're achieving.

Basically I'm deducing that you feel isolated, abandoned and vulnerable. You have developed this eating disorder as a methodology to keep you "in check", to continuously punish you for being inadequate. Of course, this isn't truth - I know for a fact you're both intelligent and emotionally capable (and though I've never seen you I'm certain your view of yourself is a million times uglier than your view of yourself) - but you ARE good enough.

People view the most mundane and superfluous, basal qualities as important sometimes. In our developing years sometimes we adopt the most insane or absolutely manic notions as normality. If I had grown up in a torture basement I might be the nicest, most gentle of men, but find the notion of goring people through the throat totally normal. I might see someone strung up and find it background noise and continue like it was nothing more than a beeping car horn in the night.

What I mean is, you've endured a very daunting life event that haunts you even now, but the value you place upon it isn't relative to it's actual worth. You're seeing an old event and basing your life on values and traits that no longer hold any meaning. I want you to stop thinking about old times and consider only you RIGHT NOW. Think about who you are and where you want to go. What is most important?

Making a slightly difficult decision to go to Pizza Hut with my girlfriend tomorrow, to celebrate end of exams, which means skipping a workout tomorrow-and I haven't had one since (Monday? I can't quite remember). Not panicking about it as such but there were still second thoughts. My logic seems a bit warped to say the least.



I hope this is progress. I still want to improve fitness but not at the expense of life.