Can anyone offer advice on how to overcome anorexia alone?

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(edited 7 years ago)

I haven't had anorexia but I've had an eating disorder. What I think helped me get over that was I kept telling myself that in the long run, my eating disorder would end up destroying me and stop me from what I wanted to do. I've had friends who are anorexics and they struggled getting through it alone. I'd say OP, tell someone about your struggles and how you feel. Women are meant to eat about 2000 calories or something per day. I'd say keep a diary of what foods you eat.

Anyway if you want to PM me OP feel free to. Anorexia is a horrible thing to go through x

Reply 2

Anonymous #2

It is hard but it is completely possible to make a full recovery on your own; I know because I did it. My recovery began when I started educating myself on healthy eating and how food should be seen as energy and nourishment, not something that will hurt you. Unfollow any negative influences on social media. Stop counting calories. Let go of these bad habits. It's a slow process but over time your mindset will shift and you will begin to develop a healthy relationship with food again. For me getting into cooking actually helped as I found food enjoyable again and I was proud of the things I cooked. I would recommend seeking help from someone though - it could be a parent, close friend, school counsellor etc., anyone you feel comfortable speaking with. I wish you the best of luck, there will be ups and downs but never give up because in the end it's worth it and you will gain your life and happiness back, I believe in you <3

Reply 3

Kindred

Original post by Anonymous

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My first advice would be don't go it alone. I know that you are too scared to get help right now and it is possible for you to manage it on your own but it will be very difficult. You've already said that you got amazing help for your other mh problems and they can do the same to help you with this. It is really worth you keeping an open mind to getting support, even if you wait a while until you are feeling more up to it.
I seem to have missed where you are being discharged from. Are you currently in hospital? If so, I know it might mean a longer stay, but it would be a very good place to start working on recovery. You don't have to though and could wait until you are discharged to get help. You could look into therapy through your GP (i'm sure you know the process).

There are some complex emotions and throught behind why you aren't eating and unlimately getting those understood and under control is what will help your eting. You already know that what you are doing is unhealthy but there are parts of your mind that are telling you that it's worth it. You need to work out what those are and work on getting them less strond until you can push past them a bit, and then a bit more and a bit more until you have control.

I have not had annorexia and don't have a huge ammount of knowledge about it so i'm not going to guess how it's best you do that. I would personally suggest therapy as they will know how to help and guide you. You could also look at sane.org. They have a forum completely dedicated to mental health so you'd probably have more luch discussing it there. I believe there is even a section for annorexia.

It seems like resolving any feelings you have attached to that incident with a teacher may be a first step to understanding your feelings. You sound like you may be well on your way to that already. Try to look at how that triggered this and why. It's difficult for me to describe here, but it's a techniche yo learn in CBT to understand your emotions better.

I would try your best to keep pushing yourself to eat a little bit. Don't push yourself too much, just enogh that it's possible. Wait until you feel comfortable with an ammount and then keep going. I'm not sure if it would help but there are some drinks that contain the nutrients of a light meal (like complan). I'm not sure if your issues are connected to just the idea of eating or if it's more related to the idea of callories and stuff, but if you feel like you would be able to manage a drink like that it could help give you a better ammount of nutrients than if you were eating tiny bits and give you a better start.

I hope that helps a little bit and i'm sorry I couldn't give you any more specific advice. I would advise you to get some support, even if it's just talking to a friend about it or using a forum like this. It just means you aren't doing it totally alone :smile:

Reply 4

Little Popcorns

I agree with Kindred about not going it alone you need to have some kind of psychological support. If you feel like the limitations of the nhs help offered are too much if you can affford to have a private counsellor or something like that just someone to watch over you and point you in the right direction is better than going it alone!

Reply 5

doodle_333

Honestly you've said your treatment team are fantastic so don't sell yourself short, this doesn't have to push back your discharge date too far if you really commit to changing. Trying to do this alone is really difficult.

If you do try and do it alone it is pretty simply a case of changing your habits. You need to steadily increase your calorie intake until you're eating 2500-3000 calories a day (increase by 200-300 every couple of days until you meet this) and gain weight until you hit at least a BMI of 20, although it's better to go a bit above this if possible. Ideally you would gain until you met your pre ED weight. That's not going to be easy but you need to try and push through the difficult feelings. You're weight is likely to go on strangely at first, often you gain on your belly first, but push through, it'll redistribute quickly once your body trusts you again.

Once you're eating more you should also try and make sure that you can eat any food, so if you have any specific foods you avoid then force yourself to eat them until it's not a problem anymore.

Reply 6

Queen Cersei

Original post by Anonymous

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First off, from what you've said you've made the biggest step already towards getting better and that is admitting to yourself that your anorexia isn't what you want for yourself, you actively want to get better rather than being safe in denial and you're aware that the disorder is about something else such as lack of control rather than being about your body. That really is the hardest part getting to that point so I feel you're well on your road to recovery and you sound like a very determined person.

Have you been offered anything counselling service or CBT at all? You can get CBT workbooks off Amazon that you can do for yourself, I'd also recommend exploring other options such as self-hypnosis, meditation, reading self-help books and also keeping a daily diary noting how you've slept, eaten, exercised, how stressed you are and then how bad your anorexia is on those days which will help you see the pattern and what is making it hard for you to stop. As you said before anorexia can be a lot about feeling a complete lack of control so now you feel that you have more control in your life it's about reassuring your mind that it no longer needs to protect you (your sub-conscious actually thinks its helping you which is why these disorders can be so powerful)- tell yourself that you're safe and in control and that you don't need to starve your body to control your life (there will be meditations on youtube around this you can use).

Sorry for rambling, I hope some of this advice is useful to you and I know you will beat this thing, just keep at it!