Anyone an eating disorders recoveree?

[harasgenster]

Hi
I occasionally drop by here and was wondering if anyone else was a "recovered" eating disorders sufferer. I had eating disorders for six years and, although I got rid of the behavioural aspects of the condition five years ago, the psychic part has stuck with me and is being a bit of a pain in the neck!

I had anorexia for a year and then what I thought at the time was bulimia for five years. (Ages 13 to 19). I have since been told by a psychotherapist that what I had was not bulimia as I didn't vomit. I instead binged uncontrollably for around three months then starved myself for one month and repeat. Kind of a weird mix of anorexia and overeating disorder. I felt in control of the starvation but was totally unable to stop myself eating when I was bingeing.

Nowadays I neither binge nor starve but I do know how many calories I've eaten each day (and have a limit) except on days when I decide I'm allowed to eat whatever I want. I am a normal and stable weight but I hate it. I want to be much thinner and I get incredibly depressed when I have to dress up to go somewhere. I feel incredibly ugly at this weight. For a while after I stopped having a problem with dieting I remained very underweight because I still limited puddings to some extent (although altogether ate as much as I do now!) and I was so anxious I burned a lot of energy off! I was pretty much allowed to eat whatever I wanted and was extremely proud of my body (although I was very thin, still). I used to love looking at myself in mirrors, putting make up on and buying new clothes. Nowadays, I am totally normal, a size six to eight (but I have a small frame) and everybody tells me how healthy I look. But I don't wear make up, wear old clothes, hate shopping and, if I have to wear something figure hugging I become incredibly depressed and just want to go to bed and hide. After a night where I've had to dress up I decide to lose weight so that I can feel better about myself again, but all I think is - God, not again, it's so much hassle! I really don't want to diet and I know it would be stupid to lose weight and I probably wouldn't look as good as I do now in other people's eyes.

I just wanted to know if anyone else had been through this and had any advice?

I'm currently working on the inner belief "if I'm not the thinnest person in the room I'm ugly" through a computer cbt course but I'm having huge difficulty challenging it.

Sorry about the massive post!

[Nigel]

Hi harasgenster,

Well done for beating your eating disorder, even if only the behavioural aspects of it. That still takes a lot of hard work, and I’d say that to have gotten that far you must’ve at least lessened some of the psychological aspects too.

I had a good friend who struggled with an eating disorder for a number of years, and things you write sound so like her. I’ll never understand eating disorders like you or her, but I do ‘get’ a lot of it now.

“I had anorexia for a year and then what I thought at the time was bulimia for five years. (Ages 13 to 19). I have since been told by a psychotherapist that what I had was not bulimia as I didn't vomit.”

Does it really matter what you call it though? It probably makes your psychotherapist’s job easier to be able to stick nice neat labels on people, but at the end of the day, does it make the problem any different to you? Eating disorders are as individual as the people who suffers them. So why not just consider it an eating disorder and leave it at that? Or better still, ‘disordered eating’.

I would hazard a guess that the psychological aspects have little to do with eating as such, hence why they’re hard to overcome. It’s quite possible that the idea of being thin represents certain things that you consider ‘good’, while being slightly bigger represents other things that you consider to be ‘bad’. We all want ‘good’ things – they’re extremely compelling – and that’s why it still has a strong ‘emotional’ hold. The secret is to find new and more helpful ways of providing those same good things.

“I'm currently working on the inner belief "if I'm not the thinnest person in the room I'm ugly" through a computer cbt course but I'm having huge difficulty challenging it.”

What would happen if you tried doing the exercise with other people to start with? It’s easier to be objective when our own emotions aren’t involved. So what would happen if you looked at other groups of people, or pictures of groups of people, and put each person in the order that you find most attractive. Now go through the list again only this time arrange them in order of their size. Do the two lists differ...

Take care :)
Nigel

[JaneC]

Hiya :hugs:. I'm wondering how old you are now, how long it is since you stopped bingeing and starving? In my experience recovering from eating disorders is a long road and I actually think you're doing really well.

I had anorexia in may late teens/early 20s. I was at my worst when I was 21 and weighed six stone. I never again got that ill but continued to have problems for about seven years - off and on slipping into being too thin, using laxatives, exercising compulsively. It was only when my now husband came back into my life and we got married that it all stopped being an issue for me - because I finally had a settled and happy life, I suppose.

I've put on a lot of weight in recent years since being put on a tricyclic antidepressant but I've coped with that pretty well, actually getting to the point where the benefits I got from the AD outweighed :doh: the weight thing.

As I said, I think you are doing well and on the right road - it just can be a fairy long one. I'd say just keep working at what you're doing, even if you are finding it hard. You need to get past worrying about what other people think and as Nigel says, it's all about fixing what goes on in your head in the end.

I have to go out now but I'm about most days if there's anything you want to say or ask. Take care and don't lose heart xxx

[harasgenster]

Hi
Thank you both for replying.

Nigel, you're right. It has nothing to do with eating or food or weight. It's about a few things I think. The main ones are control (in that I tend to want to diet when other things in my life are chaotic as it gives me control over one thing) and status/importance.

If I'm not the thinnest person in the room at anyone time I feel like I'm a lesser person. I feel like I'm melding into the background and nobody will ever notice me and even that people will like me less! I don't just want to be pretty I want to be stunning! It's silly but I want to be a real headturner and I felt like that when I was thin (whether it was true or not!!!)

There's several factors that have supported that view, I think. Firstly, when I was thin (even when I was five and a half stone!) I got loads of compliments from girls. Everybody wanted to know how I was doing it, everybody wanted to try and put their hands around my arms or marvel at my skinniness. It seemed everybody thought it was a good thing. There were two other girls I knew at school that had eating disorders and I guess it always felt competitive between us. Some boys once told me that we were the prettiest three in the year. At that time I thought - because we're thin and I want to be the thinnest/prettiest/most important. What I actually should have thought was "I'm pretty" - but it never occurred to me to see it that way!

Also, when I was thin I got more male attention. I don't think that was because I was thin though. I think that's probably because of the way I dressed (a lot more carefully and hair done nicely and posture straight, chin held high etc). Nowadays, I stare at the floor and wear loose fitting clothes. I never wear make up.

Probably the most significant cause for the way I feel is something my Mam said to me that set this all off. When I was 12 she told me to stop eating so many mars bars because I was getting chubby. I said I wasn't, I was slim (I think I was a size eight). My Mam said: "You're not thin [NAME OF THIN FRIEND] is thin."

My Mam suffered from eating disorders for years and it was obvious being thin was still really important to her. Her words really, really affected me and I went on a diet. At first she congratulated me and I got her praise. Then she began to worry once I started getting skeletal. Meanwhile, me and the friend she had mentioned both had eating disorders and were in competition. We also ended up fighting over everything. I was jealous of her and, for different reasons, I was told she was jealous of me. I used to lash out at her and say horrible things and she started flirting with all of my boyfriends behind my back and sometimes in front of me!

I don't blame my Mam for what happened. I bet she can't remember saying anything. Looking back and knowing my Mam, I think she didn't care about my weight any which way. She just wanted to stop me eating so many mars bars in the afternoon because I used to leave half of my dinner and she was trying to give me an incentive! I know she doesn't care about my weight nowadays, except if I'm getting too thin.

Anyway, that was a long outpouring! Sorry! All of these things have stayed with me and I just feel small and invisible if I haven't "beaten" everybody else to be the thinnest. Weirdly, though, and replying to an idea of Nigel's. I always try to ask myself what I think of as being a good body and it's not a thin one! Often the girl I think is prettiest or has the best body in the room is bigger than me. I genuinely think curves are sexier. So it really has nothing to do with that at all!

Also, to Jane, and thanks for replying. I am now 24 and have been "recovered" for five years. Thanks for your compliments over my recovery. It was hard work! And well done on what you've achieved! I'm really amazed with what you're saying about being able to cope with weight gain nowadays! That's exactly what I want to be like! I'm just so sick of worrying all the time over something I actually don't think matters very much! You've done so well! Well done! And it really gives me hope that I can be like that too one day, so thank you. :)

[Nigel]

Hi harasgenster,

Don’t be sorry for writing a long reply. Sometimes I ramble on a bit myself when I write about my stuff.

“It has nothing to do with eating or food or weight. It's about a few things I think. The main ones are control (in that I tend to want to diet when other things in my life are chaotic as it gives me control over one thing) and status/importance.”

A sense of ‘control’ is quite a common underlying theme with anorexia, as is what it ‘means’ to the person. But does ‘thin’ really equal ‘status/importance’, I wonder...

From reading your words it’s easy to see how those associations were formed – more attention from boys, praise from your Mam, the competition between your friends and feeling you were the best. It’s probably not the most helpful thing to have friends who are also anorexic though, because it can become extremely competitive. But those are all good positive feelings to have, and good feelings are extremely compelling and addictive. So who wouldn’t want to keep doing the things that brought them about?

It’s no use simply denying those good feelings, but the secret is to try and find other more helpful and realistic ways of providing them. Then the eating disorder will become superfluous, and even rather an inconvenience.

So how’s that CBT exercise doing? If it’s still hard to do the ‘believing’, skip that part for now but still do the exercise.

“Weirdly, though, and replying to an idea of Nigel's. I always try to ask myself what I think of as being a good body and it's not a thin one! Often the girl I think is prettiest or has the best body in the room is bigger than me. I genuinely think curves are sexier. So it really has nothing to do with that at all!”

See... :winks:
A part of you already knows that, even if you don’t yet believe it. So continue to do that when you find yourself in a room with other people. And as well as picking out the type of person you consider the prettiest, also pick out the people you think are most ‘important’ or have a ‘higher status’. I bet you’ll find that has little to do with weight or size either.

“Also, when I was thin I got more male attention. I don't think that was because I was thin though. I think that's probably because of the way I dressed (a lot more carefully and hair done nicely and posture straight, chin held high etc). Nowadays, I stare at the floor and wear loose fitting clothes. I never wear make up.”

My friend was like that too, although for her it was never about looks or appearance – the reasons ran very much deeper than that. She bought nice clothes when she was 'small' and always kept them for the day she could wear them again. Instead she dressed in drab loose fitting clothes – often men’s because they were even more loose fitting on a woman.

Is it surprising that you don’t get much attention now? At a subconscious level it’s just reinforcing all those old beliefs about how things were better when being thin, but when you apply a little bit of common sense it’s easy to see how that isn’t the reason at all. So how about a new challenge...

Just as an experiment, what would happen if, say for the next week, you dressed up a little? Put on some nice clothes, put on a little make up, do your hair, walk tall and proud and smile a little more... Do you think you might get some of that old attention again?

Doesn’t matter if you don’t feel it or believe it for now, just do it anyway and see what happens...

Take care :)
Nigel

[harasgenster]

Hi Nigel, that's all really helpful advice. I'm definitely going to try and dress up a bit more (and maybe try to look in a few less mirrors!) I know my boyfriend would love it if I shaved my armpits now and again as well haha! I bet that'll make me feel better.

I should mention that my boyfriend is really supportive. He gets a bit annoyed if I'm upset about my weight all the time because he always gives me compliments and he feels like I just don't give them any weight. I think once I've started to believe some of these things of myself, his words won't wash over me so much.

One last thing!

"My friend was like that too, although for her it was never about looks or appearance – the reasons ran very much deeper than that. She bought nice clothes when she was 'small' and always kept them for the day she could wear them again. Instead she dressed in drab loose fitting clothes – often men’s because they were even more loose fitting on a woman.@

I was EXACTLY like this when I was a teenager. I wore my Mam's boyfriend's old clothes and he was over six foot! It's strange when you find out people have done the same thing as you. Especially when you kind of thought what you were doing was weird!