Mental Health Gendered Shame about Certain Issues

[Eligiu]

I see these sorts of posts come up from time to time and was wondering if anyone else has much experience with this stuff. I haven't really got anyone in my life to talk about it with as I feel a lot of shame and stigma about it.

I have Avoidant- Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, which is a very common trait of autism spectrum disorder. What this means is effectively I have a highly restricted diet of food I am willing to eat (basically I survive off two brands and flavours of yoghurt, chicken crimpies, hmus and crackers, and toasted cheese sandwiches as well as certain cooked meals my support worker helps me make). It also means I forget to eat during the day, as one of the symptoms is 'low interest in eating.' Another result of this is that I feel full extremely quickly, which makes eating larger meals a pain. And eating out at restaurants. It also makes me really sensitive to the texture of food - one time my shop didn't have the honey flavoured yoghurt so I tried the same flavour in a different brand. Took a spoonful of it in mouth at home and gagged before spitting it out. Couldn't tolerate it. My dietician looked up the two different yoghurts and explained that I'd gone from a high fat content yoghurt to a low fat content one - sensory nightmare.

I also have some form of disordered eating regarding what may be considered anorexia, but I'm not entirely sure. I know I restrict my food intake deliberately and that this is tied to shame (and self punishment) but there is undoubtedly an element where is it indeed to lose weight. I don't exercise obsessively though. And it's fairly minor these days compared to ARFID. it also isn't a constant struggle, this behaviour gets randomly substituted in with other self destructive habits. I don't have a perception of myself as being hugely overweight either, rather that I would like to look very skinny as it looks unhealthy and bad for me (self punishment again). Hard to say. Definitely hard to find other men to talk about this with.

Self-harm is a huge issue I have with finding peers I can ask for advice with. I get gender dysphoria about this (and the eating disorders) because they're typically seen as 'teenager girl attention seeking manipulative bullshit' and for me it's nothing like that. Self harm for me is one of several things.

1. A control mechanism - if my life is chaotic, this is one thing I have control over.
2. A method of communication. I am unable to ask for help properly or express my emotions due to a mixture of reasons so by self-harming I can prompt a person to ask me how I am, which then allows me to communicate. This actually ended up regrettably being reality and my close friends would allow me to self harm as it would let them check on me. Not ideal.

I have a load of shame about this behaviour because I've been doing it for so long and I'm 27. I remember like this one single time I didn't feel so alone I was talking to a close friend and I mentioned all this to him and he admitted that he used to self harm too and I was astounded. He said he knew exactly what it felt like to feel so isolated. Unfortunately he also rarely spoke about it in any detail for whatever reason and I couldn't get much more out of him. He was always very understanding though. It is hard, because many people assume it's an attention seeking or manipulative behaviour, which it's not. I religiously hide any new injuries and don't admit to friends what I've done unless they directly confront me. I don't do it for the outcome of getting a response out of them, that just happens to be the unintended outcome of the action, and one which I don't look forward to as it's not always good. It's certainly not done so that people will comment on it (I've spent thousands of dollars in tattoos covering up old scars) nor to get sympathy. I'd say the biggest reasons are control and communication, and then also when I dissociate to try and ground myself (a very bad habit).

It does make me feel pretty bad though. Due to the gendered stuff.

Are there any other guys around who struggle with these issues?

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

Hopefully you find some one to share their experiences with you.


I put on a bit of weight as a kid (elementary), I think it was due to being abused my by stepdad.

As a teenager, I started doing drugs like xtc & cocaine & crank & loved the not eating for several days. No desire to eat either. I'd kill for what you have. lol Kidding, but yeah. I ended up starving myself for awhile too and lost a lot of weight. Have fluctuated back n forth through my 20's and into my 30's.

It's getting harder & harder to go without food the the older I get. I also grew up poor and rarely worked most of my 20's, so I never had money for food.


How old are you? And why do you want to lose weight? Is it for health reasons or vanity? Or is it all your disorder making the calls?
You might find you change as you get a little bit older.


I love food, but then again I'm stoner. There have been periods in my life though where I stopped eating for awhile, mostly due to depression. Some times it swings the other way I eat too much when I'm depressed. Which makes me more depressed by destroying my confidence.

 

[Eligiu]

Hopefully you find some one to share their experiences with you.


I put on a bit of weight as a kid (elementary), I think it was due to being abused my by stepdad.

As a teenager, I started doing drugs like xtc & cocaine & crank & loved the not eating for several days. No desire to eat either. I'd kill for what you have. lol Kidding, but yeah. I ended up starving myself for awhile too and lost a lot of weight. Have fluctuated back n forth through my 20's and into my 30's.

It's getting harder & harder to go without food the the older I get. I also grew up poor and rarely worked most of my 20's, so I never had money for food.


How old are you? And why do you want to lose weight? Is it for health reasons or vanity? Or is it all your disorder making the calls?
You might find you change as you get a little bit older.


I love food, but then again I'm stoner. There have been periods in my life though where I stopped eating for awhile, mostly due to depression. Some times it swings the other way I eat too much when I'm depressed. Which makes me more depressed by destroying my confidence.

I'm 27. Losing weight definitely isn't for health reasons, it may be slightly for vanity as I've been sold the lie that a flat stomach is desirable. But more than anything it's largely because it looks unhealthy. I have pictures of me at the peak of my meth/heroin/codeine addiction in 2017 when I would have weighed between 60-65kg at the most and really had people concerned, and I'm almost 180cn tall so that is worryingly thin. I look at that picture and have this strange desire to look like that again, due to the fact that it's not good for me and because it's unhealthy for me to be that skinny.

I've always (except for a 14 month period I lived overseas and some months upon return) been on the slimmer side, but healthy. In 2015 I weighed 90kg and that was my heaviest. I lost 20kg in 2 months while homeless, addicted to meth, and not being able to eat every day. I don't recommend it at all. But it worked.

Plus my dad, who is ever ready to comment about my weight, was for some reason proud of my weightloss and didn't question the explanation I gave for how it came to pass.

I'm not strictly speaking overweight now, I'm generally closer to under. I'm on the slimmer/smaller side and I'm not muscular really. I'm quite small in frame. I was often commented upon being the smallest guy in my lacrosse and soccer teams, which did ironically also lead to dysphoria and a long term effort at the gym to try and pack on weight. Not something which is possible when you live in a caloric deficit unfortunately. I've sort of given up now and accepted my frame as it is. I'll never be a huge guy based on my restricted calorie intake.

But it sure would be nice to not engage in all of these unhealthy behaviours around something as essential as food.