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TDS Eating Disorders Megathread

MidnightBaby

MidnightBaby

Bluelighter
Joined
May 15, 2008
Messages
755
deficiT: 5/2021
Hey folks, someone mentioned this topic the other day and I realized it's something that I've overlooked in my time here. So I'm planning on combining some other scraggler threads into a megathread of sorts, or something... I'll spare you the details and just make it happen.

I never considered that I had an eating disorder, but I've been food avoidant for most of my life. It's not simply that I'm a picky eater, 'if' I have an appetite I'll eat anything, just 80% of the time I am repulsed by the thought of eating food.

Besides the obvious effect of poor nutrition and excessive weight loss/gain and binge eating, this has spilled into other areas of life, and I've found it very hard to relate to a lot of people, who consider food, cooking, etc. to be some high point of life.

I've just always hated it. I hate being at the table. I hate chewing the stuff. I hate cooking. I hate everything about it. It makes me sick now just thinking about it, and I'm literally in a restaurant about to try and get carryout and I've eaten nothing all day. Aside from protein bars, I simply don't eat.

Have you ever struggled with an eating disorder? What are things you currently struggle with and what are your experiences with it? Have you found any type of treatment that has helped at all?



OP: MidnightBaby
This is a call out to any of you who've had, or still have eating disorders. I do.

I've had a progression of all three major EDs (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating) for three years, but these days I feel absolutely the most awful I ever have. It just feels utterly, truly hopeless. Despairing. (Almost) Impossible.

My situation - I'm at my all time highest weight by ALOT, I can't stop eating weight-gaining food, and I can't do the exercise I'm used to being able to do (injury, complete loss of fitness, bad depresssion - no motivation). I'm in hiding from my whole life and I can't bear to rejoin it until I'm smaller. It's so distressing. I truly don't know what to do from here.

Literally every day gets harder, bigger, more depressed. I know there are BLers, men and women, who've suffered in similar ways, please tell us your story.

How can you start digging your way out??
 
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p.s I don't mean for this to be a super depressing thread! Anything uplifting or nice or positive you have to say please feel free!
 
*Sigh* I know where you're coming from. I had EDs for 10 years, perpetuated by my environment (ballet dancer). We were forced to get weighed every term and they would throw us out of the school if our BMI was over 18 (It was an elite school). So of course I became obsessed. Food used to taste so good, but I rarely think twice about my weight anymore. I just eat when I'm hungry.
Because... my obsession with food turned into an obsession with chemicals. Switched my addiction. Like with any addiction, it's there to fill some kind of void within yourself, which can never be filled. Because it's not about the food or the drugs, it's about self-destruction.
Have you considered visiting a doctor and maybe give SSRI's a go?
 
You switched addictions - yes so did I for a while. Hello amphetamines. Now I've stopped them and my state of mind is far far worse for wear, and I'm straight back to food obsession. Although really it didn't ever stop, it just changed such that i didnt have to eat and so I didnt have the same kind of constant battle.

Yes, I saw doctors basically within a few months of being bulimic (only because I was putting on weight and I wanted to stop so that I could lose it again!), but my GP is an angel. I'm seeing him on the 23rd for the first time since it's all gone pear shaped again (for what feels like the millionth time*angry sigh*), I'm just going to lay out everything I've done for the last few years and tell him exactly what I'm feeling and go from there. He's been with me throughout it but there were times when I wasn't honest when I should have been. Hopefully this will mean anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds (thank you speed :X ). That'll be a good start. Just gonna wait and see..

Ten years, that's a hell of a long time, how awful for you. I'm so glad you've beaten it! Was it truly just getting into drugs that did it for you?
 
I used to live from meal to meal, it was all I ever thought about. Especially because I wasn't allowed to put on weight as a dancer. Many a year was spent bingeing and then starving. This kind of behavior is extremely normal in the world of ballet and starvation is rewarded with praise and advancement. So I quit when I was 16 because the obsession had overtaken my love of the art itself.

After that I just became increasingly interested in altered states of consciousness and sort of lost my appetite. Food just doesn't taste as good anymore. I'd rather sore to blinding heights of euphoric chemical bliss than sit around eating cake. I think my body knows how good it can feel now from drugs, so anything less is pointless & unworthy of my hedonistic pursuits.

I don't know how you can stop obsessing about food. For me it just happened when I unconsciously stopped thinking "I shouldn't eat this or that". If I overeat nowadays, I just forget it instead of thinking "I need to lose weight". It's like they say in the Secret "If you think you need to lose weight you will never reach an acceptance of your weight because you're always thinking you need to go on a diet"

I think once you become happier within (or find another obsession) the cycle will cease to exist.

Good Luck chica xx
 
Hi binge eater here uhm for about 19 years. I have replaced and/or co-existed the disorder with drugs, sex, and alcohol over the years. I finally got my ass to therapy 6 months ago to help me break and understand the ugly, angry, time consuming, worthless cycle. I am doing/feeling better every week.

I don't feel I need chemical intervention (i.e., meds). Having help in figuring out why I binge and taking notice of my emotions/thoughts has been most valuable. I did not realize, clinically speaking, I have anxiety, mild depression, and mild BDD and probable OCD. My therapist has not labelled me as such. That is me doing some self diagnosing :) Maintaining MY idea of balance creates daily stress that I was unaware of. I am taking personal inventory of what is important to me. I am in search of balance.

I am working on changing thought and behaviour patterns on a daily and lifelong basis. My therapist challenges me with questions. She doesn't sit there and listen while I purge my transgressions. I get homework. I am suggested books to read. I have made progress.
 
What kind of therapy are you in, PI? It's heartening to hear you are finding some relief :) "Help in figuring out why..." I think thats the key, it's terrible to think its taken 19 yrs for you to start to understand it. *thinks about that* God what an achievement! At the risk of sounding sickeningly cliched, you really should be proud of yourself.

And iwish - yep, I think you are right. When other things become more important and fulfilling, then the perpetual cycle of an eating disorder starts to unloop itself naturally.

The key to that, and the hardest part, is being able to fill your life with those other things when you are down so low. That goes not just for eating disorders but any kind of addiction. They're all a simliar experience in so many ways don't you think? To get out of the all-consuming addiction you need to experience other things, but it's SO hard to experience anything else when your held in that addiction.
 
i dont, and never hav, suffered from any eating disorders, but i had a friend at school with anorexia
she actually ended up in hospital from starving herself
she started going to OA (overeaters anonymous) - apparently it can aid ppl in recovery from EDs of all descriptions, the same way NA/AA aid recovery from addiction
same concepts
maybe thats a suggestion
i dunno how my school friend is doing now - we kinda grew apart wen i gave up drugs - but last time i saw her she was doing well
 
Mm I think OA is a way to go. It's hard to get the closest one to me from here though, beyond the physical and mental hurdles to get there! I think I should seriously consider it though. It certainly can't hurt. Thanks DW :)
 
^yea it might take a bit of courage, but maybe u can take along a friend or family member the first time so u dont feel so exposed (esp if u dont like going out in public)
gd luck to all of u :)
 
MidnightBaby said:
What kind of therapy are you in, PI? It's heartening to hear you are finding some relief :) "Help in figuring out why..." I think thats the key, it's terrible to think its taken 19 yrs for you to start to understand it.
Click to expand...

I figured out that I had an eating disorder about 10 years ago. Once I moved away from home it became clearer to me that my behaviour was not normal. We ate a lot in our house. Always snacking. I could make a meal at midnight eat it alone and no one would say a thing. I went to to 2 OA meetings in 1998 and thought what a bunch of fat ass losers. This is not me. It was but I could not get past the higher power stuff. I AM the higher power.

The last 2-3 years I have been trying to break the cycle. I started eating very well. I started to treat my body the way I deserved to be treated...most days. I learned how to cook. I started exercising regularly. That wasn't enough. I still went on binges. I just ate healthier food and worked out. I needed more than diet and excercise to change thought patterns.

The cycle I was in was making me an unhappy person and really not pleasant to be around. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. So rigid. So controlling. So irritable. So angry. So pathetic. For me food was/is a coping mechanism. A compulsion. Food was an easily accessible addiction. It won't kill you. It will just make you fat. How benign is that? 8)

Living with the man I love propelled me to get into therapy. My inner feelings that I do not talk about to him or really admit to myself were adversely affecting our relationship.

I am not sure what type of therapy I am in. I haven't asked. I don't think it is CBT as I just did some reading on that in the book Broken Mirror. It doesn't matter to me what modes of treatment or school of thought she is using. It is working. 10 months ago I don't think I would have written this. I am less ashamed. I feel less guilt. I am lighter...pardon the pun.

I see my therapist twice a month. My husband sees her as well for depression and anxiety.

You are welcome to send me a pm if you need an understanding ear.
 
Perpetual Indulgence said:
The cycle I was in was making me an unhappy person and really not pleasant to be around. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. So rigid. So controlling. So irritable. So angry. So pathetic.
Click to expand...

Yes - I know that cycle very well! My actions with food make me hate myself utterly, but when I hate myself like that, food feels like the only good feeling.

Thanks for the offer of an ear, I might take you up on that one day :) It's helpful to read how other people are going about fighting. And it's interesting to hear about your therapy, I'd love to hear more about what you do and why it works if you ever feel like sharing.

OA is on tonight. Still dont know if I'll go. I guess that means most likely I'll let it slide until I can't go.. But I'd really really like to.. Agg.
 
Developed anorexia when I was 12 until I was oh..16.
Went on odd diets, no fat diets, no carb diets, etc
Just recently I went back to eating a normal diet for the first time in years, but now I exercise to extremes to burn off what I eat.
I think it stems alot from being trans, and having the wrong fat pattern. I could handle having a little weight on me if it werent for the non-male fat pattern. It won't change until I'm on hormones, which I'm not yet. So until then I have to make sure I stay skinny cause if there's anything I hate, its seeing pics of transguys who are pre-T and overweight...they obviously don't pass, because of a big ass etc, all characteristic of female fat patterns. Fuck that. I have to stay skinny so I have no fat to fuck up my chances of passing.
 
I used to diet all the time.
not anymore.
I was taking amps for a while, I never ate.
I think my stomach shrunk.
Now WHEN I eat, I feel sick...
most likely throw up.
..
..
..
It's actually kind of a problem.
I don't want to fix it either.
*sigh*
 
Hey MidnightBaby (and all others who suffer from EDs)

I've suffered a lot from eating disorders. Mainly bulimia but also anorexia. On and off I've gone through (on average) 3-month periods of being anorexic since I was about 13. But from age 19-22 I was bulimic.
I'm now 23, and while I don't binge and purge food anymore and I'm eating pretty healthily, I am an alcoholic and I cut myself (which I have also done a lot over the years 8) ).

I've been through counselling once before for the bulimia, and it seemed to help. But I didn't finish the course of therapy because it was over the Christmas break and I never went back after the doctor returned from holidays! So all my symptoms have eventually returned (i.e. the drinking, cutting, drug use etc etc...apparently all symptoms of the same underlying problem).

I'm seeing a new doctor at the moment, and I had my first counselling session with him yesterday, so I'm back on track. I've been on anti-depressants for about 6 months and they are really helping me. BUT, the anti-depressants have reduced my anxiety about my body shape, so I've put on heaps of weight (well...5 kgs...that's heaps in my book 8) ) and I can't be bothered exercising to get fit again grrr!

Anyway, there is definitely hope for you MidnightBaby. It's a long road but you will get there in the end. Seeing a doctor and getting some counselling is a great start. You need to change your thinking patterns and the way you view yourself. I would also suggest the anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. Give it a go, it sure helped me!!

Best of luck <3 <3 <3
 
Ya I'll add that I fucked up my stomach majorly while I wasn't eating. When I started eating more than a flea again, I could only eat one small meal a day and I was stuffed for hours. The whole day. It was torture for someone trying to recover, when you couldn't eat cause you were full. My stomach's back to normal now, that was a couple years ago that I went through that. But it made me rethink going completely anorexic again. Which is why I gave up not eating and went to odd diets. In an attempt to eat and not gain weight, and now, to eat normally and not gain weight by working it all off. I needed to get in shape anyhow I 'spose.
 
^yea ur stomach shrinks wen u dont eat properly
during 8 yrs of heavy meth use usually all i cud handle was a couple of salads a day unless i let myself hang out and didnt dose normally - then id eat like a pig and feel sick
i got down to 36kgs eventually
wen i was first detoxing i cudnt eat barely anything cos i was so nauseous from not being used to eating properly
then i ate like a pig for a couple of weeks and still felt nauseous for doing so
took a long time to get used to eating properly again
so, while i cant understand the feeling of worrying about my body image, i can definitely understand the difficulties behind making ur stomach shrink thru long-term unhealthy fasting
MB - maybe u didnt make it this time (to OA) but like i say, if u can just get urself there the first time (maybe with a supporter) then itll get easier from there
i was the same with NA at first
gd luck!
 
36 kilos? 8o 8o how tall are you?

My lowest was 45 kg and I'm 5'7'' and i could barely move around for lack of energy
 
^yea i cud barely move round either.....unless i was really high
5"2 so im pretty small :p
 
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