Yahoo Survey on Eating Disorder Suffers

Yahoo Survey on Eating Disorder Suffers

I have mixed emotions about the results. Yes I see that a lot of people that maybe suffering from eating disorder will feel insecure about their bodies. Eating disorders can be very competitive in a bad way especially with anorexia, with wanting to be thinner than the other girl. I believe that insecurity could eventually pave a way for someone to start with, “eating disorder behaviors such as: restricting, compulsive exercising, and weighing oneself.

Also with girls comparing themselves to each other and if a family member compares two sisters who is the thinner one, that could lead the one, “who isn’t thinner one,” to feel insecure about herself, and start dieting to “get the recognition from her family members. Another thing that feeds into the insecurities are the magazines in which models are airbrushed to look a certain way. Teens aren’t competing against real people; they are competing with an unrealistic image on how they think they should look like.

I know for me, that is how I felt always being told, “I was heavier or needed to lose the weight.” I know that I still compare myself with others in like Old Navy ads. I have to remember that everyone has a different body type and I am where my therapist deems a stable weight for me. I don’t want to go backwards and into the black abyss of the nightmare of the eating disorder to achieve something I will never have.

As for the unhealthy aspect, I don’t see that eating disorder suffers see them as unhealthy. We have a distorted view on how we see ourselves. For the eating disorder suffer, we can’t see how unhealthy we are because that “carnival mirror tricks us into seeing ourselves heavier than we really are. When I was going through my worst of the anorexia, I didn’t see myself as “unhealthy.” My therapist saw it and wanted to stop me before I went too far. I saw myself as having to lose more due that voice in my head that propelled me, “further into the maze of the eating disorder.” My husband at one point told me that he could feel my hipbones. It was weird, one hand I was elated, that I was losing the weight; however on the other hand, it made me afraid that I was going too far with this but I didn’t know how to stop myself. With an eating disorder, a lot of stuff is so convoluted in our heads; it is like a jumble ball of yarn all wound up. When we reach this point, it is up to our families, and treatment team to help guide us to the road to recovery; whether it is through therapy or more intensive treatment like hospitalization, day programs or residential programs so we can be healthy. For me, it took the threat of being in a hospital to snap me awake and to start going towards the road to recovery.

The words vain, attention seeking, and selfish, are words from outsiders that don’t understand the complexity of the eating disorder. I am sure to a lot of people who don’t have the eating disorder or have had family members that have been through the pain an eating disorder or losing a family member an eating disorder. They just see the outside view, which is losing the weight, and exercise part. What they don’t see is the inside is the pain of the person going through this condition and trying to gain some traction of control where they have no control in their lives. For a lot of individuals, could come from years of bullying, physical, emotional, and or sexual abuse. The eating disorder is like temporary band-aid to hide all the years of pain that the sufferer is feeling.

The comments that I received were: why can’t you eat like a normal person and grow up! There were others like: it is just a cheeseburger or fried chicken, it isn’t going to kill you!” What these people didn’t know is that, “ It is just a cheeseburger, or fried chicken isn’t going to kill you, “ really scares us into not eating because that angry voice. That is that angry voice that keeps track of calories and restrict. “ You restrict you are stronger by not eating the high calorie food like those other people do who have no discipline!” When I heard those misguided attempts at getting me to eat, it only increased my eating disorder behaviors on restricting and over exercising.

What outsiders don’t understand is that eating disorders are not about food only. It is a symptom of something going on in our lives that manifesting into an eating disorder.

Some people cope with past hurts by either drinking, doing drugs, some turn to the eating disorder because it acts as friend trying to fix things for us. However later on, it changes from friend to foe controlling what we eat, or don’t eat, and how much we exercise.

What I would like outsiders to take away is instead of making judgments, please educate yourselves and go on to the NEDA website and see what eating disorders are. If you have a family member that is going through this, please don’t tell they “they is vain, selfish or attention seeking.” This will drive them to go further into the eating disorder.

We really don’t want that kind of attention, and we don’t see ourselves as vain. As far as being selfish, we would rather see others happy and try to make them happy.

We need love, understanding and know that you will be there to help us. Also tell us that you will go to the NEDA and look for ways to help both of us understand this disease!

That song Don't Cry out Loud

The  Song " Don't Cry Out Loud by Melissa Manchester, gives the wrong message.
 The lyric, don't cry out loud, just keep it inside can be damaging.
I take it to mean that being strong means don't let it out keep it inside.
I know that I  have been holding on to this belief for a long time.
I know I don't have to be strong or brave with Miriam.
I can release those negative emotions with her.

A Thanksgiving Reflection

A couple years ago around this time, I was told by my therapist, Miriam that if I lost any more weight, that the hospital could be a possibility. That was the day before Thanksgiving 2014.
That day was very hard for me. Even though we didn't have a lot of food that day, it was a huge struggle for me due to that evil voice. The battle within my mind went like this: Don't eat and show how strong you are. The other side was; you don't eat, you will end up in the hospital. Eat and show that you can do this at home. It was hard and scary but I did it!


I am Thankful to my husband and my Therapist for getting to this point.  Does Thanksgiving still make me nervous? Yes it does but it isn't so bad now that I have a strategy for it. I know that I can get through this, and if I have a hard time, I will tell Miriam about this on the next session.

Empowerment

The dictionary defines empowerment as: Giving power for someone to do something, enable someone to do something, and giving someone confidence to become stronger to control their life.

I believe we all need this in our lives.
Empowerment could come in different ways such as: Giving someone the right to chose his or her own treatment plan, goals, meal plans and their after care plans before they are discharged from the residential centers.
When I was in a bad place with ED, my therapist gave me the empowerment to turn myself around. What this meant was, I would eat a little more to get myself to a safe target and my husband would weigh me, and report it to her. This gave me the confidence to know I could slowly build myself up to a safe target.
Now that I am at real safe target, I have more empowerment, if I am on the cycle and don't weigh in, there are no worries.
I also taken on empowerment by writing my blogs and publishing them! I know for me every time, I empower myself, I feel more confident to get things done, that before, I didn't think it would was possible.
My biggest empowerment, pulling the cord on the rip cord last year at Cedar Point!

Emotions

Emotions:

We come into this world with different feelings or emotions. Here are some examples Happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. We will experience all them during our lifetime and perfectly normal because we are humans and not unfeeling robots.

However there are some individuals that are brought up in families where some of these feelings or emotions are not permissible. The child may get yelled at or ridiculed for showing such emotions as fear or crying when they are sad. The parent may say, “ If you are going to cry, I will give you something to cry about.” Another example would be, “ why are you scared?” “ See that kid, he isn't scared and he is younger than you.” Another “don't get angry!”

What the child takes away is my feelings aren't allowed in the house, so I will suck them in and pretend like everything is just fine, while they are hurting. The kid may take it out on themselves in forms of an eating disorder, drug addiction, or alcoholism. This is all because they can't process their feelings or emotions at that time when they really needed to or get through a grief period.

I understand this because, I wasn't allowed to show my emotions around my birth mother, yet she was the one who showed these emotions herself. This was very confusing time for me. Parents are the models for their children's behaviors. I got good at stuffing down my emotions and smiling, even when things were wrong. I also said I was fine when I wasn't, so I wouldn't have cry in front of others.

I am trying to learn it is okay to feel these emotions. During the eating disorder, I became numb to them. Now that, I am at a point in my recovery, I am trying to allow myself to be vulnerable with my feelings in front of my therapist Miriam. I know she is safe to feel these feelings, whether it be sadness or anger. I know when I reach that point, I will be a lot closer to recovery also.

I invite others who have suffered with addictions, or eating disorders, to seek help if they haven't already. Emotions can be scary at first but they can be the keys to freedom!

What does it Mean to Listen to Your Body?

What does it mean to listen to Your Body?

I can tell you that listening your body can be quite tricky. The main reason is that we have been fooled by the eating disorder’s rigid rules of: restricting, over-exercising, the binging and purging cycle, and binging/over-eating. We have lost our normal hunger cues and we no longer trust our bodies to tell us when we are truly hungry or full. In this time, of healing we have to relearn what our body tells us when we need to eat when our body requires energy.

In this early process, we may require an outside source to help us with this. This help can come from a nutritionist writing out meal plans for us to follow. I know when I was entrenched with the eating disorder, I had hunger pains but I tried to over-ride them because I thought being thinner was more important than the health aspect and it didn’t help that Dong Quai, a herbal pill to alleviate menstrual cramps left me not feeling hungry most of the time that I forgot to eat. During this time, my therapist had to look over my food journal and tell me to add more food to it. It scared me but the alternative of being inpatient at the hospital frightened me more so I added more food to my meal plan slowly.

When I used to over-exercise and not listen to my body, I risked injuring it. I also had the tendency to exercise after eating. This isn’t good for the digestion process. The blood flow is restricted and areas such as digestive system, muscles and bones can’t get adequate supply and won’t be able to function. The challenge is not to exercise after a big meal because the eating disorder thinks I should. I have to distract myself with doing puzzles or reading my textbook during this time, so I don’t give into the eating disorder’s wishes. I know another thing is when I am doing things around the house, if there is something that is either too heavy that I can’t pick up safely, I have to ask Terry to do that.

We all need to rest our bodies so the cells can repair themselves. There are times when the eating disorder tries to tell us we can go on with no rest or sleep. We can’t go without either. I have been known to take some naps during the day to recharge my brain and body.

Another way we can listen to our bodies is when we are hurting, is get some medical help for when we are in pain. I had to do this a few weeks ago when my stomach was hurting and nothing that I was doing at home was helping. I really didn’t like the idea of going to the hospital but living with the pain wasn’t an option either. I am glad that I went because I have some answers for me. I now know that having coffee, spicy foods, onions, and greasy foods could bring on a painful attack. I now order sandwiches without onions. If it does have onions in there, I can give them to Terry. Another thing I am learning limit my acids; I need to take an easy on lemon juice. If I have lemonade I have to limit to two cups. This new modified meal plan is a learning process to me. I have to listen to my body and stop when I feel a GERD attack coming on. I can also have my medication with me or take it before I eat if I feel it may trigger a possible attack.

In closing, I would like to say, listening to our bodies is a process. It may take sometime before we learn or relearn our body’s cues. If we make mistakes while learning, the important thing is to keep trying and learn from our speed bumps. We are victorious because we have decided to listen and honor our bodies even after being through eating disorders that told us to treat our bodies badly to get to elusive goals that would never be reached! I would like to say to the eating disorder, I am not going to bully my body anymore and will listen to it and take care of it as should be honored because this body is a beautiful being!