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!