Time for a Positive Change

Time For Positive Changes

I was heading in a sort of bad direction as far as recovery went. I was hanging out with a person that was more into the eating disorder and I felt that if I stayed with her, she would trigger me into bad thoughts and want to head down into the red zone again. The red zone is low weight and not wanting to eat. Also, at this time, my husband Terry was telling me that my health was being affected by this girl’s negativity. In early July, I told this girl, that I was done with her negativity and not wanting to be on the same page as far as recovery went.

After leaving the “friendship,” it felt like a load has been lifting off my shoulders. Now I no longer had to help her or worry about her. I had to concentrate on me. My therapist Miriam sensed that “I was more quiet or subdued than usual, “I told what happened and she agreed it was the right thing for me to do and I needed to care for myself and my recovery. I wrote a recovery contract and signed it, my husband signed it, and so did Miriam. This keeps me accountable to recovery.

I also registered for a nutrition class that I thought would be good for me to take. When I started the class, instructor was making comments about calories and how much one was eating. I thought I would try another week; it seemed to be worse about how labels were going to be changed to show the calorie counts. I knew if I kept going it would be very bad for me recovery wise. Let’s just say, that the eating disorder was filling my head with bad thoughts of losing a whole bunch of weight. My husband told me to drop the class before it got too bad for me. I dropped the class and it felt like the right thing to do. I wanted to stay on the right track for recovery and didn’t need any roadblocks.

At the beginning of this year, I really wanted to push for recovery and work harder at it. I got a blessing and was asked to write for Proud2bme. Writing for this blog, enhances my resolve to stay on the right track.

In April, I had some bad thoughts with the eating disorder, and started using some symptoms. I informed Miriam, my therapist to keep me accountable. I told on myself instead of hiding from it. I was given lots of good tips in the session with her. In the May session, I wrote her a letter stating if, I go down the wrong way, do what you have to stop me. I also signed up for a spring-summer class, Forensic Psychology. I knew I had to stay with a meal plan and keep up with what I was doing so I could function in class.

A few weeks before I started class, my stomach was getting upset and was getting hard to eat without anything upsetting it. I went to the ER that night to get help to stop the pain and find out what was going on with me. I found out that I had GERD. I now have to eat things without certain ingredients if I want to stay pain free.

I am almost done with this class; it has been a balancing act, getting things done for class, home and taking care of myself. I know if I am tired, it is okay to rest and take breaks. Miriam has told me, do the best I can without affecting my health, so if I can get a B or a B+ out of this class then good, if it is something higher great.

I would love to be fully recovered and not have the thoughts. I am just glad that I made some positive changes that could help me stay on this path to recovery and be an example of what recovery is!

Trendy food bloggers

Trendy Food Bloggers Fuels anorexia in Teens

I have read the article on Trendy Food Bloggers. There are some concerns that sites such as: Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook, are giving teens some bad food advice and they are not trained dieticians or registered nutritionists.

Here are some possible warning signs or red flags to look out for:

• Meal plans that limit food groups
• Limits calories
• Promises fast weight loss
• Cleanser diet and fasting diets
• Says to get a sprializer for foods.

Certain modified meals may call to limit one or more food groups. This is a no-no. Teens need all the food groups while going through growth spurts and stay healthy well-nurtured during their adolescent years.

There are certain diets that limits the calorie intake is also dangerous to the health of teenagers both boys and girls. They may need more if they are playing sports and energy needed to keep up with the demands of their schedules of school and sports.

There are some gimmick diets that promise “be thin by the time bikini season is in.” The problem is those teens that want to try and lose whatever fat they think they have could be a target for these unsafe diets. This is because they want so desperately to fit into “society’s thin realm of looking great in bikinis. I fell for the fast weight loss and took some diet pills, not as a teen but as an adult. I wanted so bad to look good and thin that I didn’t see the dangers of these pills that were increasing my heart rate; true they increased my metabolism, they gave me a scare with the tachy-cardia (fast-heart beat) symptoms. If I fell for it as an adult how much more a teen that wants approval from either from friends or family would try this?

The cleanser diets, where it says to drink juices or eat very little fruits and vegetables. This is a very ridged diet. There are some side effects such as: dizziness, fatigue, muscle aches, and low blood sugar. Also cleansers may include herbs and colon cleanses. This diet will leave you tired and very little food variety and no energy to exercise because of not enough calories are going to the body.

Finally there is a new thing called spirializing, which turns foods from high carbs into low carbs. The goal is to “eat clean.” I see a problem with this also. This could lead to Orthorexia. This is an obsession of eating healthy foods and avoiding foods that they deem unhealthy. This could lead to malnutrition, cardiac problems from weight loss, and even death. The social ramifications are isolation from friends and family due to the foods that they are eating and the person doesn’t want to take part in it because they deem it “unclean.”

In closing, if any of these modified meal plans on social networks tell teens, to fast, cut food groups, limit calories or food groups, eating whole and cutting carbs they are bad and not safe because the people aren’t trained professionals to give that nutritional advice. I would not advise a teen to “lose weight” for societal reasons. They must seek a doctor’s opinion and if need be meet with a nutritionist or dietician to meet the dietary needs and incorporate an exercise program with medical supervision. Also if there is an issue with certain foods, have a food allergy test done by board certified allergist to see if there are certain foods like gluten causing upset and if it is, then the allergist can advise the patient to chose gluten-free products.

Imperfect

What Does It Mean to Be Imperfect?

Imperfect-The dictionary defines it as: not perfect, not fully formed or done or incomplete. In the grammar context, states a past action in progress but not yet completed at the time of in question.

In the definitions of not being fully formed, done or incomplete, we haven’t finished our transformation and we are still a work in progress. I feel for me, I am learning how live imperfectly that even though, I maybe in a good spot in recovery, I am not recovered from my eating disorder yet. I still have lots to learn before I emerge from cocoon of the caterpillar into the butterfly.

I believe that we are beautiful because each one of us is living his or her life to their standards not what society deems. Society wants us to think we need: “the perfect bodies, perfect families, and careers.” It is so liberating when we say, “that is enough!” “ It is okay to go without makeup or without the matched outfit.” We have so much to offer this world and can do it in an imperfect way and still love ourselves. I know for me, I go without makeup and just give my hair a quick brush. I am not trying to impress anyone, and my husband loves me without makeup. We can also learn from each other how to be “perfectly imperfect!”

My therapist told me it was okay to be “perfectly imperfect” to take the pressure off myself.

A good example of me living imperfectly is at Cedar Point, the amusement park in Sandusky, OH. My hair is wild from all the rides, I go on and sometimes wet from the wet rides too. However I am living and having an awesome time there. I am not worried how I look either. I am enjoying the time spent with my husband.

Body Shaming

Why Fat & Thin Shaming Are Inherently Different

I agree on the part that there is more “fat shaming,” in society. We are have been taught that, “thin is in, fat is out.”

In a world where models are airbrushed in magazines to make them appear that much thinner, tells us that we must strive to be thin or we are looked down upon.

I have been fat shamed by an abusive parent that didn’t like herself and transferred her inadequacies on me. Yes the feeling and words really do hurt when you are told, “Why can’t you be thin, like that girl.” I believe it sets some of us up for a possible eating disorder later in life, due to our families not accepting our bodies and then we not accepting our bodies.

As far as the, “thin shaming,” even though some may take it as a complement, it may encourage someone that has an active eating disorder to keep going with his or her anorexia and that isn’t a good thing. I believe body shaming is body shaming either way you look at it. It will still do damage in different ways. I agree instead of body shaming each other, why don’t we honor each other because we are made differently and we are still beautiful and have something to offer the world. It goes much further than what we look like on the outside, let’s look inside and love each other.

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.