I’m not sure if what I had was called bulimia, but at the height of “it” I was binge-eating in private several times per week and then throwing it up because I was ashamed of how much I’d eaten. When I moved out of my last apartment, I promised myself I would not do it again, and for 3 years I haven’t.
It’s interesting that you say that about demographics, Gorgonzola, because this thread made me wonder about something.
I was once presented with a theory that AN in the '70s and '80s was especially prevalent among Jewish girls who had Holocaust victims or survivors in their family line. The idea was that, from birth they had been told that “Grandma would have given anything for a boiled egg; why aren’t you eating it?” and “Your uncle’s family had one loaf of bread for a week when they were fleeing Europe,” and so forth. This does seem to tie in with what SurrenderDorothy said about not wanting to take more than she needs or deserves.
But I don’t know. The young woman who told me this was Latina, and in her case, it was a matter of having a hard time assimilating, and thinking, “If I could be skinny like the white girls, I would be accepted,” thus fixating on dieting as the one thing she could control. It was sad talking to her, because even though she was a “normal” weight at this time, she was completely blind to her own beauty, always putting herself down.
She also elaborated on what Antinor said: that the Jewish girls in her support group talked of having their problem dismissed on the grounds of “Oh, she’s a JAP; they’re all just vain and shallow,” and in her case, it was “You let them live in America and they don’t even appreciate what you give them.” Americans are very rough on each other; there’s no denying that.
People are hard on those they run into with eating disorders, I think. It remains quite poorly understood by the layperson – and a lot of psychiatric professionals! – who harbour thoughts about the symptoms being caught up in vanity, an expression of self-control, an expression of societal pressures, or what have you. In truth, there are as many combinations predisposing and precipitating factors as there are people with the diagnoses, and the best bet is to let someone tell you herself what it’s all about. Almost invariably, though, somewhere along the line there is some weight loss, whether accidental (as a result of illness or accident) or deliberate (via diet and exercise). Combined with the apparent genetic portion of the predisposition, the weight loss sets off the rest of the syndrome, and the person you knew is gone.
I can sort of understand why it happens, though: sufferers tend to present as very functional in a lot of ways – but the symptoms around eating and weight are profound enough to make up for it. Reality testing is enormously altered – but often, for a long time, just in that one arena.
yes. And it sucks royal monkey balls.
For me, the worst part of recovery is the feeling that no matter what you do, you’re failing. And actually, having control taken away from me for a while helped (for a while.)
The thing is- when nobody’s watching me and I’m on my own for lunch, what do I do? Do I let myself be a fat greedy glutton and eat even though there’s nobody making me? If I can bring myself to do that, does that mean I was never even anorexic in the first place and was always just being a stupid little girl who went to extremes for attention? That would mean I fail. So maybe I don’t eat it. Maybe i drop my lunch money into the mission box instead. Maybe I decide that I’m too weak and self-indulgent and just too sick to do this and that it’s just something I’m bad at. And then, I fail.
and so at some point, you just decide that you’ve had enough of this place in limbo where everything you do is a failure and you decide to excel, one way or the other. And the path of least resistance is sickness. And after so long, you give up trying to do what you know logically is right and good and go back to what feels right and good.
The funny thing is, until you try to recover, you think it takes willpower. You congratulate yourself for resisting that cupcake or having the control to keep losing weight. As long as you’re going with the current, it never occurs to you that you don’t have to try anymore. That’s why it took me so long to admit that i was sick. Everyone knew it before I did. I knew what I was doing wasn’t healthy and I knew it was a little extreme, but I kept thinking it was different for me. I wasn’t sick; I just had superior control. I kept thinking, “they have no idea how much work it is to do this. If they knew I had to work at it, they’d know I’m not sick.” But then when you try to turn it around… it’s like making a whirlpool. You make your own current and you don’t even realize when it starts carrying you… until you turn around and go the other way. All of a sudden, you realize that it takes so much more effort to eat the cupcake than to resist it.
aaaand i should probably shut up now and quit livejournalfying all over the poor SDMB
and fessie and lorene, thank you for your kind words- it’s a great comfort to read that you’ve made it through to the other side and that having a real life is possible. I’ve heard lots of stories that end in relapse after relapse, in death, in a not-so-hopeful, “you learn to control the behaviors, but you can never really be normal” and “here are the long-term permanent effects so even if you recover, you’ve already ruined your life”. So… well, it’s good to see what it’s like at the bright end of the tunnel. thank you.
Oh great. Now I’ve got “I Want to Be Like You” stuck in my head.
Dorothy; you write so beautifully, and you are so smart. Your description is outstanding, you’ve really nailed it.
I wish I could say something to help you step away from that whole whirlwind, I so remember those thoughts and feelings - and you’re exactly right, it’s got everything worked out for you. Giving up your illusions, that will be a big loss, something to be mourned. Ironically, as a relatively healthy person, I’m both more and less than what I was before. But, this I can sustain.
I’ve been sitting here typing and erasing for half an hour now, trying to say something smart and honest that’s worthy of what you’ve written. My twins are due to wake up soon, so I need to just give it up. I want to share this with you, this is my favorite thing ever, I love this list and the book that it came from. But that’s not to say it’s the truth YOU need, because I don’t know.
fessie, I had that list. My English teacher in high school handed those out. I don’t necessarily agree with all the sentiments, but I have used #41 a lot, especially with my children.
Warning: the following is overly-verbose and stream of consciousness. That’s the only way I’d be able to get this stuff out.
I caught that movie a week or two ago and discussed it with a few of my friends. Honestly, I felt very odd watching it. I don’t know if it was a good idea to watch it; in a way, it was a bit triggering.
What I had(/have) is EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). I’ve had problems with overeating and problems with starving myself. I would never have officially been declared anorexic because I never stopped menstruating (or met another criterion, I think).
I dunno. It’s hard to talk about because in a way, I feel like a failure since I’m not that way anymore. I totally understand this thought:
That completely resonated with me. If I don’t eat, I fail. If I eat, I fail.
Here’s my starvation story:
I was fat in high school. And depressed (not related to being fat although that didn’t help). I was convinced that I had no friends and that the ones I did have were just pretending so my feelings wouldn’t be hurt. I knew they thought I was stupid and ugly and horrible. I remember obsessing over how my best friend and I had the same basic watch (different color) but her watch was one or two notches tighter. I seriously was CONVINCED that everyone saw my watch having to be so much bigger and that everyone was mocking me the second I turned my back. Over a watch band.
So I basically stopped eating. I’d eat dinner at home since otherwise I’d raise suspicion, so I guess I was around 600 calories a day most days. I lost 80+ pounds in under a year without any exercising at all. I’d weigh myself every day and get mad if the needle was where it was the day before. I figured I wanted to get down to 90 lbs. That seemed like a good number because it was small but not like, HORRIBLY small*.
The funny thing is that everyone talked about how great I looked. Only two friends of mine finally voiced concern over how quickly I lost the weight. My other friends, my classmates, my FAMILY? Oh no, I looked wonderful.
It sounds horrible, but you honestly get used to it after a week. I trained myself to think myself into nausea if I got hungry and reached for food. You get used to how horrible you feel until that is the new normal. I’d get dizzy and lightheaded just getting up from the couch to close the vertical blinds that were 10 feet away.
I was in my senior class’ Powderpuff football game against our high school’s rival, and we’d have practice 3 or 4 days a week. I loved those days because it meant I could easily skip dinner. I’d go the entire day without eating and then have a single Quaker oatmeal packet before practice. I went three days without eating a single thing at all. And I don’t care how horrible it sounds, but I’m still proud of that.
Two things were what made me stop. The first was when I woke up one morning, stood up from bed, and promptly passed out. I woke up on my floor and realized that my temple had missed the corner of my dresser by maybe a couple of inches. The second was when those two friends invited me to get dinner, made me get some pizza, and just ended up talking to me about it for over an hour since they knew I wasn’t eating.
There are a lot of different reasons for eating disorders and I hate when people automatically assume it’s because the person is shallow. For me, it’s about control and denial. Back then I absolutely detested myself and starving myself was a way of punishing me for being, well, me. I deserved to have everything I did to myself and then some. While I like myself a hell of a lot more now, I still have my depression and times where those feelings come back. I’ve had a few relapses in the years since (I graduated high school in 2000) but nowhere near the severity of the first one, since I knew, deep down, that starving myself wasn’t going to change what I didn’t like about myself.
Even so, with my life better… part of me misses it. Part of me feels like I’ve failed and I am failing by not starving myself. I could do MORE, I could SHOW MYSELF. And maybe the fact that I’m not starving myself anymore means that I didn’t really have a disorder in the first place (like the quote above talks about).
If anyone managed to read through this, and has any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them.
- [sub]although with a large skeletal frame, naturally big hips no matter what I do, and corresponding boobage, it WOULD be horribly small on me[/sub]
Thank you, zweisamkeit. I’m sure that was painful to talk about.
I never thought AN or bulimia was about wanting to lose weight. I always thought it was about control.
For those of you that sufferred from ED…what was your family like as you were growing up? Were your mothers obsessed with dieting?
My entire family has weight problems, as well as many of the people I grew up around. My mom has tried every diet out there over the years and had books about dieting in the house all the time. I grew up reading diet books in the bathroom because they were always there. I believe that at least a part of my problem comes from those two things.
If I had to put a number on it, it was probably about 40% about wanting to lose weight or at least not end up fat like my family and about 60% seeking some form of control over my life.
With the control aspect, is this considered a form of OCD - but that you grab onto food and weight instead of obsessive cleaning or the other OCD hallmarks? Is it treated like OCD?
My cousin was hospitalized for bulimia a couple of years ago. Her mother is completely obsessed about her own weight, and I do feel like that has something to do with it. If, from a young age, you feel like being thin is extremely important to your self-worth, that has to have an effect. (The mother looks quite good, but at what price?)
Interesting question.
I was a chubby child. I’m honestly not sure how chubby I was…my mother made me feel like I was a whale. Certainly I was among the plumper in my class, but not the biggest.
My mother was always dieting, and so oftentimes I was put on whatever diet she was on at the time. But she also had this odd need to tell me I had to eat everything on my plate, and there were many times when I was really young that I had to sit at the dinner table for hours after everyone else left because she wanted me to finish whatever.
It’s a weird message—you’ll eat what I give you, and all that I give you…but you’re too fat.
The first time I was anorexic, it really did start out being about weight loss, but my parents were going through separation/reconciliation/separation madness, so I can see that it probably had to do with that.
The second time, it was definitely about control. I was in the hospital for depression already when I started losing weight. I remember having these conflicting feelings of wanting to tell someone I had stopped eating (they didn’t notice for a long, long time) and not wanting to be stopped.
The third time…well, at that point, who even knows. It was just a way of reinforcing how miserable and in need of help I felt, despite not wanting that help to take the form of people making me eat.
There are days when I still feel pulled in that direction. I start thinking about what it would be like to get down one more clothing size, or drop to the double-digit weights. But I have 2 children and it’s just not an option. I want to be as positive a role model I can be and spare them the lifelong obsessions that I suffered. Plus I do have things in my life that I don’t want taken away and, as Dorothy said, the disease will take them.
I never, ever thought I’d be free from putting food and weight about anything, but I’m really grateful that I am.