eating disorder

[lisamarie]

Hi all, I know that all of you have been really supportive of me lately. I have felt so much piled on me that I don't seem to know how to handle any of it or to even be able to think clearly enough to know where to begin. I am realizing that I have developed an eating disorder...anorexia. Even though I still have alot of weight to lose...I am still overweight, but have been losing weight quickly and if I gain any weight, I get very upset and stop eating until I droop more weight than I gained. And I am afraid that when I reach my "goal" weight, I won't be able to stop the "starvation" kind of diet I have been doing for so long now..almost a year, I guess. Once every week or so, I pig out on food, and then the rest of the time, I put as little as 400 calories in my body. I feel so fat and ugly and useless and have no control in my life and feel dirty from I guess past sexual abuse and other traumas. I just hate myself so much. I guess that alot was triggered by the situation with my daughter and the things she said to me and watching my granddaughters go through the stuff they went through with the mental and emotional abuse from their dad, and also watching my daughter focus only on her job and schooling, which my parents did to us. And then the sexual abuse...some of it I know was real..the rest, I wonder if it was real or came from my inside world that I somehow created as a very young child..the same as dissociation. It all came on by the time I was 3 years old..and having multiple personalities. There's alot that I don't know whether it is real or not. My psych doc has always told me that whether they are real or not does not matter because they feel real to me. But I feel guilty if I talk about those things if they are not real. I simply do not know, and there are years missing out of my life. But as far as the eating disorder goes, I don't know if it is a control thing when everything feels out of control, or if it is slow suicide because I do want to die in an "acceptable" way, or because of depression that is also out of control or what. I just know that I have no appetite except for once a week or so, and last night when I tried to eat more, I immediately threw it back up. When I try to eat now, my stomach hurts so bad...I don't know if that is because my body is so used to having nothing in it. I have felt dizzy for so long and losing my balance and weak and so tired...some of that has been illness, but I know that alot of it is also due to not eating enough for so long. One thing I used to always hear from physicians was that if I lost weight, I would not have so many problems with diabetes, pain, cholesterol, high blood pressure, ect. And I know that I have been looked down upon because of my weight...my son actually thinks I am doing better because I am thinner and pretend to be happy around him. I told my husband because my doctor insisted on it that I have a problem with eating food. And how much I hate my body and myself. My med psych doc is trying to increase my anti-depressant and then perhaps my Lamictal after we raise my Paxil some more. I feel it is all useless...told him that I have been in therapy with a great doctor for 20 years and am hopeless. And that I seem to have a talent for driving people right out of my life. I just know that I can no longer handle the thought of eating and gaining weight and I still feel so fat even though people have noticed I have lost alot of weight. Funny how it seems the only way I am slightly acceptable is by trying to be thin. Honestly, I want to wear a size zero in pants and small sizes in tops. I want to be skinny completely. To an unhealthy level, I guess. I don't know how to stop this or any of the stuff I do to my body. And I don't want to stop the weight loss at all. Even if it kills me, I would rather die than gain weight and be even more fat.

[dismil]

i am there too. i have been eating disordered for 10 years, since i was 14. never been diagnosed as i never did tell anyone about it really. i have always held onto this because it has come to mean so many things to me. it is a coping mechanism for a range of emotions. a way to gain control. it's a comfort to be able to change myself, to feel that power to be able to strip my body of unwanted weight. the weight that i see that nobody else seems to. my current goal weight leaves me with 50 pounds to lose and i find myself edging towards the disorder again. the compulsive workouts and suffocating self hatred. it takes on a life of it's own once you lock into the cycle. and it just doesn't let go. have you thought about talking to someone who has experience in the field of eating disorders? they would be much better equipped to talk to you. it doesn't mean you have to recover, sometimes it's just good to talk. even if you are still overweight, you can be doing damage to yourself. i spend my days at work feeling dizzy and horrible because i refuse to eat in front of people there. some days i feel so self conscious it's unbearable. well, most days right now. i wish i could be okay with me now and give this up. but i can't seem to. i feel determined to drop weight, to change, to be better. and somewhere along the line this became the thing that would make it all better. make me a better person. if i just dropped x amount of weight i would like myself. and i feel like then people will like me, will notice me, i can be good. be careful because people are stupid and most likely won't see a problem until you are underweight. but you could still be doing damage now. send me a message if you need to talk. i'm always around.

[lisamarie]

I know that it has taken on a life of it's own. I ate yesterday, which it seems like every once a week or so, I eat quite a bit, and then I starve myself to lose more weight than I gained by eating those larger meals. It seems as though after I do that, I have no appetite for a long time. I guess that it because a combination of hating myself for eating anything to keep from passing out and just feeling as if my stomach is messed up and hurts when it is not used to eating. I drink alot of low calorie drinks to keep myself hydrated...at least this last week I have. While I was sick, I was not even taking in enough fluids. But I am obsessed with weighing myself twice a day to see if I have gained or not. If I have, then it gets worse for me. When I called my private psych doc the day before I saw my insurance psych doc, I told him that it had become an eating disorder for me and I had been lying the whole time that it was only because of illness...the fact is, it has been over the course of a year that I have been starving myself often. I know he has been concerned oer my weight for a long time because he has simply kept asking how much I've lost and how much I way and I have refused to tell him. My insurance psych doc had gotten a call from him the day I saw him. He knows everything now, but I cannot talk about it except to tell him that my private psych doc thinks I am starving myself...true, but I did not want to talk about it. I did tell him that I hate my body in so many ways and I hate myself..he kept talking about the abuse and trauma I had gone through and was experiencing now. I just said, I don't know. I know that he knows about my obsessive and repetative things I do to myself, but I will not talk about them with him. I have only seen him twice, and with my private psych doc, I only wrote those things down for him to know and wrote that I do not want to discuss them because they are so humiliating. But I now realize that starving myself and not being able to handle any weight gain is a problem...but I have to lose the extra weight. I wrote to him that I want to wear a size 0 pants and a small size shirt. And that after I lose another 50 lbs., I doubt that I can stop there. I don't feel it's something I can stop as the other things that I do to my body. I have done those other things since I was a kid. Maybe it is a control thing when everything feels so out of control. I don't know. I just know that nobody likes a fat person and I hate myself for how fat I got and when I look in the mirror or try on clothes, all I see and feel is fat. I have lost about 5 pants sizes and the same with shirts. But it isn't enough. I was very thin in high school and I want to be even thinner than that. And after losing over 100 lbs., I have loose skin that also gets to me. I want to exercize the hell out of myself and lose even more quickly, but I am so tired all of the time and feel so dizzy most of the time. I cannot walk through a store without falling over or having to sit down when the world starts going black. I don't care. I wrote to my doctor in my journal that it seems as though I'd rather die starving than to be fat. My son had commented to my husband that I seemed to be doing better...yeah, he sees that I've lost alot of weight and that I pretend to be happy when other people are around. When I am either alone or my husband is in the chair sleeping or watching tv, I turn my head and quietly sob and bury my head in my pillow and just try to not let him hear me or know. I'm afraid to cry in front of anyone. But that's how badly I feel inside. The pain inside of me as well as the pain and illness I experience physically are too much to handle and I no longer know what to do with those feelings. Yeah, I have felt like starting to cut and burn again in those private areas that nobody will see...even my husband who won't touch me after I kicked my daughter and her family out. I asked him if he thought I was dirty and fat and ugly also because he won't do that anymore. He said no, but then just walked off and didn't discuss it any further. Even my physicians have made comments that if I just lost weight, my health might improve. Well, I've done that and don't hear that anymore, but none except for my psych doctors are concerned. My husband has said to eat more and then exercize it all off. I can't. I can't eat nor can I summon up the energy to exercize at all. All I want to do is sleep, although I am not getting much sleep....I guess that at night when my husband is asleep that is the only time I have to really try to think things out and I come up empty. Same as always. My psych docs have dealt with people who have eating disorders. And they will continue to ask and talk about something I don't want to discuss. My private one keeps asking how much I weigh...I feel so ashamed still of what I weigh and probably always will even when I get so thin that I get blown away on a windy day. I don't know. It's just become another thing that I am obsessed with about my body. And I am obsessed with every part of my body and how I feel about it, which is pure hatred. I had thought that if I lost so much weight, I could get off of insulin and other medications that I have needed. They again tried to convince me to go on Seroquel again..I won't do it because I had the beginning signs of Tardive Dyskenisia. My insurance psych doc tried to tell me it wasn't that, but I know better and he was lying to me to try to get me to take it...I told him I won't and never will again take an anti-psychotic..he then said only when I am manic...I told him that my major problem was just depression and the only reason I have had manic episodes is because I had to lower my Lamictal because it became too strong to take after I have lost so much weight. I told him some options to try to add it back in by splitting it up three times a day, but that if it made me throw up or lose my balance again, I would not do it. Well, thank you for writing to me. Maybe I am causing damage to my body, but there is already damage to my body and I don't care if I die at all. I would prefer it and the peacefulness that it brings. I have never felt at peace in my entire life except when I had the experience a week or so ago where I felt as if I was going to die and started to float away and was aware in that place that my body was holding it's breath and then gasping..that would normally panic me bigtime, but didn't at all....and felt the presence of my deceased loved ones and heard in some way that was not an audible voice that it was not yet my time. I felt so at peace and want to go there permanently. It would ease all of my pain. No, it would get rid of all of my pain. So, is it slow suicide or is it the need to be accepted and liked or is it the only control I have in my life left now or what? I don't know. I just know, I have to do it. Well, I hope that if you want to Arumi, that you can send a private message to me and talk about this further...I don't know how to do that on this site now. If you know how, let me know.

[BoBoGo]

I think it says a lot that you are being honest with yourself. That is just a major thing. I do know exactly what you are talking about. Throughout the majority of my life I've struggled with an eating disorder. It really has been hellish, and I can see how that has been a coping mechanism especially when depression hits. Pardon the pun but they both feed each other. You really do have a good grasp on this, because it can be a control issue, a body image issue, it can be so many things. It seems that you can see when this began in regards to the restricting, again I hope you see what a big accomplishment that is. Personally I have not found a therapist in the majority of my years searching that has had a grasp on eating disorders. Recently I've started to go to my local Overeaters Anonymous on Saturdays, I'm trying to figure out how I feel about it. The great thing is that the meetings are for bulimics, anorexics, compulsive overeaters, etc. What I have noticed is that it has been very helpful to finally talk with others who are familiar with my struggle.

[cakefan]

After making sure you had had some proper rest, I would make us a light meal then I would drag you out on a very long walk. On our travels I get you to start seperating the issues that affect your life. We'd talk it through for a bit, then sit down and write down each issue you've identified. The we carry on walking and I'd get you to talk to me about one issue at a time.

We'd get back to my house and just chill out to some music for abit then together we could make our evening meal and chat through to the wee small hours.

So much of what you say and how you put I get. I am a multiple, I have an eating disorder and I have a way crazy dysfunctional famliy back ground. What I think may really help you and may even start to give you a sense of control over your life is to begin to seperate your issues ok .

Honey, I don't feel you can make progress unless you give yourself some space and try to apply the one-step-at-a-time, one-issue-at-a-time approach. I know it's really hard, hun, god I know it's that. I also recognise that you live in a family where getting the space and support to try and gain some order in your mind may not be easy.

Even if you start to do it on here. Hope I haven't been harsh with you, that was not my intention. I just want to share what has worked for me (even if it hasn't work each and every time).