Eating Disorder Talk

This week, I’m trying a new idea - every Friday I will complete the Friday’s Feast. Since I often write ahead of the actual days my posts go up, I will be a week behind, though.

So, without further adieu, I give you my first Friday’s Feast.

Appetizer: What is your favorite type of art?

I really enjoy a lot of impressionist paintings but also the morbid artwork that you’d find from Barlowe or Alex Grey, who did the TOOL album art for Salival and 10,000 Days.

Soup: When was the last time you got a free lunch (or breakfast or dinner)? Who paid for it?

Does coffee count? No, I suppose not. I believe it was about three weeks ago, when my mother-in-law took my daughter and I for brunch at a nearby “diner.” I had meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. Zoë shared with me and also had a few french fries. We all split a chocolate milk shake, too.

Salad: On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how emotional are you?

I can normally hold it around an eight, but during those more scorned or hormonal or stressed moments, I’m a 10, for sure. Tissues and sleeves are used quite often in my house; you’ll find me giggling, jumping or clapping with happiness just as often as using the tissues.

Main Course: Approximately how long do you spend each day responding to emails?

Something I need to work on - assigning specific emailing times so that I don’t lose focus on what really needs to be done or risk inefficiency. I cumulatively probably spend somewhere around an hour and a half a day responding to emails.

Dessert: To what temperature do you usually set your home’s thermostat?

I don’t have a thermostat to control. I usually turn the knob on my heater up (or what I think is up) if it seems cold and open the windows if it seems hot. I have single-pane older windows in my apartment - that don’t close all the way - but air circulation is a real problem in here, so I’ll normally choose to put on a sweater and crack a window if I’m cold. Just as long as Zoë is a good temperature, I don’t touch the heat.

I certainly hope there are no remaining tweens looking up to her for good grace and how to become a star. Her recent declining mental health aside, the VMA implosion that caused her to run from the stage, reportedly whimpering about looking like a fat pig has caused her some serious self-esteem damage it seems.

MSNBC reports that OK! Magazine has spoken to a close “friend” of Spears, who is willing to starve herself to become thin. The friend is also concerned about her yo-yo dieting and apparent addiction to diet pills. What a wonderful friend this must be.

Jokes aside. Without full-time work outs, Britney, do you really expect to be able to get this back

after having two kids? I think that considering your often photographed diet of ice cream, frappuccinos, chips and alcohol, you’re lucky to be looking as good as you do.

I am of course biased. I worked hard to get where I am, stature-wise and think that I need some more toning. Point: if you want to retain your self esteem, don’t perform in front of millions of viewers in a bra and panty set that is too small, when you’ve still mommy-accordian tummy (not that there’s anything wrong with it - just expect backlash when it’s seen by millions) and for the love of god, don’t say in front of anyone who will sell it to a tabloid that the way to correct your personal flaws is to starve yourself.

Oliviero Toscani is a fashion photographer known for controversial ads for United Colours of Benetton, including the ad above. The photo, taken by Therese Frare, depicts the final moments of an AIDS-activist’s life. Toscani’s other work has prodded into more taboo areas such as racism, homosexuality, corporal punishment, war and religion.

Recently, he’s gone on to produce another ad-set that is finding mixed reviews amongst the public, and even some anti-eating disorder congregants. The ad adjacent and it’s counterpart, the back-side view of the model, are being displayed around metropolitan areas of Italy in an attempt to cause distaste towards the pro-anorexia movement and increases in eating disorders.

How does this ad affect those with eating disorders and even more specifically, those with anorexia? Personally, though I understand what the intention was, I find it to be a slap in the face. More so because of the almost coy look on the model’s face. This is supposed to disgust and draw me away from anorexia’s arms? I think all it does is laugh at the faces of those affected by the condition.

Something could be said for targeting the ‘wannarexics’ in the world, I suppose, but stereotypically those seeking pro-ana behaviour end up deep in ana’s clutches before they’ve realized it’s more than a diet. The ads, I think, are better suited for the parents and families of those starting to fall into the disorder. Because really, if you were fantasizing about being so small you disappeared, would this picture make you sick?

What do you think of the message it’s trying to portray?

Today the BBC reported that Scotland is now ranked second for obesity amongst developed nations - being the runner up the the States, of course.

Some handy facts:

• One in five Scottish seventh graders were estimated to be obese in 2004/2005.
• In 2005/2006, 643 cases were treated in UK NHS hospitals of either anorexia or bulimia - surprisingly, 620 of the cases were for anorexia, with bulimia being the less presented disorder.
• Of a total UK population of about 60.8 million people, it’s estimated that 1.1 million are affected by an eating disorder - that’s almost two percent.
• Scotland makes up about eight percent of the total UK population.
• Twenty percent of the UK population is under the age of 16; about 17 percent are over the age of 65.

I found most of those statistics on Disordered Eating UK, you should look and see what you find, there, too.

Sarah of Mental and Emotional Health was tagged in a weird things meme showdown and so, like the rock star she is, she passed on the hassle joy to me. So, here’s:

Six Weird Things About Me

1. My natural hair colour has every shade in it. There’s platinum blonde, orangey red, fiery red, auburn, brown, black, dirty blonde. Everything. And my eyes change colour with my moods. Watch out if they’re clear blue with very dark rims; cuddle with me if they’re green.
2. I fall in (and out of) love so easily. I love every friend I make that I feel an instantaneous connection with and am not afraid to say so - at least a third of my phone calls end with, “I love you,” and 98% of those are with women who I am not involved in a lesbian tryst with.
3. My daughter’s name, Zoë, means ‘life.’ Seven years ago, I got a Hebrew tattoo in the same spot that her foot was stuck during my second and third trimesters of pregnancy - she was a footling breech. The tattoo means life. I didn’t pick her name or know it’s meaning until way after she was born.
4. My first full sentence was at 14 months and contained at least two swearwords. It almost caused a traffic accident.
5. My taste in men is shallow and usually has something to do with their attire - I prefer the old school skater boy look with baggy jeans, Etnies and a long sleeved tee layered under a short sleeved one. I usually have a problem with the slacker attitude that goes with the attire, though.
6. I am at least a quarter native - Cree, actually. I am also the whitest native person you’re likely to ever come across, with a complete disinterest in native issues and culture.

I’m not going to tag anyone else, because…well, if you’re interested, you’ll do it and if not, what kind of commentary is that on how you feel about me?

Like so many other women, I have a copy of this month’s Glamour Magazine. It wasn’t by choice, for me, since Jane magazine is no longer being published and that’s what my subscription was for, but I digress.

I’m going to point out what the 341 pages of the monthly periodical has this month:

• an obviously photo-shopped cover-photo of Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera, with a headline of, “Surprise! She’s a bombshell (and you can be one too)”
• a cover-headline of, “1st Annual Figure-Flattery Issue!”
• another headline, “101 ways to dress your body better”
• another weight loss article
• three recipes.

Advertisements:

• At least 131 advertisments, not including the classifieds section;
• 1 for Dove Soap;
• 1 for Cigarettes
• 3 for birth control;
• 1 for conception aides;
• 8 of food items;
• 8 for diet aide, breast enhancement or other figure “perfecting” product.

Images:

• 18 women who were of average or over-average size, including three of the same woman during pregnancy;
• 63 women who were very thin or had bodies typically-unattainable for most women;
• 23 scantily-clad, naked or lingerie-clothed women.

What did this tell me? Sex with skinny chicks sells and I need to buy low-calorie foods while wearing diamond-encrusted platinum.

What does your magazine rack tell you?

To anyone who knows me outside of this blog, you know that I’ve been dealing with a lot of stress lately - the past few months, especially, but specifically, I’m talking about the past few weeks. I’m a stay at home mom to what many websites, people and books call a “spirited baby.” I’m a single stay at home mom to a spirited baby.

I don’t sleep very much; find myself saying the words “please” and “listen to mommy” more than I hear my peers saying them; and a good day means she wakes up when I’ve already had a half of a cigarette and made a cup of coffee, then naps 4.5 hours later for 2.5+ hours and then goes to bed another 4.5 hours later, without waking up during the night. There aren’t a lot of good days - like that, anyways. She’s makes most days good, don’t get me wrong. And if I could, I’d like little more than to devote my entire life to her, but I can’t since…

I work from home when she allows me to - meaning if a deadline looms and Dora the Explorer is available, sometimes I punch out a quick blog post in the morning. Most of the time though, I work when she’s asleep, either in bed for the night or during a nap. Or during those nap-strike weeks, when she’s crashed out in her stroller and I’ve got a notebook and pen with me - I can get some notes down.

I always have a notebook and pen with me.

So work has been building up because she’s gone through three nap strikes in the past few months. And it’s taken it’s toll on my weight, my life, her routine, my routine. It seems the world is upside-down sometimes because I’m torn between working to provide some economic support for us, and devoting my entire days to her development and entertainment, as I used to before becoming her primary caregiver.

I wrote in the past about realizing that I wasn’t relapsing, that I was just not taking enough time to eat - but as it comes to my mind more and more often, I wonder:

“How can I have time to eat, if I can’t even have time to work?”

Sure, I could make plans to eat every meal with my daughter - then I’d be eating as much and often as a toddler, at least. But I’ve found that this is a magical time, see, because when she’s eating, she’s not running around and I am free to be productive. This can mean cleaning up, doing dishes, writing for one of the three websites I publish on, reading other people’s work, crocheting, bookkeeping, creating information databases for one of my bookkeeping clients or even, sometimes, if I’m feeling daring, showering. (don’t worry, all of these things are done with her less than 10 feet from me, completely aware at all times of any choking hazard.

So, what, do I use up the precious sleeping times to eat? Some days, that can mean not eating between the hours of 6am and 9pm. And besides, those are the working hours, remember? Do I really need to get an average, out-of-the-house job and put her into daycare, just to get a minimum of 1500 calories?

What do you think?

USA Today reported the story of Leslie Lipton, a college student in New York. According to the newspaper, when Lipton was younger and without other symptoms of disordered eating, she felt watched and worse, judged during occasions of public eating.

This fixation on food choices and portion sizes is apparently rampant in adolescent society,

“Lunch in the high school cafeteria felt like a competition. ‘Everyone would be looking at everyone else’s tray to see what everyone else was eating,’ says Lipton. ‘If you eat less, at least the comparisons are good.’”

This competition and it’s occasional foray into eating disorders makes sense, since untouchability is a widely-held adolescent belief. The sub-conscious thought that nothing can really harm teenagers, risky behaviour will not have long-term consequences and death is something that happens to older people - these are great ingredients for dabbling in restricting, especially when you don’t want to be the only girl at the pizza parlour actually drinking a regular coke and eating more than a slice.

What can we do to combat this non-eating competition and potentially the fall to out-of-control eating disorders? Model behaviour that we think is healthy, of course.

Do you want your kids to grow up thinking that eating a meal a day, consisting of low-fat, low-calorie energy is right for themselves? Then don’t do it.

Don’t have kids or know anyone with them that would be affected by your choices? Do it anyways - you never know who may be watching you at your local food court. Or watching, to see if you’re watching them.

I came across an article on one of my blog feeds, and though not directly related to eating disorders, it caused the tiny hamster wheel to start squeaking in my brain.

Roles in people suffering and recovering from and those at risk of developing an eating disorder are quite important, though rarely discussed. When you first dabble in the illness, before it’s taken control and while you’re still ‘on a diet,’ ‘eating a little extra because of the ________’ or ‘just using a little extra laxatives to lend a hand for maintenance,’ you’re in your usual lifestyle. You’re a child, a parent, a niece, an aunt, a teacher, lawyer, babysitter, student, church-congregant, what have you. You’re you.

Once the condition really sets in though, there’s a shift.

You become a double-lifer, someone who hides a part of themselves from other people, who shields to protect, who withdraws to conceal. You become aware, sort of like abused children who will protect their parents, that what you’re doing isn’t right or healthy, but it is what it is and that protection makes you a parent to the illness, sort of.

You also become a student to it. Learning what does and doesn’t work, what is safe to do and not, what that type of dizziness means and how to rid yourself of it enough to keep going until the next time it comes.

Once you’re really far gone, you’re that abusive child I just spoke of. You defend it’s honour and righteousness and you will not have anyone speak ill of this condition that has become your parent. Sure, it tells you you’re ugly, stupid, unspecial and a failure everyday upon waking. But it holds you closely and protects you from yourself and since you’re such a bad person (child), you’re really thankful for it.

Once you begin recovery, you’re assigned the role of estranged daughter - you’ve left and disappointed your family and you feel torn between letting them down and doing what you think is right for yourself (some of the time). Flash forward to recovered, as much as a person can be, and you’re now the former popular girl from high school who fell from the social heavens due to a drunken homecoming dance conception.

You’re ostracized, to a certain degree, from those that supported your disordered eating - just not publicly. Sure, they don’t tell you to your face that you’re beneath them, but the gossiping about your holier-than-thou attitude is rampant. “Sure she’s recovered, but just look at what she’s done to herself,” can be heard with a telescopic bug. They will hug you and kiss you and congratulate you, but they won’t mean it.

Flash forward further and you may find yourself a teacher, educating those around you and not such as the case of my blog, about the dangers and the inherently addictive properties eating disorders have. You tell anyone who wants to know and also those who don’t about your own struggle and about those you’ve spoken with, counseled, befriended and helped.

You’ve come full-circle, it seems, to take on the challenging role of cautionary host. More so, you find fault in so many things you become the eating disorder version of ultra-politically correct, dodging comments and advertisements and song lyrics that hit the wrong buttons. At some point, you take to task nearly everything considerable as a trigger or self-esteem blow and in all honesty, are a ticking time bomb.

The thing is: you always were a ticking time bomb, you’ve just switched teams.

On Saturday, I delved into Heidi’s past - what led her to disordered eating and what disordered eating was for her. Today, we learn how she’s doing nowadays.

Her life has led to some physical problems: migraine headaches, depression and anxiety, ulcers, esophageal bleeding, dental damage, scarring on her hands. Maybe worst of all has been the loss of friendships.

She talks of not wanting her family and friends to know about her history, and her current struggle with it, because she wants to protect them from it. She worries that her mom’s heart would break. That someone would try to save her. And she doesn’t want to be saved.

“I wish I could say that I was doing great, fine being at the weight I am, and didn’t care. But that’s a big fat lie.

“I have a hard time admitting to anyone that I’m settling back into old habits. I’m tempted to NOT tell you the truth because putting it in print scares me and makes me worried someone is going to try and ‘heal’ me again.

”No one sees what I do and don’t do. I live alone. I can run until I literally trip and fall down, come home, shower and then do Pilates (on the floor) until I’m so light-headed I can’t see the DVD. My left knee? Bruised beyond belief right now from falling down running. My right knee? Small fracture in the kneecap from falling down running.

“Today? I’ve had a diet coke and four beers.”

She’s not ashamed of it, she accepts that it’s a part of her, but she knows that there are people in her immediate circle who deny or are unaware of her eating disorder. There’s a mental dichotomy about this for her:

“I’m still very bitter about them not doing anything about it.”

Intimate relationships are a little shallower than you’d think. She has very few people that she’s honest with about her feelings and her past – she married her high school sweetheart in part, because he knew everything and she’s too scared to allow someone else to be that close now that she’s divorced. So she doesn’t date. And new friends, they know the Heidi she wants them to.

Heidi doesn’t want to be saved. She wants to get back to her ideal of 110 pounds and when questioned if she would be able to stop then, she responded honestly that she’s be curious to know how low she could go. She thinks that if she quit her four days a week alcohol buzz, she’d drop another 15 pounds from her current weight.

“I am easily triggered … and part of me worries that once I start school with a bunch of 18-year-olds I’ll be INSANELY triggered. And part of me is looking forward to that.

“I don’t know, anymore, if I have a ‘this is too far’ switch. I didn’t before … nothing was stopping me from where I was then … I don’t know if there’s anything to stop me now.”

The lowest she’s gone before? 101 pounds. Her highest? 144 pounds.

“I started purging the day I saw that because once I would have hit 145, that’s almost 150 which is almost 200.”

She’s living a double life and it must be exhausting because her private life is enough to drive me into bed, just thinking about it.

Routine is paramount to Heidi’s life. She wakes up at 5am every workday. IF she sleeps in, it’s until 6:30 and the guilt she feels is staggering. She has exact routine for getting ready to go to work. She drinks a black coffee with low-calorie sugar alternative. Then she heads to work. There, she spends her day finding reasons to walk, stand, sit down, squat and just generally move to burn extra calories. After work she goes to dance class and on days that she doesn’t, runs until the point of collapse. IF she still has the energy after than, she does a ballet routine until she’s completely physically exhausted. Later, she‘ll clean her house and then blog.

“Writing is an escape for me … I can ignore the growling stomach and I just zone out while I write.”

She’s usually in bed by 10pm and then wakes the next morning to repeat the entire process. On weekends, she makes an extra effort to socialize with friends and family. She spends time working on blogs, cleaning, puzzles, on novels and on crafts. She admits to living in a state of total exhaustion, but if she isn’t always on the go, she’s been known to cry.

Recently, she quit her job because she’ll be returning to full-time education. Her last day, she cried in her car because she felt she had nothing to get up to on Monday morning, an ENTIRE WEEK with nothing that HAS to be done.

“I’m all about routines. When things are thrown off, I’m known to be incredibly upset all day long.”

She’s obsessive about controlling situations and has incredibly high expectations of herself. Those sometimes extend to other people, but she tends to take the reins and not allow people to help her because she knows she’ll do it better her own way.

Tired? Me, too.

Heidi is a 25-year old girl. She allowed me to interview her and this two-part series is the result of her honesty and candidness. Today, I’ll cover what led her to present day’s habits. Please revisit on Monday when I describe how Heidi’s life today is affected by her history with disordered eating.

When I asked her to describe her history with disordered eating, she burst into laughter. She’s been diagnosed with multiple eating disorders over her short lifetime. After living with it for seven years, she was pronounced anorexic at 18. Then, she was a college freshman and her roommate made her a doctor’s appointment to get assessed. In hindsight, she describes her lifestyle then as an eight on the anorexic 1-10 scale – she over-exercised, fasted and played with her food, instead of eating it.

Four years later, Heidi was diagnosed as bulimarexic, falling into a habit that many closeted-anorexics do: eating socially and purging immediately afterwards, but mainly restricting and exerting energy to eliminate calories consumed. This was to allow the image of being “fine.” In fact, during her adolescent years, she says that the only time she would eat was during family dinners.

At the time, she was treated for another condition related to her eating disorder and her physician prescribed a medication that caused her to gain twenty pounds. She’s not happy that she still can’t drop all of the weight from the medication, but credits her doctor for saving her life.

Heidi grew up in a low-income family without religious participation – attending church was her escape. Her family has it’s own problems: parents who indulge excessively in marijuana and her sister is an avid speed user. Growing up, she felt she was the family mediator and that she couldn’t let on that she had any problems of her own. Because of this, she suffered understandable anxiety from an early age. Symptomatically, she’d fast during anxious moments from fifth grade until recently. Then she started getting compliments on her weight loss and the path was taken.

She doesn’t feel like she fits in with her family. She’s the only one in the family with high school and university degrees. She earned full scholarships for her freshman and sophomore years of university due in part to her activity in high school extra-curricular programs and having a nearly perfect GPA – she was even one person away from the top 5% of her graduating class. She went on a mission with her church. She avoided drugs and alcohol until early adulthood. She calls herself the “white sheep” of her family.

Add to that the lack of family resemblance. She’s a slightly over-average 5’6” when the rest of her family towers at 5’8”, 5’11” and 6’1”. She wishes she had her mother’s bone structure but inherited her father’s instead.

Please come back on Monday for more of Heidi’s struggle.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve:

cleaned out my bookmarked articles and sites and did a speed-link for you.

So, since the weekend looms, I’ve tons of work to be done, and my daughter is actually napping without being pushed in a stroller as a prerequisite (and I’d like to max out productivity, while I’ve the time!), I give you the following sites to check out:

• CBC News published an article on a judge’s recent ruling of New York City fast food restaurants that do not have to show calorie contents on their menus. To be honest, I’d not even been aware of this rule in NY or any of the other three cities and 14 states that have made moves to bring such legislation into play. It’s a good thought, since research has shown that when made aware of the content of their fast foods, diners will choose the calorie-laden fare about a third of the time.
• PsychPort reported that according to the results of a Norwegian study, pregnancy can open up possible binge eating behaviours.
• For the most part, unrelated to eating disorders, the Government of England will be providing mothers-to-be with a benefit to allow for healthy eating during pregnancy. This £200 one-time payment at 29-weeks gestation may allow low-income mothers to eat better - but what’s to help that during the early gestational months?
• During Mew York’s Fashion week, the girls at Jezebel handed out some rather appropriate and scandalous goody bags.
• Results of the first-ever Latino-focused eating disorder study were published recently, showing binge eating to be of high concern.
• Diet Blog dismisses the new diet book, 21 Pounds in 21 Days: The Martha’s Vineyard Diet Detox by Roni Deluz.

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Sarah of Mental & Emotional Health posed me some questions after we bonded via our blog’s comments. I answered them as honestly and wryly as possible. Part one of the interview can be found here. Part two will be up tomorrow.

Enjoy and feel free to mock me. Or just leave a comment for Sarah. She deserves it!

Warning: I have been a stoic obsessive, future best friend fan of Angelina Jolie’s since 1998. I am not anything near to unbaised.

I knew that we were kindred spirits.

I announced my pregnancy at the same time that she publicized hers. We both had a penchant for changing our hair and inking our memories via tattoos (she only has more ‘cuz she has more money), and dabbled in the modeling business (and drug scene that seems to go with it).

Now, Angelina has confirmed what I previously posted.

Being a mom is tough on the weight.

She’s quoted as saying:

“Yes of course I have lost weight. Some days are exhausting, only I’m not able to collapse. I believe in pushing myself to the limits.”

So, can everyone finally lay off of the eating disorder rumours?

I mean, yes, it’s important to model good eating habits and to maintain a healthy weight for your children. But you try working as an actress, being a UN supporter, supporting your partner’s work, raising four kids and mourning the death of your mother. Could you maintain a healthy weight while doing this?

I can’t and I don’t have half of the commitments.

After my post two weeks ago explaining the difference between myself during a relapse and my current habits, due mostly to stress and lack of time, I’ve relaxed somewhat. At least I did.

In the past three days, a shadow has been creeping up. It’s been looking in store-front reflections to gauge the size of my thighs in profile. It’s been challenging the notion that I’m too thin, that a 00 isn’t a right size for anyone over the age of 12. That I’m much bigger than Angelina Jolie, recently named as approximately 105 pounds on a 5′8″ frame. It’s not allowing me to relax.

And so to compensate, I’ve been overcompensating, eating more than I normally comfortably do, at breakneck speed. This isn’t binging by any means - but it’s unusual for me to emotionally eat to the point of fullness. And then do it again a few hours later. I’ve grown more accustomed to a sense of hunger in my belly, not a bloated, voluminous one.

And of course, emotionally eating leads to further shadow sightings. It’s a vicious cycle and I’m going to start fresh tomorrow, remembering why and how I look the way I do. I’ll be working on self-acceptance and not any further escapism. I’ll also report back, as you knew I would.