Eating Disorder Talk

I have this great opportunity to go camping on Monday night. I have been wanting to do this since I started working here - I heard a co-worker organized camping trips and the idea was instantly exciting to me. The problem? I don’t want to eat the camp food. I don’t want to eat crap. I am so afraid I will give into temptation and that is totally the last thing I want to do. I overheard someone asking about food to bring and got a reaction when I said I was going to bring my own, healthy food. I don’t like feeling like an outsider. The food when camping is not so awful, but listen to me know: my mind is already going bonkers … which gets me to think - is this a good time for me to go? As much as I want to go, am I in a good enough mental state to attend? Help?

Just weighed myself today (two days early) to see my progress this week and now my brain is going insane!!!! How could I weigh two pounds more? If anything, I should have at least lost 1/2 a pound. I am not happy about this and want to see weight loss, not weight gain. This seriously annoys me and I am not happy to see that I went 2 pounds up. Go ahead and judge if you need to. This is where my mind has gone and I feel very unsettled. It’s a never-ending roller coaster. Help!!!! I need to talk to someone about this because I know that keeping it all in my head is not doing anything for me. I pray that I lost the weight I should have lost by Sunday morning. This is super annoying. I am not happy right now. I feel like a loser who will never get to where I want to be. I am so pissed off.

Any book on eating disorders is a must read. I am a person who is the queen of going into my small, little hole of “protection.” This is my world of denial. The more I talk about my food thoughts and read about it, the better off I am. Though my health has been great, I am well aware that my food addict is doing push ups in the parking lot. So, with a happy heart, I am eager to share a portion of this new book about a human’s personal experience with this disease:

“When I first got sick with anorexia, at the age of eleven, no
one talked about eating disorders—tome or anyone else. I
had been molested by a neighborhood man at the age of six,which
created an innate distrust of my surroundings, not to mention a
sensitivity to the senseless nature of personal physical and emotional
violation that would stay with me from that point forward.
By age thirteen, peer cruelty and family turmoil had left their
additional marks, and yet I spent the first seven years of my battle
with anorexia harboring absolutely no suspicions that my problems
were caused by anything other than “just me, being me.”
My family appeared to feel similarly.We simply didn’t know any
better, and neither did anyone around us. I continued to decline,
year after year, and everyone close to me fell away, as mystified as
I was by my slow descent, and unable and uninvited to venture
into the intimate, secret places where only the eating disorder
and I could go.

When I turned eighteen, I left my family and moved to another
state to attend university. I was already a nationally recognized up and-
coming young jazz and bluegrass musician, and I had been
accepted to a prestigious music program.Unfortunately,my “best
friend,” the eating disorder, had no useful advice for me to help
me cope with the stresses and strains of a whole new life, let alone
the demands that my college’s music department directors placed
on me. Before too long my physical and mental health caved in.
Not even three months into my freshman year,my parents arrived
to pack up my things.
I dropped out of school and flew home. Not knowing where
else to turn, I found myself crawling even deeper inside my eating
disorder for comfort. I couldn’t face my family,my few remaining
friends, or the cold, hard facts of such an abrupt end to such a
promising music career, let alone the heavy weight of guilt I felt
for somehow letting it happen. Like an athlete, over time my patterns
of over practicing and persistent, consistent weight loss had
steadily weakened my body, including the ligaments and tendons
I had relied on to maintain my ten-hour-per-day practice regimen.
The doctors told my parents they had never seen such a severe performance
injury in one so young—that my injuries resembled
those of a thirty-year-career musician. They told me I had better
proceed to Plan B, but I had no Plan B. I had no sense of “me”
without music.All I had left of the person I had previously referred
to as “me” were hard casts on both hands and forearms . . . indefinitely.
I couldn’t even lift a milk carton or turn a doorknob, let
alone engage in the sole form of expression that had offered me a
safe way to “speak” the words and emotions that now remained
bottled up inside, hour after hour, day after day. I was in constant,
ever-deepening pain, both inside and out.Worst of all, I remained
in ignorance of the name of my tormentor. I still labored under the
assumption that the total collapse of my life was “just me, being
me.” I wrote myself off, and miserably, unbearably, inconceivably
settled down to die.
Meanwhile, my mother searched around and found a physical
therapist for me to try and at least salvage my musical dreams.
Mom drove me to her office once a week, sometimes twice if things
got really bad.My new therapist’s name was Annie. I liked her well
enough, although I never said much during our initial sessions
together, other than politely asking for the occasional clarification
of her instructions for the physical therapy exercises she assigned.
Privately I thought that she seemed like a strong, happy, confident
woman—someone I felt quite sure I could never find anything in
common with.
One day, a few months after we started working together, I
arrived at her office not just quiet and reserved, but mute and
silent. She sat me down, very gently, and said, “Today we will not
do physical therapy. Today, we will just talk.” She explained that
she knew I needed someone to talk to, that she could see I was
hurting. Furthermore, she told me she believed that if I didn’t talk
to someone soon, I might actually explode from the strain of
holding it all in, whatever it was, that was pushing so desperately
against my seams to get out. I opened my mouth, intending to
quickly thank her for her concern, and to assure her that all was
well and there was no need to worry. I opened my mouth . . . and
it all came flooding out.
The depth of relief I felt was incalculable, mind-blowing, and
instantaneous. After seven long years of battling my disease in
lonely silence, after I had long since given up hope of help ever
arriving, Annie noticed my pain. Even more miraculous, she
seemed to understand what that unnameable pain inside me felt
like from personal experience. She also appeared to possess the
ability to do what I could not—separate the particular issue that
was causing such a struggle from the human being underneath
who was struggling. She saw me . . . trapped inside, held down by
the weight of my disease, but still alive and willing to fight and
wanting to survive. She heard me . . . my nearly inaudible actual
voice, crying out for recognition beneath the eating disorder
voice’s vicious lies. She cared about me . . . in a way I had never
even considered caring about myself.
She wasn’t at all intimidated by my pain or my disease or my
shame, or even my inability to put any of it into comprehensible
words at first, because in her own way she had walked through
those same places in her life and had emerged whole and healthy
and strong. She also—amazingly, unbelievably—seemed to believe
in me, even when it felt impossible to believe in myself, and even
while I faltered and fell so many times that her continued presence
and support seemed less like compassion and more like insanity.
It was only later that I learned that the reason she was able to do
this for me was because someone else had first believed in her and
stood by her when she needed that person most.
Annie was my first mentor. She was my first anything—the first
person I had ever met who proved to me that an ordinary person
like me could be a hero in her own life. She taught me this by
showing me, through her own example, that everybody has “something”—
something that we each struggle with, something that life
hands us, individually, which forces us to wake up and choose life
every day, in every way, in every thought,word, and action, because
choosing anything less than life means we will not survive, and
what a waste of a perfectly wonderful, irreplaceable, unrepeatable
life that would be!
Annie also taught me that this “something”—my something—
meant not that I was weak, but that I was human. It meant that I
was not to be forcibly, willingly even, separated from the herd of
humanity all aroundme by the perceived unusual weakness within
me, but rather that this very challenge I was facing was what
included me and made me very much like the surrounding herd.
Annie shared with me something I would never have realized on
my own—that, in struggling through my particular “something,”
I was simply participating with each person around me in the normal
and necessary rites of passage life offers us. In other words, I
was having my own individual experience of the collective “human
condition.” Most importantly, I learned from Annie that it was
only when we all come together to share in both the burdens and
blessings that life offers to us that we each activate our inner power
to fully live.”

I am excited about this new book already! I haven’t read the whole book yet, but I already know it will be life changing and inspiring. GET THE BOOK AND HELP YOURSELF IN YOUR RECOVERY!

If you are a person who did not like this documentary, get over it. This is a horrible disease and it cause death. DEATH. It is great that this was explored and more people could be informed about how widespread it is on the internet. I have not been anorexic myself because I love food to much. Unfortunately, if I did have the ability to go without food for a couple days and lose weight quickly, I totally would. I am a food addict. I love the idea of being able to control food to the fullest. How could that concept not turn me on? I once was 5′5″ and 112 pounds. I realize that is not as thin as others in anorexia, however, I did have an awful mindset at that time. There I was thin as a rail and poking and prodding at my body - where I thought I should lose more weight. Weight loss was a drug for me. I wanted to keep losing and look like one of those thin models. I wanted every body of clothing to fit my body perfectly. It was a quiet obsession that I did not share with many people. I am a lot more open about what goes on in my head now. I have looked at youtube and put up the videos from the documentary I found. Please watch it.
PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

Sorry to say this, but hearing women talk about weight gain or health confusion can really annoy me. Isn’t that terrible? I am so black and white about food - good or bad. I know I can be very harsh on the subject of food. But when a person is always and I mean ALWAYS talking about the progress of his/her weight, I get so sick of it.
And this is coming from a food addict! When it comes to talking about food in the emotional sense, I get it. That’s what I’m more down to listen to. Does that make me an insensitive asshole? Possibly, but it’s the truth. That’s how I feel.
When girls talk about their yo-yo dieting I want to walk away. Diets don’t work and there is no such thing as a quick freakin fix. You have to make a life choice and eat healthy. You have to be patient and healthy. End of story.

For me, if it is not fruit, I don’t have a clue on a healthy thing to eat for breakfast. I was just tlaking to a friend about this today. When I think of protein in the morning, I think of eggs and bacon. Sometimes sausage. I do not indulge in these things anymore, but back in the day, when I didn’t have to worry about health, I had two eggs everyday. Everyday! But I didn’t know what else to eat. Sure, there is cereal, but when I am going to properly mix foods together to have proper digestion, milk and grain do not mix well. Don’t get me wrong, I love my fruit in the morning. It keeps me energized and it keeps me healthy. That is great. But once a week, I would like to have something different … but it has to be light because my stomach is used to fruit in the morning - very easy on the stomach. Any ideas?

For me, this is totally the truth. Almost right after I have a chocolate bar, I get acid reflux. While this sucks big time, it also is a huge blessing for my addiction. I just can’t have chocolate all the time. It is what it is and I’m grateful for it. I bring this up because I just had a chocolate bar and I have to sit up right now so the acid doesn’t go to my throat. Crazy, right? I didn’t have this problem in the past. What happened? Age, that’s for sure. But simultaneously, I have been eating mainly healthy, organic food for 4 years. Having anything else - that is hard for my body to comprehend now. It all seems foreign and my body doesn’t know what to do with it. It does suck to have such an instant reaction to chocolate, but at least I know. … I am sure there are many other foods aside from chocolate that upset the acid in my body. I need to look into it even more.

I don’t get this. I watched this and didn’t necessarily feel inspired. All the people commenting - they don’t have eating disorders themselves. Why would I want to listen to them. Simultaneously (and as usual), my heart goes out to the boy suffering with food. It is not easy.

I don’t know what a doctor can do for a person struggling with eating disorders. Evaluations don’t do shit. I could evaluate myself insanely well right now. The whole point is that this is a disease of the mind.

I do like how the boy opens up about his mental struggles. I don’t think there can ever be too much coverage on eating disorders. Unfortunately, this will be a forever problem for humans. Many of us have mental issues with food. This boy has been dealing with an eating disorder - much of it starting with his involvement with wrestling.

Man, I am totally in the same boat. My career revolves around my look. I have two choices in the entertainment industry - to be skinny or to be overweight. I don’t know of any in-between performers. It would be nice, but for most casting directors, they want one or the other.

Now that I’ve written out my many thoughts after watching the tv special, I get it’s importance. I, like many others, am reminded that I am not alone. That’s a big deal.

I do not envy this woman. She has the media watch so closely to her weight 24-7. When she lost weight, she was all over the news. When she started to gain weight, she has had to make public confessions. I don’t like it. Let her be. I am already hard enough on myself. To have to put other people’s watching eyes on top of how mean I can be to myself - let’s just say it would not help at all.

I found a video created after learning of Oprah’s weight gain. They are obviously using the publicity of Oprah’s weight gain as a way to make a profit with their inventive workout ideas. Honestly, when I saw this, I only go annoyed. Sure, their workout videos can be very helpful, however, as a food addict … It’s yet another way to lose weight and in my eyes - just another “diet.” Even if I had a freakin chef and personal trainer, I could prove that diets don’t work. Exercise won’t help me lose the weight if I keep shoving snickers down my throat. Seriously.

I am not surprised about what happened with this girl. The clinics are a great idea, but they do not help people outside of the clinic. Like the girl said, once she left, she had no supports groups or anyone to help her. I am annoyed and bothered that Tyra didn’t continue to try to help the girl with her eating disorder. If you are going to be a talk show host, you have to know and respect what you are putting on the air. I know I am not alone on wondering how this girl did after the show. For her to get a call from the Tyra show and them to have the audacity to be mad at her for not being a quick fix? That’s fucked up! All they did was put her in a clinic for a brief period of time. The clinic is not the real world. She was left high and dry afterwards. Learning to be “normal” around food and body issues in the real world - that is the struggle. Miracle recoveries do happen sometimes, but more often, they don’t. There is a long struggle involved that hopefully (emphasis on the word hopefully), has a positive ending.

I do not believe in the diets that are out there. People, like me, are always looking for a fast, quick, and unnatural way to lose weight. I want the quick fix. I want to look like one of those underweight models. I am sorry if that disgusts you, but I think they look absolutely beautiful. They have such a large choice of what they can wear. They pretty much can fit into anything. I want that same pleasure. As I slowly lose the last few pounds I’ve been wanting to lose for the past 2 years, I find myself very intrigued by all the diets out there. I hate the slowness of my weight loss. I really do.

Here is another clip I found from the Tyra Banks show. I am really finding a lot of good stuff on youtube from her, so I want to share it. This girl has gone to some extremes to keep her weight down … and not just down, but way below the weight she should be at. I relate with her desire to be thin. If it wasn’t for the world around me and the helpful hands along the way, I would not be as healthy as I am now. I hope Tyra really was a big help to the girl on the show.

I have to put this on the table. I don’t think I could ever starve myself. I am to obsessed with food to have the ability to let it go. To be really honest, I wish I had the strength to not eat. I know that sounds so horrible, but I find it impressive.
In the video above, I am brought to tears when I hear the girl speak of her fear of gaining weight after she learns she will not be able to have any diet food while she stays at the clinic. I agree and relate with her feelings. I would feel exactly the same way. Weight gain is a huge fear of mine. If I didn’t have control over the food I was eating, I would freak.
However, if that fish was sitting in front of me, I would have eaten it without hesitation. It’s hard for me to turn down food with it sitting in front of me. However, I did notice there was a cream sauce on it - not necessarily a healthy thing. That would not make me happy and only get my head spinning.
It scares me how much I can relate to the girl in the video. I wish I could cry with her and hug her.

I am sorry if this sounds cheesy to me, but many times I have to rely on the power of prayer to get me through life. I am talking about faith in a higher power. It can be known as G-d to you. Getting on my knees and giving my stress to someone else makes a huge difference for me.

I know I am not the first one to discover this concept. I go through stages with having a higher power in life. I’m talking about not even acknowledging my higher power for a long period of time. Getting on my knees or taking out some quiet time gives me some time with G-d. When I do this for myself, I am quickly more at peace around food. Crazy, right? Well, it’s the truth. A part of me wishes it wasn’t because I can become forgetful about spending some time with my higher power. Then, the only person to blame for my lack of serenity is me.
I just have to remember to pray. Prayer makes all the difference for me.