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Read Part 1 here
In the height of my ED, my IBS was only an issue when I ate, so I tried not to. When I went into recovery and had to eat, my symptoms went into overdrive and I was sick no matter what I ate. Although I was telling myself I was improving, I was still restricting (to a lesser degree) and when I felt the need, would try to make myself sick. To avoid suspicion, I would sometimes eat my allergy foods (i.e. bread) to force a reaction. After about 3 months, I realised I wasn’t reacting anymore. I had put on about a stone, was eating regularly and was chock full of meds. And I was able to stomach food I hadn’t eaten in 4 years.
Cut to 2 years later and I started seeing a dietitian to push through the next hurdle of recovery. Besides addressing my eating patterns and my vegetarianism, she gave me a list of foods to avoid. These low-FODMAP foods were not the extent of the restrictions I had put on myself previously. Basically, I don’t eat apples, mushrooms, onions and honey and I keep white bread to a minimum. As it turns out, my symptoms are highly correlated to my stress levels – which fits completely with my history of depression and anxiety. When I started to get these under control, my IBS was a lot easier to handle too.
The reason I decided to bring this up had to do with the current exam period. I hadn’t been experiencing any symptoms for a while. Like the reading week before it, this reading week had driven me into a frenzy of thoughts of failing and ideals of perfection. An added bonus of the Spring Semester was a stressful work placement and an almost constant string of rehearsals in the period leading up to the exam. The culmination of this was a week of alternately restricting and binging on a daily basis.
Soon, the tests were upon me but I felt prepared. I knew my shit and went into Anatomy to give a sigh of relief that the questions I felt particularly strong at had come up. One hour in and half the questions done, I felt a stabbing pain in my gut. I tried to ignore it but eventually I caved and was escorted to the bathroom. I got sick, felt better and headed back to finish off what was to be a kickass exam. My insides had other plans and I only lasted fifteen more minutes before I called uncle and left the exam hall, test unfinished, to get sick. Disgusted and disappointed don’t begin to cover how I felt that day.
Whether I like it or not, food is always going to be an issue. IBS doesn’t go away, it just fades into the background before rearing its ugly head in times of crisis. My eating disorder seems to follow the same pattern and the two have become intrinsically linked. Maybe if I didn’t have IBS, I would have never restricted a food group and become accustomed to not eating. Maybe if I had never had an ED, my IBS wouldn’t have exacerbated as badly as it did. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. With both conditions, the disease does not just disappear. You find ways to live and ways to cope.
To be continued…
I talk about my history of ED a lot here. What I have never really gotten around to is talking about the other issues I have with food.
When I was 11, I started getting sick. At least 5 times a week, I would have no choice but to take to my bed with stomach spasms, pain and all manner of symptoms. No body had any idea what was wrong with me. I was afraid to go to parties, to leave the house, to do anything in case I got sick while I was out. It was around this time that I started to withdraw and become introverted, partly due to my illness, partly due to first episode of depression. This continued for five years with no change.
Various visits, tests and misdiagnoses later, a gastroenetrologist diagnosed me with IBS. Although I now knew what I was dealing with, I was still frustrated; IBS is a diagnosis of elimination – basically, nothing else was wrong with me – and it was a chronic syndrome i.e. there is no cure, only remissions and exacerbations.
To counteract this, I decided to cut out all wheat, yeast and various foods out of my diet completely. My sickness episodes (while still ever present) decreased dramatically and I also lost about half a stone in a short enough period of time. I was also starting walking and eating healthier in general and I was happy that I was able to be freer with my social life and was looking better. I was still dealing with depressive and anxiety episodes but I had come a long way from my earlier days.
When I decided to quit self harming (another story for another day), I took up binge eating instead. When I gave up the wheat and other foods, I switched to tracking the ingredients in food. This turned into tracking the calories and then reducing calories. The more stresses I had in my life, the more stringently I kept to my “diet”. The less food I ate, the less I was sick (there was nothing in my stomach to make me sick) but overeating, and even normal eating, pushed my body to such an extreme that I was put off eating properly again for days.
To be continued…
It was Friday and I was mid-emotional breakdown, explaining to my therapist in exceedingly frustrated tones that I was sick of this shit – recovery and food and interacting with people and my weight and exercising and various other aspects of every little thing – there was no talking to me, I was convinced. Life sucked. It was some time after this hour or so of internal (and external) screaming, I had one of my trademark epiphanies.
There is a part of my mind that I do not identify with in the slightest, and yet it is probably the most ingrained part of me – the part that rationalises my compulsions away, that longs for instant gratification and the approval of others, the part that only sees one solution. More than one health professional has advised me to treat that part of my mind as an unruly child.
So how should one treat a child that is screaming and having a tantrum until she gets her way? Shame her, berate her, starve her, make her get sick, physically harm her, until one day she obeys you? Kids who live like this don’t turn out the ideal picture of health and contentedness – they end up more messed up than before.
Now, think about the child in the supermarket who is having a fit over wanting two chocolate bars. Does the mother slap her? No, she takes the chocolate away – not from a place of shaming or hatred, but from a place of love – all she wants is for the child to be healthy, not sick from overeating or too full to eat dinner. So she stops her child and explains – explains that the hungry child will get her dinner soon, explains that the tired child will have a nap, explains that the upset child will get hug. Because the mother, with all the wisdom and experience of life, knows that food is not always the answer.
Of course, at the age of 20, there is nobody holding my hand walking through the supermarket. But there is the side of me that knows what I need, that knows when I need to eat and sleep and ask for a hug. Its just a matter of that part of me, the part of me that is happy to be a mom to the people I know, to be strong enough to talk to that little girl who just needs someone to guide her along when things get tough.
And if I can talk to her mid-emotional breakdown, then I can learn to talk to her in the event of day-to-day discontent too.
Its been a while since I have written an ED themed post and there is many a reason for this – college, hospital life, a departure from very personal blogging being the main ones – but I feel it is time to retouch on the subject.
I know exactly the moment when I went from the depths of my ED to the depths of recovery. I’ve dicussed it at length so I won’t rehash it (but check out my Coming Clean series if you’ve missed it.) Beginnings are very clear cut. Things happen and they continue to happen. But with such a complex issue as recovery from an eating disorder (or any major change in life,) when do we stop being “in recovery” and start being “recovered”?
There are a lot of opinions on the matter. There are those who truly believe that complete and total recovery is possible and others who think that maintenance of “in recovery” will be the closest they will ever come to escaping their ED. And throughout my own recovery, which began almost 14 months ago, I have teetered back and forth between the two opinions equally in both time and confusion.
Of course, one can easily see when the process of physical recovery is over; for me that was around February 2011 – it wasn’t about the weight, it was about noticing that the negative aspects of my ED (that I had become alarmingly used to) – the constant cold, the night sweats, the yellowing whites of my eyes, the protruding bones, the overwhelming tiredness and dizziness, the occasional narcolepsy, the perpetual feeling of being slightly empty – all these had disappeared.
What hadn’t gone, of course, was the psychological turmoil – the real issue behind any ED. I was still exercising intensely (and occasionally to complete exhaustion) so even though I was eating enough, I was trying incessantly to continue to burn the calories. With every five pounds I gained, I deemed myself too fat and began a new “healthy living” plan that would end up in me marginally restricting and binging to make up for it. Binging made up a lot of those early days of recovery – and I was assured that this was normal due to my lowered metabolism and starved body.
Then I stopped restricting and began exercising in a healthier way. I got into therapy and joined OA – but the binging didn’t stop. And I was able to rationalise it away because I was a healthy weight and I wasn’t restricting – and as far as the medical professionals were concerned, this was enough.
OA seemed to work over the summer and I was all praise about it here. Then I started college. And I realised that OA takes over your WHOLE LIFE. You are on ALL THE TIME. And although I felt “cured,” I was almost constantly in a state of guilt, worry and fear of reprimand – it was quite the double edged sword. So on the eve of my orientation to college, I left OA for good.
And now I am in a state of confusion as to the whole recovery process. Neither I, nor anyone with eyes, could ever worry that I am on the brink of starving to death anymore. In the last 14 months I have put on over 4 stone (around 60lbs.) I have gone up 10 BMI points and made the transition from underweight to overweight. I am not sure what to do or how to feel. I have stopped exercising, I ignore healthy livingn blogs, there are days that I binge, there are days I restrict. It feels like the eating disorder hasn’t left me, just changed forms.
If ED has an end, then why do I find myself thinking of the law of conservation of energy – an ED can neither be created nor destryed, only changed to another form… Or maybe the disorder is more cyclic than linear – I have been like this before: I was 15 and it was mere months before my first “diet” started.
There is no real conclusion to this ramble because there has been no real conclusion to this process. The question left to me is this: Is recovery a matter of “yet” or “ever at all”?
Lord, I’m a melodramatic gowl.
Please ignore. I’m just going to post more music and happy things from now on 
I remember this time last year being the first of my confessions, the time when I left college and the time when I finally admitted I was sick. It is funny to think back on how I saw the world then. I wanted the world to change around me, I wanted things to sit in their place as I ran the show of my life, I wanted to be happy. But I had no idea how to do any of these things.
If something bad happened, or even if life happened, my confidence, my self esteem, my entire person would crumble into a cesspool of self loathing and I would deal with the situation the only way I knew how – by eating, or as the case may be, not eating.
Today, something didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Far from it actually. And amidst apologies and awkwardness, I explained, not only to others, but to myself how much my attitude has changed in the last twelve months.
Because, dear readers, I have no regrets. In recent memory, in the distant past, I do not need to dwell on what would have or could have been.
Mistakes are mistakes, but we learn not to make the mistake again and if we’re lucky, a different damage may be repaired in the process.
Pain is pain, but we heal, we grow resilient, we become strong, we move closer to being the person we strive to be. We fight for our beliefs, for our friends, for our survival.
Love is…often unrequited. But I’d still rather appreciate one amazing day without resentment or doubt than to muse for too long on what could have been.
Sometimes we cope, sometimes we don’t, other times it is simply impossible. But it is these moments of weakness that teach us to care for others and to love ourselves. It is these moments of despair that allow us to truly marvel at joy.
The only person that gets hurt when you cling to the past is you.
“Everything happens for a reason, even the horrible things,” I say. “I just don’t know what the reason is yet.”
“But how do you know?” says he. “How can you believe that?”
“Because I have to. Or else what would be the point of it all? How else would I survive?”
I am not perfect. I make mistakes. There are things I would change and things that will forever stay the same. There will always be work to do and there will always be room to grow.
But it hit me like a heart attack tonight…
I do not binge eat anymore.
[Thanks OA for saving me]
This is the final part of a series about getting help if you suffer from disordered eating. Read parts one, two and three here. I am not a professional; everything I say is based on my own experience. Always consult with your own doctor. This post mentions specific food and ED behaviours – do not read if you are easily triggered.
This final installment of Coming Clean is probably the hardest one to write because, unlike the rest of my story which is in the past, this part of recovery is my present. What part is that? The actual recovery. When you hit your bottom, you long for recovery like a refreshing oasis. But then you have to do the work, you have to deal with your emotions, you have to open up the past and yes, you have to gain weight and stop using food as a coping tool. And you know what? There will be days when recovery is shit.
I have found that when I’m really working the program, my disease kicks into high-gear. It’s like it’s fighting me because I’m fighting it. Maybe that’s all it is. Sometimes it wins, sometimes program does.
I received the above in an e-mail from one of my online support groups. It was a bad day, a slip day, a day where you feel like you are back at square one. Unfortunately, recovery is full of those days.
In the first three months of moving back home, I didn’t know what to do with myself. After three long years, I had no diet to fall back on. I couldn’t feel hunger or fullness, so knowing when to eat and when to stop was a mystery to me. I was binging like there was no tomorrow and because of this, I quickly became weight restored and all of my recovery was focused on the anxiety and the emotions. I was put on meds to help sort me out and went to therapy every week for a while.
This all sounds fine and well but it frustrated me. First of all, no one was talking about food. I didn’t (and honestly still don’t) know how to eat correctly and how much food I actually needed. I was still binging which depressed me and was an issue that no one addressed in a major way. I was getting no practical advice and I wanted to kill myself because I likened my new weight of eight and a half stone to obesity. Everyday was a bad day in the beginning. I just wanted my ED, my best friend, back.
I had to throw out my size 6/8 (US size 0/2) clothes and have over the last year gained over 50lbs. I’m not going to lie, I am not ecstatic about this. But then, I have to tell myself that marginally overweight is still better than bone-thinning, period-lacking, underweight fragility.
Day by day, my moods improved. After about 6 months of therapy, I was allowed switch to an “as needed” basis and retain that status today. My attitude changed towards exercise – I now exercise for the joy of it rather than the calorie burning potential. But its not like you can say “Give it 9 or 10 months and you’ll be fine.” Almost a year on and I still have bad days. Yes, they are growing fewer and farther apart but there are some days that I wish I was 7 and a half stone, that I wish I could survive on 1000 calories a day again. These are other days (and these stuck around for the whole year) where I would binge from waking up until going to bed, days when I would be sick as a dog and yet continue to eat, days when I was so convinced my life wasn’t worth living. I still struggle with those days too.
These are the days that you will be tested. These are the days that make the ED seem easier than recovery. These are the days that separate the men from the boys and they suck. But you ARE strong enough to get through it. It does get better. It is a slow process, I won’t lie, but eventually it does improve. And I can truly say that, even with the days that make me wish I never uttered those words to my mother that day in Marks and Spencer, my life is better now.
Nobody said recovery would be easy, only that it would be worth it.
Tell yourself that everyday. One day – you’ll believe it.
This is the third in a series about getting help if you suffer from disordered eating. Click here for part one and part two. I am not a professional; everything I say is based on my own experience. Always consult with your own doctor. This post mentions specific food and ED behaviours – do not read if you are easily triggered.
During the long nights I spent sitting in my room in those first few weeks of college, I often wondered how I would bring the subject of my disturbed eating patterns to someone who could help. As I discussed in the last post, I was under the impression that I wasn’t sick enough to get help or else that I could kick this on my own. Even at my lowest weight, I was unsure how to admit to myself and everybody else that I was sick. So I did it in the most inappropriate place I could have.
My parents were on their third visit to me in two weeks. (As it happens, it is always a great asset to have parents who will frequently take a 2 hour road trip to dry your tears when you call them in floods.) We went to town just to get out of the college area and we lunched in Merchant’s Quay. All through lunch I wanted to say something but I couldn’t. The subject of leaving college for good had already been mentioned the week previously but I also wanted to conveniently forget about that. Screw it, I thought to myself, I’ll do this another day.
Before I went back, we went for a stroll around Marks and Sparks, as you do when your hometown is severly lacking in one. Somewhere out of the blue, between the skincare shelves and the lingerie section, I blurted out that I was obsessed with my weight (my dad was elsewhere in the shop, so my mom was the first to hear.) And like many others after her, she assured me that once college settled, this would too. No, I said, it wouldn’t. And thus was the beginning of revealing every habit I had aquired over the last year – the binging, the restricting, the calorie counting, weighing food, weighing myself (daily) and never-ending-dream of a lower weight. Although it would take a lot more time for everything to come out, that day in M&S was a turning point for me. I learned that there is no perfect way to come out about your ED – one day, you just have to have the balls and the courage to do it.
After this, I switched doctors and found my current beloved physician. It is so important to go through these first stages with someone understanding who you feel you can trust to take care of you. My doctor gave me all the time in the world that first day to reveal my soul. He didn’t treat me like a child. He didn’t treat me like a mental case. He just wanted to help me get better. And so began my journey into recovery.
To be continued…
This is the second in a series about getting help if you suffer from disordered eating. Read the first part here. I am not a professional; everything I say is based on my own experience. Always consult with your own doctor. This post mentions specific food and ED behaviours – do not read if you are easily triggered.
Its often heard that admitting you have a problem is the first step. This may be true, but things don’t necessarily get easier from here on in. I was slowly realising that I had a problem. What I hadn’t yet accepted was how severe this problem was. To me, you were only allowed get outside help if you were noticeably unwell – when I started vomiting after every meal and weighed 5 stone, only then would I require help.
Unfortunately, this is the thinking of many ED sufferers. In my case, I didn’t even suffer from anything that was well-recognised in society – my non-purging bulimia seemed to me to be nothing more than a strong commitment to healthy eating and exercise. I never ate as low as the typical anorexic, I didn’t binge often enough for BED and I certainly couldn’t be bulimic – I wasn’t even able to make myself vomit!
This is where EDs and treatment becomes so messy. Sometimes it feels like society thinks only severely underweight anorexics are worth helping. The sad truth is there is no cookie cutter definitions of who needs help and tell tale behaviours can largely go unnoticed. I was engaging in ED behaviours for over a year before anyone started to notice anything strange. I know someone who has been suffering since 2008 and only in the last few months has been getting help.
Its a vicious cycle – the sufferer does not want (or does not feel sick enough) to get help and usually by the time anyone else sees a problem, it is so far along that the recovery process will be less than fun and games.
For me, it took leaving home, moving to a big, new city, embarking on an intense college course and my life falling down around me before I was willing to admit that this was no way to live. I struggled and I fought and I was determined to just “get over it” but it takes more than that. It wasn’t until I came home that I realised what my life had become.
Perhaps the reason why the severely underweight anorexic is the poster child for eating disorders is because we are such a visual generation and it is the easiest to see. Admittedly, the concepts of malnutrition and organ failure hit home a lot harder than the other dangers. But dangers they are nonetheless. Catching an ED in the early stages may be the key to preventing osteoporosis, infertility and altered metabolism. Even the day to day effects such as hypersensitivity to temperature and inefficient digestion can make normal activities a pain in the ass.
And of course, there is the fact that we can’t ignore: that ED sufferers have an increased risk of depression and suicidal behaviour. The day I had a pocket full of pills, a call to the Samaritans and worried sick parents that they may have come home to one less daughter was the day that made recovery real for me. This was not something I could shake off or work through alone.
I needed to bring in the professionals.
To be Continued….
