Anorexia and bulimia

elmarko1234 said:
Much to do with over-eating is related to childhood from what I've seen.

Children are given sweets at Christmas, chocolate at Easter, a cake for birthday, a party at some fast-food joint as a reward etc.

In society we turn food, something which we need for survival into a reward for children - parents are directly building the association between food & happiness - which is why so many comfort eat nowadays.

I strongly believe that food should never be used as a reward or punishment in children, as it over-inflates the importance of it& has the potential to unbalance a child's attitude towards eating in later life.

I only gained weight because I really love the taste of beer, no excuses for me - I don't have any unhealthy relationships with food from childhood.
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I think you're partially right, but there are other possibilities. As a child I was never allowed chocolate, crisps, sweets etc except at birthday parties and on special occasions. Sometimes I'd get something as a reward, like when I was studying for my 11+ my dad would give me one celebration from a pack of them.

This just didn't work though. All that happened, which is the way with anything restricted, was that once I was free to make my own decisions, I bought lots of the stuff I wasn't allowed when I was younger, and would sneakily eat things. I was by no means really fat, but I was about 4 stone overweight for a while (now about 1 stone over).

If my parents (my dad in particular) had been less restrictive with me I would have learnt more respect for food and learnt to make my own decisions at a young age, instead of having to go through that process at 21.
 
This looks like good advice:

Bulimic here. You can't "fix" her at all, but here are some basic tips, from my experience, that might be helpful for her:
-Never, ever mention how much she's eating/not eating. As much as you wanna be like, "heeeeey! what's goin' on?", this is what happened when people did that for me: I'd all of a sudden feel really embarrassed and guilty, and swear to make sure I'm more secretive. Those comments often made me feel just awful, in a bad way. Maybe during a one-to-one conversation, ask her how she's doing with recovery and if there's anything you can do to help; but try to avoid guilt on her part by making others aware and her hyper-aware of her disorder.
-Encourage her to talk about negative feelings. Sounds cheesy, but often, I find it difficult to express myself when I'm angry or depressed or self-loathing, and it helps so much to have someone willing to listen to me and not make me feel guilty or whiny when I need to express them. For me, some of my worst binges/purges were borne out of emotions that I just couldn't figure out how to express.
-However, if she doesn't want to talk about it, don't make her. Don't bother her about it. Sometimes, we just need to work stuff out internally before we can talk about it with others; sometimes, we just aren't comfortable talking about it; and sometimes (though less commonly), we want people to stop making everything in our lives about the eating disorder when our bad mood could just be coincidental.
-If you know someone has an eating disorder, in a food situation try to treat her like you would treat non-disordered folk. Offer her food like you would to anyone, but don't act weird or keep offering food if she doesn't want it.
-Accept that this is her decision. You can be supportive, but that's just it: you're supporting her. The help of others is instrumental in recovery for most, especially if you're trying to do it without professional help. However, you have your own limits and your own life.
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One of my ex-girlfriends was (is still?) bulimic and it was a real nightmare. That above post mentioning "don't talk about eating" is about right... you are constantly stuck in some double-bind or logical paradox somehow. By approaching it you make it worse, and conversely by NOT talking about it you make it worse. I really sympathise with anyone trapped in that sort of circuitous hell.
 
I actually fell into anorexia while being depressed, I didnt even notice, people would ask why so thin, pale, tired etc. The comments while depressed dont help and it took me years to sort/figure it out (on my own mind).

I didnt know I had it so I couldnt admit to it, when questioned I felt it was a young girl disorder and dismissed the suggestion. It got to the point I could not eat anything for 2-3 days and could faint easily.

In the end it took 1 inspirational friend who just decided he would pick me up and carry me untill I was strong enough to do it myself. I never sat him down and thanked him properly for it which really hurts as he died about 6 months ago. Life can suck at times

TL;DR sad post innit bruv
 
fus said:
Wow, I've seen some pretty heartless here on this family forum, but this takes the prize! Well done, you are a winner. You'd have a 'holiday' pretty quickly were I a mod.
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To be honest this type of reply is what helped me get through it and also being very open about it.
'Normal' people can't ever understand why you would want to eat an amazing meal and then throw it up so I got used to the pee taking.
When I came back from my stretch in a Mental Hospital back in 1988 my Manager had me in his office for a talk and threw a Mars Bar and packet of crisps on the desk because he genuinely had no comprehension of what was going on in my head.
I just threw it off and laughed at all the jibes and even did party tricks for colleagues.
I would swallow screws and washers and bring them back up just by using my muscles because I'd got that good at stealth spewing.
 
Dimple said:
To be honest this type of reply is what helped me get through it and also being very open about it.
'Normal' people can't ever understand why you would want to eat an amazing meal and then throw it up so I got used to the pee taking.
When I came back from my stretch in a Mental Hospital back in 1988 my Manager had me in his office for a talk and threw a Mars Bar and packet of crisps on the desk because he genuinely had no comprehension of what was going on in my head.
I just threw it off and laughed at all the jibes and even did party tricks for colleagues.
I would swallow screws and washers and bring them back up just by using my muscles because I'd got that good at stealth spewing.
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This may be true for you, and I'm glad that you found your way out of the difficulties you were having.

However, I can't concur and agree that this is a helpful kind of response. In fact, I'd go so far to say as it's both completely inappropriate and cruel. It's the fearlessness that gets me; he's very brave and confident posting disparaging remarks behind his computer, but if he were to see the misery and hurt that this can cause (as I'm sure you'll agree), perhaps he'd show a little more compassion.

It's always the same here; depression, autism, eating disorders, ADHD, and so on. You have the one group who 'know' things and then proclaim complete and utter BS, and then you have the others who think it's clever, or funny, or whatever to take digs at those who are having difficulty. No doubt their behaviour is less so when it happens to them, or their family.

And then there are others, such as yourself, who contribute personal (positive) stories with the intention of genuinely contributing - which is great.

Basically (and it's usually from the same inane posters), people should consider what they type. I know they never will, but I know that eventually something will happen to them, or their family, and then they'll come crying.
 
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As the sayings go it's all about mind over matter as the mind is stronger than the body.

The problem is that when something goes wrong with the mind then god help you because mental illness is still not well understood and still can be very difficult to treat!
 
marl said:
As the sayings go it's all about mind over matter as the mind is stronger than the body.

The problem is that when something goes wrong with the mind then god help you because mental illness is still not well understood and still can be very difficult to treat!
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Too True!

Its only yourself making the discussions you can't blame others, look to your past. You only need to look forward and fix what is wrong now, no point in playing the blame game.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
I think you're partially right, but there are other possibilities. As a child I was never allowed chocolate, crisps, sweets etc except at birthday parties and on special occasions. Sometimes I'd get something as a reward, like when I was studying for my 11+ my dad would give me one celebration from a pack of them.

This just didn't work though. All that happened, which is the way with anything restricted, was that once I was free to make my own decisions, I bought lots of the stuff I wasn't allowed when I was younger, and would sneakily eat things. I was by no means really fat, but I was about 4 stone overweight for a while (now about 1 stone over).

If my parents (my dad in particular) had been less restrictive with me I would have learnt more respect for food and learnt to make my own decisions at a young age, instead of having to go through that process at 21.
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Indeed,

I'd say the prohibition most of the time & allowance on special occasions is a great example of using food as a reward mechanism.

It's difficult, but teaching children basic self-control has been statistically proven to yield massive benefits later in life (marsh-mellow study), as the ability to think "If I eat this now, while in the short term it will taste nice - 6 months down the line I'll be fat if I keep doing it".

The same logic applies to many aspects in personal development.
 
I know a girl who is, she uses drugs to kill the pain so she can eat, as a young teen thier was a lot pressure from parents to be perfect and a model, she hates thinsperation sites. Yet to catch up and see how she is doing now.
 
If you're looking for a decent book to read try Wasted by Marya Hornbacher. Out of all the books I've read it's probably the closest to what it's actually like being anorexic.

Email is in my trust if you want to chat about it.
 
Also if the OP wants more information go to the calorie county forums! Lots of people talking about it over there and real life episodes going on in progress....
 
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