Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
Eating disorders article
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
It changes those disordered thought patterns and gets rid of critical self judgements and "rating" type language
Ive just started it
Im a perfectionist type too
it makes real sesne though
it is amazing how one constantly rates oneself
It isnt just talking-its hard work
I will let you know
if it works let me know
xxxxxxxxx
Basically the idea is that an Event does not in itself lead to the Consequence of you feeling bad - there's also how you think about it.
So 'Eating ice-cream' does not have to automatically lead to 'i hate myself', there's also all sorts of bits in the middle like characteristic thinking habits & beliefs that get in the way.
someone with an ED might think 'I ate an ice-cream' > 'I will instantly get really really fat and this will be the worst thing ever & everyone will hate me' > 'feels bad'.
someone who hasn't got an ED might think 'I ate an ice-cream' > 'that was nice. I wonder what's on telly tonight?' > does not feel bad.
They also talk lots about 'thinking errors' like 'black-and-white thinking' (you are either 'good' or a total failure, and there is nothing in-between), and 'overgeneralisation' ('i have only got 95% on this exam - so i'm obviously crap at this area of the course, so i'm crap at everything, so i'm going to end up an unemployable alcoholic sleeping in the gutter').
It still helps me a lot to think of the logical outcome of the worst possible thing happening - it usually ends up making me laugh, and then i feel better and can think about waht is realistic. for example 'i haven't gone for a run today' - worry says 'i'll get fat!' logical outcome of this taken to extremes is 'i will instantly become so fat i won't be able to fit out of the front door and never ever be able to run or do anything else again, i will become a horrible lazy slob, i might as well just give up', & then i can think a bit more sensibly, like 'tomorrow my legs will be fresher so i will be enjoy my run more, and missing one run does not mean the end of the world - i won't even notice it next week'.
It works well IF you do the 'homework' - i had lots of sheets to record 'Negative Automatic Thoughts' on, and then later on i got sheets where i got to write an answer to the NATs as well.
Some of the 'homework' was really scary, like eating a sandwich without weighing everything went into it, and then writing down all the panicky thoughts that were coming into my head. it probably helped that i did a lot of this in hospital so i did not have much choice about doing it.
It's focused on there here-and-now & how you behave in it, rather than being about 'past issues' much.
One thing i will say about any sort of therapy is that you have to give it time to work. i don't think i've ever come away from my first meeting of anything thinking 'right, this is it, this is going to change my life', but after a long time of sticking to it, it can.
(as well as having had quite a lot of CBT i'm a psychology undergrad, so i might be able to help with questions about talking therapies if you have questions. Usual stuff about not taking anything you find out from some random stranger off the internet too seriously applies).
oh, and: 'P.S. Sorry for taking up so much forum space! I do ramble............!!!!!'
You have NO idea how often I'vwe seen/heard something like that from people with ED's! you aren't going to crash the RW servers, so you might as well post as much as you like :¬)
And thanks for the insight to some of the CBT theories. I am in a "personal development group, and I must say devling into the psyche is a real eye-opener, but just KNOWING why you do things isn't enough. As you say, it's the changing of the perceptions and the behaviours which is the hard bit.
Do you think you would have been able (or rather do you think it's possible for anyone) to recover from an ED without professional help? Is it something one might "grow out of"? I must say, that, 12 years on from the onset of my ED (and probably more since the onset of my distorted thinking), and things have not got any easier. Just probably changed in nature.
: )
CBT doesnt do all tnjhat delving
its a prtactical-lets soprt out your thought patterns solution
which is really hard-but suits me cos i havent got time to sort out why
I do know people who got away form ED on their own
I avoided it by skin of teeth
but have other probs
CBT might say the disordered thinking preceded ED
the "not good enough" -i bet it did-didnt it
and then there was a trigger
Counselling and group therapy has definitely made me understand that my ED is not really about my body, it's alot more than that. It's also made me realise what you've just pointed out, that things were wrong way before the onset of my ED. I have also figured out what from my past has caused this disordered thinking and has made me so judgemental over who I am, what I do and how I look. I now know why I was and am so critical about my whole being. I even know what my "trigger" for the ED was.
As it has been said in a previous section of this forum, treating the symptoms, i.e. the abnormal eating patterns/habits isn't the cure. You've got to go much deeper. Which, I suppose, is where CBT comes in.
It's a shame you are not looking for the "why"s, Plodding Hippo. For me, it's like a jigsaw puzzle all coming together. It's given me clarity, a reason for why I am the way I am. It's given meaning to my ED. I know this might sound strage, and by no means am I suggesting that EDs are a simple illness, but knowing the cause, the trigger and their connections to their manifestations in disordered eating patters and writing them down on a piece of paper has made the whole thing much more managable. Does this make sense?
You don't 'grow out of' EDs. you might change the way you express them, but i really don't think that anyone goes from being that unhappy to being fine with just the passage of time.
I was very lucky in that i left my secondary school (where i was bullied & unhappy) for 6th form not long after coming out of hospital, and a lot of things changed then - new academic environment, new people, more freedoms, lots of new ideas about the world - and that made a huge difference to me - i'm pretty sure if i'd stayed at school with the same old things that triggered the ED in the first place i'd have just got into more trouble, because there really wasn't anything else there for me to care about.
Yes, you could say i 'grew out of' my ED like that - but it definitely wasn't just a case of time passing, the way i thought about things had to change too for me to stay really well, as opposed to just physically complying with a treatment regime under threat, and that was very much an active process.
(incidentally, i'd credit radical feminist politics as being a factor in really changing the way i thought - but then again it could have just had more to do with starting to be a proper stroppy teenager).
I could look for the whys
but id like to get better
and you can get hung up on those
i can see repeating paterns
and i want to deal with those
you do make perfect sense
but
i am functioning wioth my problenm
so
i want a functional fix
the dep stuff can come later-if i need it
the time for that to be dealt with will come
Right now, let me hlep myself
stuff preceding ED - i'm pretty sure that if it hadn't been an ED i'd have 'gone off the rails' in some other way (i did drink quite heavily for a while, and only stopped 'cos of calories) - it's just a way of expressing that you are feeling bad.
CBT does a bit of 'underlying issues' stuff - and as with all talking therapies a lot will depend on the person you are seeing - but i think its main value for me was just stopping me banging my head on the wall so that i was in a position to look at underlying stuff. it got me to a place where i could think clearly about what i was doing instead of just reacting as my negative self-image demanded. to be fair i think since most of the CBT i've done has been hospital-based it was more directive and practically-focused than the average - no point in achieveing a perfect understanding of my problems if i was still seriously physically ill and not able to do anything asbout them.
doesnt sort the probs
but it stops you lying tomypurself
and tries to find a coping solution
that will do for now
I suppose to me looking at the 'why' of an ED is something of a luxury compared to sorting out the 'how' it's maintained. it _might_ be necessary or helpful in understanding and breaking the thought patterns, and it might help you move on from the ED & put something more productive in its place - but i do think that first you need to sort out a way to stop hurting yourself and allow yourself to think clearly.
i suppose it's a bit of a trade-off between what can provide the 'functional fix' and what might be needed to stay fixed.
I suppose i still think i can sort the "why" on my own-though i may be deluding myself about that
Still
Functioning would be good
The positive list thing really helps -i do it too
tho i deny it to everyone.
and yes, if it wasnt that, it would be in other ways, i was a perfectionist teenager, who was very academic and musical but a bit off the rails. The 2 were not considered to go together and i dont think teachers/parents really knew how to deal with it, (especially as i had a v well behaved twin...)
But i think it was a pressure early on, that i was just expected to get straight top grades. Ended up getting expelled after turning to drugs in a big way (yes at 15/16...) and doing exams at other school
Moved on from that disfunctional 'obsession' to the food thing, which i suppose has been some sort of coping mechanism since. If it wasnt that, it would be something else, there is usually a trigger for each time it gets worse, however much i deny it, and it is just gonna be necessary to find other ways of breaking thought patterns as DG says, there must be better coping mechanisms than not eating or just getting rid of it down the toilet.
Oh i dunno, perhaps CBT is a good idea....
ED's have got nothing really to do with food, it's just an accessible thing to use to hurt yourself. Probably at least 3/4 of the people i knew in hospital had at least one comorbid thing like OCD, depression, self-harm, drugs... i'm pretty sure if the idea of 'dieting' wasn't culturally avaiable it'd just come out some other way.
i remember reading a study (sorry, can't remember reference) which found that nearly all patients with anorexia had academic achievements much greater than would be expected from IQ alone - not sure whether that's from external pressure or internal 'obsessive traits', but it did make me think. i remember when i first got time out of hospital really not knowing what to do with myself if i was not doing work or ED stuff - took quite some time to find out what i actually liked doing instead of what i made myself do.
I am not doing this PhD because I love the subject. It's most definitely a way of trying to prove (to myself? to others?) that I can achieve more....I'm always reaching further and further, as nothing I do is good enough.
And I know that this EDNOS stage I am in - the chewing and spitting massive amounts of food is because things are not going all that well. I feel I am failing in achieving what I set myself to achieve (having problems with my PhD), and stuffing my face is probably a punishment for my failure. On the flipside, when I have some breakthrough, and work is going well, and I push myself so hard that I work for 18-20 hours a day with little sleep, the obsession (as Duck Girl pointed out) transfers itself to the same rigidity and control over food and excessive exercise, and the anorexia returns. And whether it is the C&S or the anorexia, the underlying cause is still the same, and the consequence (damaging the body and the mind) is also still the same.
But yes, DG, I wonder what I'd be doing if I didn't feel I had to prove myself.
Having said all that, writing up sucks doesn't it? I'm so over my topic...
Kicks large plastic box of lab books
I don't have an easy answer as to how
and yeah
you have to deal with the underneath
if you are ready
Somehow over time I came to accept not being perfect as ok. Part of it was about deliberately NOT doing some extra stuff to make it perfect, which I actually found amazingly difficult - deliberately leaving something "unfinished".
Plus also I think it was about taking on board the idea that my entire self worth isn't tied up with what I do being perfect - it takes the pressure off.
Dunno if that makes any sense or is complete bollox.