Eating disorders article

Duck Girl

((()))

just found out that a friend's getting close to liver failure from ED :,¬(

[Deleted User]

Hannabelle - I'm 5"5 too, and have just gotten over 6.5 stone, am now 6.8. The real big step will be getting over 7Stone (always a big hurdle for me, been there 3x and each time I relapsed soon after.) The lowest I've been was 5stone 11lbs, was seriously messed up in the head then, was NOT thinking straight and did some awful things, like punching my Mom in the gut when she grabbed me to stop me pacing in her house! Lord, I was horrid, and I don't know how much of it I can honestly blame on anorexia. It makes u do some fucked up things, sure, but how much COULD I have controlled myself? I hate myself for that.

Duck Girl - ur friend with possible liver failure, although I know it won't make a damn bit of difference me saying it, but my heart totally bleeds for that friend. I remember my doctor telling me that my liver was eating itself slowly when at my lowest...Jesus Christ, that still wasn't enough of a wakeup call for me, still had to go into hospital (oh the wonderful days of Bethlem, Tyson West 2 ward! Hah!) It was a friggin' nightmare, but they did help, sort of

[Deleted User]

i know this is a great forum for helping everyone, and i am really appreciatitive of it. it sounds like we're all in a pretty shitty place but can i ask people to stop posting their weights (current ones) because we are all trying to recover and i think (and please yell at me if im wrong) but putting some of the very ill weights up is an incentive for those of us who are at a heavier (more muscular!!) stage, to compete and try and achieve that weight....well it does for me anyway, i feel the drive to compete and thats def not what this forum is about. i also wanna say a huge thank you to duck girl who fires in shots of positivity and kicks of reality like the above, and having been here herself she's a real inspiration to me anyway to focus on competing and being the best that i can be at the best weight for me. so thank you. to all of you having a bad day, sometimes just to utter how sad and trapped we are is enough and when it isnt know that there are so many people in here too always fighting on and battling to be free.......just keep going, like on the long runs, head down eyes forward, just keep going

[Deleted User]

Sorry Therese, that's me being a right insensitive moron - I'd forgotten this pesky illness pits us against one another. Thanx for the reminder (d'oh!)

Duck Girl

Good point Therese - if you've been on the 'Something Fishy' website (i haven't much for a few yrs but when i did it was helpful) then they have a strict 'NO NUMBERS' rule on the bulletin boards, & i think it's a good idea.

[Deleted User]

anyone else havin a bad time??

[Deleted User]

((((therese)))) hang in there.

had a very bad time the other day b/v'ing. managed to pull myself out of it with running... anxious because i can feel a 'bad time' building up.

how are you doing?

[Deleted User]

A BIT CRAP i dunno y.... i dont b.n.v (ooh i like your morse code!!) but at gud scales figure at the mo and everyone tells me how good im lookin and everytime some one says it i am sayin in my head to them "yea well dont get used to it coz im not stayin here" and i know this is a shite attitude but i cant change it and cant talk to anyone here bout it coz itl realy upset em, they are so happy with me but i am so illogically unhappy and can only think of one thing

[Deleted User]

Some words from an old hand...ED never really leaves you. Once you know the calorie value of everything and every form of exercise, every day becomes a calculation. Thus it has been for me since the age of 18. I am now 51. But you learn to take the bad days with the good ones and take a long view, once you have lived with it for so long. So it doesn't feel so desperate when things go wrong.

[Deleted User]

Hey guys, sorry to hear people struggling at the mo... Just want to add to the whole 'do you ever get better' thing. Well, I don't know about anyone else but I have to believe that I'm going to be 'cured' one of these days. I reckon that I stand a better chance, just by thinking that way. Also, I don't buy the whole 'alcoholic' analogy - there is no substance that I'm addicted to, I've just got a strange set of coping mechanisms. And you know what? I really think I'm getting there. Earlier and earlier in the ED cycle, I recognise that I'm doing it, and make myself look at the real problem, which has certainly detonated a few bombs in my personal life recently, but let me tell you, it's better than starving (if not quite as convenient). I do still have the thoughts and sometimes I even act on them but the majority of the time, I don't. And since I don't they come (slightly but markedly) less. I'm totally sold on the idea that you are trained to think in a certain way and you can train yourself not to. Sure, at first it seems forced, impossible, hokey. But everytime you practice a thing (not acting on the thought; not giving attention to the thought; not having the thought) you get better at it. I am getting better at eating, looking in the mirror and seeing both imperfection and acceptableness (really!!! Can you imagine?! Some days I like my own ass!!!) and today I realised that I have NO IDEA how many calories are in an avocado (100g or average pear). Now, I might have been idly wondering that because I was having an ED moment and about to eat avocado but the lack of knowledge did not either stop me eating LOADS of it and nor did it make me go look it up. So please don't ruin the excellence of this moment for me by telling me, all those shaking and desperate to type out those stats.

I realise I'm waffling. Point is - I reckon we can get better. I know that I am better just from having that idea. EDs are a way of thinking - we created them and we can create other ways of thinking and if we pursue those others with the same tenacity and determination that we pursued the thinness, well, there'd be no stopping us. And when we've done that, we can turn our not inconsiderable mental energy to the task of creating a world that does not teach our daughters to cope by starving themselves. If you can do an ED, you can do anything, I swear. So why are we wasting our time on thin when there's a whole world to change?

[Deleted User]

ok well that second last text is enough for me, im done. i cant keep this game up. im too tired either from training or from fighting this thing but i cant keep goin and if at 51 things still suck thats enough for me. thanks for all the great advice and stuff. c ya

[Deleted User]

Therese On the other hand, I have 2 lovely children (one aged 23 and one aged 11), a nice house, a good job and am a successful runner still. How did I do that without the depression overwhelming me? By thinking of other people more apart from myself, that's how. You can grow up and still counting calories every day. But maturity helps you to get the good and bad days in perspective. It was meant to be a message of hope. Change your focus - look outside yourself - try to help others in some way.

[Deleted User]

and a bliddy round of applause to you too kren
I know it might never go-but it doesnt mean it has to b----r your life

[Deleted User]

my post to wedders didnt register---I think you are marvellous

gymfreak

life gets easier. it doesnt go away but it gets easier.

[Deleted User]

Gymfreak - that's what I was trying to say too!

[Deleted User]

Just stummbled across this thread, hope it's ok to butt in.I've suffered with bulimia since I was 13, I'm 30.It comesand goes now but is always there , never leaves.
I mangae to control it most times with running and watching what I eat but just lately it has returned.
I see the signs but am hopeless to stop it or maybe I don't want to.
If my training goes badly I feel s**t, so I eat , so I throw up.
If I have a fight with my other half , I eat , so I throw up.
The running suffered after a weekend away, only slightly but enough to send me down that road.
My husband says that when I feel the urge I should think about my son(18mnths) and that should stop me.
To be honest once I know I'm gong to be sick and I do before I even eat, nothing will stop me.

I just want to thank you all for been so frank, it's really helped this morning knowing that there's people out there who understand, my friends are good but must think I'm mad.

[Deleted User]

None of you are "mad"
This is your coping strategy

we all have those

[Deleted User]

Thanks, Hippo, I am loving being marvellous. I am sure that anyone with the strength and energy for an ED has the capacity for fabulousness and am looking to utilise mine. Maybe you guys could all work on this too and we could all become fabulous together? I really think it is possible... I know that reading about others' experiences here has helped me to heal some of the bad stuff - how about we try to cultivate the good stuff together, too?

[Deleted User]

thats a good point wedders
even applying just a modicum of the discipline one applies to the ED to other areas of life-------

[Deleted User]

Plodding Hippo - here's to healthy coping strategies! I have recognised that my binges and sugar-induced long sleeps are simply ways to seek a temporary oblivion. It's tougher but better to identify what the real issue is I'm trying to avoid, and attempt to deal with it (usually by confronting someone who has upset me, or by giving myself permission to relax sometimes). Self-knowledge and self-acceptance is a life-long process.

[Deleted User]

How very very true

you cant take your eye off the ball for a minute!

[Deleted User]

Karen- I know what you mean about giving yourself permission to relax, I think sometimes I'm abit hard on myself, I have to agree with you and say it gets easier as the years pass, the episode seems to have passed for me, luckly I told my husband before it started to snowball, that always works but it takes me a few days to tell him.

PH- Really good positive posts, thanks

[Deleted User]

Hi People - New to the forum and really glad to see people talking so openly about ED's - I too suffered with Anorexia from 17 -21 it was a long hard slog to get over it!I totally agree with Karen that you never really get over an ED,you are always to some extent thinking about food and what you have eaten. Running has helped me feel more positive about about my body and what it can achieve, but the negative is that occasinally I do wonder whether I am running because I enjoy it or to keep my weight down!? On the whole though I am ok,but sometimes maybe a little obsessive about keeping those weekly miles up and running 6 days out of seven!!!

[Deleted User]

Hi Emma- I was the same, started running to keep the weight down but once I was bitten by the racing bug it all changed, now I put myself through it to do well in races.
Keepin the weight down is a big bonus.

XFR Bear

boing for Laura

[Deleted User]

fell off wagon......so sad n so ashamed :-(

Hannabelle

((Therese)) what happened?

[Deleted User]

i dunno, under lotsa pressure lately and my weight was becomming more and more of the focus and gradually my mind started to switch back to old methods, like the il see how much i can do on how little, and your not really that hungry coz if you were you'd have collapsed and im actually not hungry not at all thats a prob, like i know physiologically i should be and my tummy is empty but the thought of food isnt at all enticing....its so deja vu. walking down the road crying to myself wondering will i make it home or is this trip my last... my weigt is actually ok but am wondering will the damage triple fold if i start to lose....will it be an incentive to keep goin..what the fuck is wrong with me?

Hannabelle

Has something else caused an upset for you of late? It seems like you were doing really well for a while!