Healthy Living

From the Community…

• 
  Posted by musicdivakelly Sat Jul 5, 2008 2:27pm PDT

  I have a bad binge eating disorder, but i cant stop it. my parent have tooken me to docs and stuff, but i want to be skinny. help?

  Report Abuse
• 
  Posted by Sarah Q Sun Jul 6, 2008 6:03am PDT

  It's night time that I have a problem with. I'm single and I live alone.

  Report Abuse
• 
  Posted by gwenbear7 Sun Jul 6, 2008 9:45pm PDT

  I've struggled with bulimia for a decade now. All through my late teens and into my mid 20s, my only thought from morning until night was binging and purging. There were days that I would do it 5 or 6 times, even though I worked 10-hour days in a call center at the time. I would come home and it was like a fevered frenzy to eat everything I could hold, purge, and start all over again. I would just bawl the whole time, hating myself for not being strong enough to stop torturing myself. I hated my eating disorder but the thought of life without it wasn't bearable either.

  I thought getting married would change things. I told myself that things would be different from then on, that my priorities had changed. I told myself that I had a man who loved me no matter what and that was enough. But it wasn't. Not even 2 hours after our wedding ceremony, I had purged in the bathroom, all alone and crying.

  It finally took my pregnancy with my daughter to get me to stop, or at least to considerably cut back. I went from purging 5 times a day to doing it only once every 2 weeks or so. It still wasn't gone but it was a huge improvement. The health and wellbeing of my daughter was important enough to me that I wasn't worried about gaining 5, 15, or 50 pounds. I wanted to be a strong role model for her. I don't ever even want the concern of being too fat to be a thought she's capable of thinking.

  I'm still not completely over it. I have my rough days where I'm just not strong enough to overcome the urge. But I don't let one stumble become the misstep that sends me hurtling backwards back down the hill I've worked so hard to climb. I acknowledge it, I apologize to myself, and I move on. But for the most part, my life is a thousand times better now than it was just a few years ago. I just look at my daughter and think, "How can I hate the person who brought her into the world?"

  To those of you who are still struggling, please don't give up. If you can remember a time before you had this life-sucking disorder, hold on to it and do everything you can to get back to that place. One technique my therapist taught me was to write a letter to yourself as a little girl, the child that's still inside of you, and tell her how much you love her and how she's beautiful and how you'll do everything you can to protect her. It may sound silly but it really helps to look at yourself in a more compassionate light instead of being consumed by the self-loathing that always accompanies eating disorders.

  To "musicdivakelly," no one but you can put an end to this and you're only going to succeed if you really want to. I was checked into a hospital against my will for 2 weeks when I was 20. I had great doctors, therapists, peer support, etc. but it had absolutely no effect on me because I wasn't ready to let go of my eating disorder. I completely understand the desire to be skinny, the compulsive comparisons of yourself to other women, the pride you feel when you know you're the skinniest woman in the room. You have to learn to just let it go and tell yourself that it's not that important, that there's more worth to you than the size on the tag of your jeans. You're probably the same kind of sensitive, vulnerable person I was who desperately needs to feel accepted and admired because you need to feel like there's something about you that's special. Surround yourself with people who love you whether you weigh 80 pounds or 800 pounds, who will lift you up and not criticize you when you're having a bad day. It makes all the difference in the world that, when you say "I look fat today," that someone says "I understand that you feel that way, that must be tough. Is there anything I can do to help?" rather than "You're not fat, you're just being hypersensitive." I highly recommend Life Without Ed by Jenni Schaefer. "Ed" is the name she gave her eating disorder and she writes about her eventual approach to it as though it were an abusive boyfriend and how she eventually overcame it. It's very encouraging.

  One of my favorite song lyrics is at the end of "Amazing" by Aerosmith (I'm showing my age here) but it says "The light at the end of the tunnel may be you." That's so true with eating disorders. You have to be your own light at the end of the tunnel. No one but yourself can save you from this nightmare. But you truly do deserve to be saved. Take care and be at peace.

  Report Abuse
• 
  Posted by kgerstley Mon Jul 7, 2008 1:55pm PDT

  Gwenbear - I love how positive you are and all your great words of advice to music and quismos. I definitely agree with everything you said, especially how wonderful writing a letter to yourself as a child is.

  Thanks to everyone for commenting. I wish you all the very best in beating binge eating disorder and the courage to keep going in the tough times. We all deserve to be healed.

  Report Abuse