Atypically Recovering: On My Own No Matter How This Goes

Tag: medical

  • I Saw My Dietician Today- My Head Is Changing! *insert happy dance*

    I Saw My Dietician Today- My Head Is Changing! *insert happy dance*

    Photo- mine (and blurry)

    My dietician asked me something today, and I hadn’t even realized that I’ve been doing it for about 6-8 months. She asked if I still freaked out about having to eat X, Y, or Z, but knew that I needed to do it because it was the healthy thing to do. Yup. I do !! I AM thinking differently. I think the YouTube videos are sinking in, at least “enough” to make a difference. I knew I’d been able to put enough in a bowl to get food in- but not paid attention to my thinking around it. It has been just a chore to get done. But there is the focus on not letting carbs drop too much to strain kidneys.

    Since Ex-T has been MIA for nearly all of the last 5 months (and sketchy consistency before then x 2+ years), I know it has nothing to do with her. I still have trouble ‘feeding’ that thing I see in the mirror, but I know that to keep my kidneys from going into acute failure again, I have to get minimums in of protein, carbs, and fat. That’s the ‘loophole’ in my head – keeping my kidneys going. And Ex-T’s absence and lack of phone calls actually made has forced me to figure it out on my own when I’m in the moment. She tended to want people to come to her and ask for more contact, and I’m not into that- either do what is discussed, or quit saying that any phone call is coming. SO, her absence has made me stronger.

    I’m still stuck when it comes to eating something because it sounds good, but I can consistently get the macros in, even if the assortment is a bit odd (breakfast tomorrow- cheese, crackers, strawberries). While I still fear gaining weight, and don’t enjoy eating or food prep, I’m still getting it done. And my weight has been stable since regaining what I’d lost, and is going down slowly again. I am wanting to lose quite a bit of weight, but I don’t want to go backwards. This has been hell to get to this point, and I’m nowhere near comfortable with food sitting in me.

    Body composition has also changed for the better. I used to have visible tendons behind my knees from muscle atrophy- which is why I have a wheelchair for larger areas. The tendons aren’t visible (not thrilled with that if I’m honest, but at the same time, I know that muscle atrophy isn’t good). My right bicep and both calf muscles were essentially gone. They’re back, though I still have too much fat. I have little bits of hair on my arms for the first time since it all fell out during chemo in 2010. Protein has been an issue for decades d/t prep and cooking time, and the changes in how much muscle has grown back is noticeable. I’ve never eaten this much protein for this long in my life (60 grams/day per kidney disease limits).

    It took me until tonight to realize what that question (and answer) meant in the overall picture of recovering. I’ve got a toehold now ! I don’t cry when I open the fridge door and have to choose something. There are days when I really don’t want food, but I make something happen, even if it’s just snacky stuff or a protein bar. My dietician talked about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (not allowed when I was a kid) because of limited protein options, quick/easy prep, and the healthy fats in peanut butter. Even 4-5 months ago, I would have freaked, but I think it’s OK to try. I know I like them, and especially with Aldi, they are very affordable which is huge now. It’s all about how i portion it.

    I’m pretty pleased with this and at the same time, it’s scary. Getting ‘too’ comfortable with food is still a threat in my head. I still manipulate the numbers so I don’t go over my ‘quotas’. If I eat something unplanned, I redo the rest of the day’s food plan. BUT, at least there is a shift towards the good, and getting well. That is the most encouraging thing that’s gone on in 3 1/2 years. .

  • It Started Out Pretty Well Before the Breadcrumbing

    It Started Out Pretty Well Before the Breadcrumbing

    Photo- mine, turkey tail mushrooms

    I have to be fair about how ‘therapy’ was – not just the bad ending. It started out well. I wasn’t in good shape, after not eating solid food for about a week, and in the middle of ’round 2′ in 2 years of losing weight rapidly. The first part of the relapse started in May 2021. When my labs came back, my kidneys were in lousy shape – as in getting used to the idea of a transplant list. I was in acute renal failure from cutting carbs too much, breaking down muscle that my kidneys had to deal with circling around in my bloodstream. I got out of that by increasing carbs, but still restricted. Then I restricted more, but kept ‘enough’ carbs on board not to make my kidneys worse. I’ve had chromic kidney disease for about 8 years, from inadequate blood pressure and heart rate along with dehydration after decades of restricted eating.

    I’ve been through enough relapses (vs. my ‘normal’ restricting that I thought was fairly normal) to know when I’m getting into trouble, and it didn’t take long when I started losing again. Over the past 4 1/2 years, I’ve lost/gained/lost/gained a total 220 pounds (45 down/up, then 65 down/up). That’s hard on a body. When I was having more and more difficulty with just getting in my 500-600 calories/day and unable to ‘snap out of it’ (labs were stable) I decided to contact the eating disorder therapist I’d seen on Facebook, after first hearing about her on 20/20 in the late 90s. After I’d found her on FB, I told myself that if she was still treating people, AND had an opening, I’d take that as a sign that it was meant to be. I also thought there was no way all three of those would happen, but they did.

    By the time I had my first phone session with Ex-T, I was barely even drinking enough water. I was getting just enough in, but that was about it after I’d cut the tube feeding formula out 5 days earlier. Ex-T was at an airport flying home, and she talked me through an 8 oz bottle of kefir. I’m not sure how long it took, but it was hard. My head was so against anything with calories, and it was a fight to get every sip down. She had a connecting flight, and called me from the next airport, and again when she got home, like she said she would. To distract me, she sent a video of some deer she’d seen near where she’d been staying. She was very kind and patient, just as I’d seen on the TV show.

    For the next several weeks, she called a few times a day to check in and tell me what to eat. That was very helpful, because it took the ‘blame’ of eating away from me, so my head wouldn’t go after me as much. It was also difficult, because I wasn’t used to some of the foods she wanted me to eat (though she never told me I had to eat anything that I really didn’t like) and the amounts were not what I was used to. She didn’t asked me to eat a lot at one time, except for once (2 whole bagels and cream cheese). I just wasn’t used to eating what normal people did, because I never knew what that was like. From that, we both realized that I had no clue about what normal eating was- I don’t remember it. So, she was trying to undo 5 decades of food restriction, whether imposed or when I went off the rails during the summer of 1981 and haven’t been the same since.

    Refeeding syndrome was a risk, and both Ex-T and my dietician said the same thing. Ex-T was in charge of food, but I had to see someone local, in person, in order for Ex-T to accept me as a patient, which was prudent. I’d seen the dietician a year or two before then, so had a bit of history with her, and knew I could work with here on this end of things. I hadn’t heard of refeeding syndrome, but looked up some stuff on it, though retaining information was a problem, and still isn’t back to my ‘normal’ of reading 3-4 novels a week. Ex-T gave me firm instructions that I was not to eat anything she didn’t tell me to eat, and if I wanted something else, I needed to check with her, and this was to keep me safe at that point. It wasn’t about controlling my food (or me) as much as it was to keep me from getting into potentially fatal complications.

    I ended up with a concussion about a week or so after moving from my childhood home to an apartment, and that was problematic because of vertigo, nausea, memory issues, and constant ringing in my ears (still have constant ‘cicadas’ chirping nonstop 3 1/2 years later). That move was about a week or so after the first phone calls. Then, there were a bunch of infections and a sepsis scare, and she was very attentive with calls and messages. My blood pressure and heart rate were still erratic, and I was on activity restriction limited to being up for 10 minutes three times a day except for getting food or showering. My dietician said the same thing, without talking to Ex-T, so that helped that they were on the same page. I passed out a lot, and also have seizures (diagnosed when I was 22), which were more unstable. I was a mess. Being conscious was never guaranteed.

    For about 5 months, if Ex-T said she was going to call, she generally did. I knew that the contact would decrease as I got more stable, and was fully on board with that. There were some humorous conversations and messages, and the relaxed ‘tone’ to the ‘therapy’ was pleasant. I had ‘homework’ assignments, to give background info on family, food history, trauma history, medical issues, etc. Those first 5-5 1/2 months were fine. I didn’t have any ‘red flags’ going off about anything. I had hope that I was going to get better.

    Then, Ex-T asked me if I could pay double for more intensive contact for 6 months. I agreed, hoping that it would cut time off of the back end of the estimated 2-2 1/2 years the five stages would take to work through. Within a couple of weeks, the first signs of trouble started. Ex-T had gone back to Europe for the winter, and was working ‘in person’ with several patients who were further along in their therapy with her. I heard nothing from her for a couple of weeks (and was in chaos with what to eat). I finally contacted another patient who I’d been in phone contact with for a few months, and she told me that things had been very hectic, and a guy from Oceania had just shown up at the airport. When I did talk to Ex-T, she told me he was only 29kg (about 64 pounds), and she couldn’t turn him away. Turns out, he weighed more than that when he got there… 29kg was his lowest ever weight.

    I have a hard time believing that someone just showed up at the airport to start ‘live-in’ treatment from another hemisphere without there being some planning involved. I believe she knew about this when she asked me to pay double. My heart sank, and the first very serious doubts kicked in. I understood not wanting to turn away someone that ill- I had no problem with that. But I did have trouble paying for more intensive time that was sporadic at best, and didn’t start for several weeks. I asked Ex-T if we should postpone my more intensive ‘therapy’ until the guy was more stable. She said no; she could do both. But it didn’t turn out that way. I never really got past that point in the ‘five stages’ in her program (stage 2), but I was so ashamed to send photos of what I’d eaten (how she checked what and how much I was having), or have someone on the phone talking me through food when she had the 64 pound guy there. It messed with my head a lot.

    I was stalled with food for months after that, and then ended up with issues related to gout medication, so I had to change the types of protein I had. That was just one more thing that focused on food and medical stuff. All of that makes eating disorder recovery so much worse. In the past, I didn’t have to weigh out protein or limit (severely at times) how much protein food I ate. Even being diabetic wasn’t that big of an issue since I was diet controlled for 12 years. I’ve been on insulin for 18 years now. So, I wasn’t supposed to focus on numbers, but had to for insulin dosing, kidney disease, and gout flare prevention. Ex-T was agreeable to me managing the amounts of protein since I was here alone, and knew what I needed to do. She would still give input about other foods, at least for a while.

    At any rate, the first 5-6 months were difficult only in that eating was so miserable, but not because of Ex-T. I was sick a lot. I passed out fairly often (have had a ‘safety routine’ when I first get out of bed, to avoid hitting the floor). My head was constantly upset about how much I was eating, even though I knew that for a ‘normal’ person, the portions were more snack-sized (though had 5-6 of them a day). I knew she wasn’t asking me to eat too much. My stomach was a mess with bloating, so that didn’t help. I was (and still am) using an NG tube to be sure I got enough fluids in. That started just to get me through a bladder infection, but it’s still in 3 1/2 years later (I change the tube every 4-6 weeks, and was trained as a RN on how to do that; do NOT attempt that if you don’t know what you’re doing- you could literally drown from it). I am doing better drinking fluids normally, but on ‘bad bloat’ days, it’s still hard. I want to remember more of the OK time. The lousy ending is still very raw, so I’m struggling. But it wasn’t horrible at the beginning. And there were some OK months with fairly regular contact after the guy was more stable, when I was supposed to be doing more intensive stuff. There were many calls that didn’t happen, and that got much worse a couple of years ago and continued getting more sporadic to the tune of not getting a call for a month (more than once or twice), but I didn’t know I was being breadcrumbed at the time.

    It saddens me a lot that someone whose views I once respected so much became such a source of pain and stress. Trust is gone, and has been shaky for a while. This was a last shot. If I can’t get it together with my dietician and the YouTube recovery videos, I will never be free of the food wars in my head. I can deal with getting enough macros in each day, because my head ‘allows’ for keeping my kidneys from a third run-in with acute kidney failure- that’s been a loophole for several years.

    I saw my dietitian today for the first time in 6 months (long summer of biopsies and tests), and she thinks I seem stronger mentally after ending contact/therapy with Ex-T, after I said I felt stronger. She is also checking into the YouTube content creators who share information based on their experiences with being recovered, and believe in a ‘no diet’ mentality. Single serving size packages of foods (frozen dinners, hummus, guacamole, fruit, etc) are also helpful for not being as scary. I’m no longer having to follow more food restricted by Ex-T, so my veggie intake has gone up (especially eggplant parmesan entrees, and bell peppers for a chickpea/feta/veggie/olive salad). So I am moving forward.

    I don’t have the hope I once did, but I’m not giving up.

  • Grieving Hope of Recovery With Ex-Therapist

    Grieving Hope of Recovery With Ex-Therapist

    Photo- mine

    It might sound weird to grieve for something that never happened. But I’d dreamed of getting well with someone who seemed to have figured out how to get the eating disorder voice to go quiet for good. She has helped a lot of people, but it seems that she loses interest quickly when the money runs out- even though she said she’d still keep me (after paying $32,700K USD- the agreed monthly amount before she accepted me). The calls petered out, and there was always an excuse. But what hurt the most is basically being blown off while I was still paying. I know that sounds stupid. I’m skeptical of a LOT normally. I’m not one to believe most people after so many violations of trust in my life, or taking advantage/targeting me because I want to be helpful or ‘good’ to others. But I felt I could trust her. I was very, very wrong.

    The ongoing and lengthy absences with no warning, constant excuses (I don’t even know what things to believe are true or not), telling me other patients’ private information, and calls that never came just reinforced the feeling of worthlessness, with no acknowledgment of that whatsoever from her. When other patients did something she didn’t like, I was told by her that they were difficult or were somehow worth more of her time, when I did what I could not to cause problems. And that was a huge mistake. I needed squeaky wheels to be acknowledged- like she needed the patients to swarm to her for contact. I don’t do that 4th grade crap. This whole thing has been traumatic and painful. It’s hard when hope gets blown off by a person who is supposed to be a ‘last resort’. Her promises meant nothing.

    I wanted the freedom to not think about food and losing weight that has haunted me since I was 6 years old. I wanted to be able to have something just because I like it- not because it’s specifically to fit into the macro numbers. I wanted my head to be ‘rewired’ so that I had a healthier relationship with food, so I could be more social with friends, and get my body repaired. It’s been through a lot.

    But those dreams aren’t dead (they are with that therapist), and I still hope to get well via YouTube eating disorder recovery videos that all promote basically the same thing. Don’t restrict food. Period. Weight will even out when the body knows it’s going to get consistent food, and doesn’t have to hang on to calories for fear of not getting enough. I still have trouble with that because I’m not thin- but I have to try something, and with the numbers of people who have recovered with this method (intuitive eating and feast v famine mentality and body response), there has to be something to it. And aside from buying the books that Tabitha Farrar and Elisa Oras have written, it’s free. I also have my IRL dietician, who is very helpful, and knows I’m struggling. She also always responds to questions via email. If she’s out of the office, I get a notification that she’ll contact me when she’s back.

    I am hoping I have the nerve to have a piece of birthday cake this year- kind of a celebration of being free from the psychological manipulation and control by someone who isn’t worthy of such power, as well as not doing what my head says about being too ‘bad’ to deserve a bit of cake. Little goals.

  • When Bingeing Is Self-Preservation: Extreme Hunger

    When Bingeing Is Self-Preservation: Extreme Hunger

    Image- Texas Monthly issue on BBQ (not sure which restaurant this is from)

    For those who don’t understand the body’s primary goal of keeping us alive, bingeing might not make a lot of sense. But when someone has been restricting for any period of time, if the body senses that there’s an urgent need to offset any calorie deficits, it does a few things. One is the obsessive thinking about food. Another is focused on feeding others. And when the mental cues to eat are ignored, an almost out of body thing happens… it’s like a mandate to eat. For some, it’s a lot. For others, it’s uncomfortable if it’s not planned meal plan food. But the ultimate purpose is to get calories into a body running on empty. Extreme hunger is normal after a period of restriction.

    Tabitha Farrar talks about the feast and famine responses in her book “Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover!” (second edition is out now). It goes back to cave man days, when food was sporadic and seasonal. The people in some areas were more nomadic to help source food, but even if people stayed in the same basic area, people ate when food was plentiful to prepare for times of less food.

    I know from nursing school that homeostasis is the goal of the body at all times. Physical hunger cues can be trashed with eating disorders, because they’ve been ignored for so long. Mental cues and insomnia are other ‘kicks in the butt’ to look for food- and again are often ignored. Extreme hunger is like a tornado siren on loudspeaker when the body must. Have. Food.

    The fear of “bingeing”/eating and possible weight gain is incredibly hard to deal with. Anything that could trigger weight gain is avoided- until it can’t be. It is just trying to get calories into a starving body, no matter how long it takes, or how long it lasts. I’m still at a place where I resist any mental or physical hunger if it falls outside of planned food. I want that to change, and I’m also very afraid of it. Not being thin, or even ‘normal weight’, I have trouble justifying feeding what I see in the mirror. I still don’t feel I deserve food, and the chaos with the “expert” isn’t helping, since she was restricting what and how much I ate when she was in control over my food. When I get either mental or physical hunger, I panic.

    But, it does help to hear multiple accounts from people on YouTube who had extreme hunger (often mistaken for bingeing) and that it didn’t last forever. Some gained considerable amounts of weight, and then settled into THEIR body’s healthy weight- which often has nothing in common with that stupid BMI chart. Extreme hunger can be physical or mental. Both are valid, and the current recommendations are to honor that by eating what your body is asking for, as much as it needs. By replenishing the stores, the hunger dissipates over time once things are again in balance with needs and energy requirements. From what I’ve read, the time this takes varies with each person.

    While I haven’t read a lot about binge eating disorder, there are those who believe that the excessive eating is really a response to restriction in those folks as well. That does make sense. I’ve known several people who don’t eat that much to support their weight, but who describe not being able to control their hunger once it hits.

  • When ‘Self-Worth’ Therapist Seems To See Me As Disposable

    When ‘Self-Worth’ Therapist Seems To See Me As Disposable

    Photo- mine

    A big part of the eating disorder therapy with my now ex-therapist was based on increasing self worth. There were a lot of terms of endearment and declarations that I was loved. But words are really, really cheap when they’re not followed up with actions. I feel even less worthy of food or contact with other people now, after being breadcrumbed and manipulated. I was used for payments, with nothing consistent in return.

    How are the following supposed to help feeling ‘worth’ something?

    – more phone calls not made than made after saying she’d call

    – telling me how she was spending time with other patients or flying to other countries to see them when I didn’t even get a stupid phone call

    – being told that she was making food for other patients at her house while I was barely able to open the fridge without breaking down in tears

    – telling me I could call if I wasn’t OK, after a message that wasn’t responded to, but then declining the call and telling me she’d get back to me “if possible” (she’d gotten off the phone with me before when others had emergencies).

    – spending over a year recording the audio book for one of her yet to be published books (working on one since blog dated in 2013), contacting me now and then, but nothing consistent

    – the whole asking for money for personal reasons, and then greatly reducing contact when I couldn’t send more, after she said she’d keep me on when I told her I couldn’t pay past last December. She asked for another year, knowing I couldn’t pay- and then had very little to do with me when she knew I was going through some serious medical issues- during which time she asked for more money for personal reasons, telling me to sell things. I didn’t have the money to send, and no phone contact from her for a month after that.

    – telling me she’d send information, food lists, etc- and not doing them, aside from the food list that took over a year to receive (and she was supposed to be approving what I ate).

    – telling me i was like a daughter to her, and that she wished she’d raised me. I was better off with the one I had, even with the abuse and neglect.

    – wanting to have control over food again when she couldn’t even be trusted to call when she said she would, and disappeared for up to a month at a time with very few, and brief messages

    – sending me the wrong person’s messages- like she was cramming more than one of us into some ‘time slot’ at the same time

    – making all kinds of comments that she couldn’t back up, or that sounded very strange (referring to her and her daughter’s medical issues). Hearing them as a RN, many didn’t make any sense.

    – wondering what she’ll say to others about me after she told me thinks about other patients that I should never have heard

    – knowing that her words were worth very little, and that I was just another name on a to-do list, when she got around to it. I have no reason to believe anything she told me about anything


    How do I work on recovery when I feel worth even less now? I know it’s ‘her stuff’, but it impacted me badly. How can I warn others? Or will they just do what I did, and hope that she truly was how she came across in the media? How does someone use another person’s vulnerability and desperation to get well as some kind of psychological control/manipulation vehicle? What therapist has such low integrity to ask patients for money that isn’t part of the payment agreement FOR therapy? What kind of person does that? I guess one consolation is that I’m not like her. I do get comfort from that. I just wish those still in her talons knew that they were being used.

  • Figuring Out Little Steps To Quiet the Eating Disorder “Voice”

    Figuring Out Little Steps To Quiet the Eating Disorder “Voice”

    PHOTO- mine; window in the kitchen at my childhood home. Designed by Tom Heflin and made by Frank Hautkamp

    It is so hard to justify eating when I see what is in the mirror. Logically, I know that food is fuel, but for as long as I can remember, it was seen as something to be avoided at any cost, and the value of nutrition was never in the mix. As an adult, and nurse for 35 years, I had to take a nutrition class (skimpy on useful info) and learned more disease-specific nutrition issues during nursing school. And none of that ever seemed like anything I deserved. Even when I had lost weight prior to college, and was at the lower end of what looked OK in my body type, I still had to compensate for any calories consumed.

    SO, I’m trying to find ways to go against my head, but not add weight. I’m back to my pre-relapse weight (again), and some things I’ve read said that it’s more likely my weight will stabilize as long as I don’t start to restrict more again. That is so hard. Eating is uncomfortable physically, and the shame of eating is still strong. I get away with getting food in if it’s going to keep my kidneys from going AWOL, but that’s about it. Everything else is a constant reminder from my eating disorder voice (head) that i’m not good enough to eat food I enjoy. There has to be a purpose for the food to justify it.

    My dietician told me it’s OK to have something once in a while just because I want it- no rules other than safety with the chronic medical issues that dictate some food rules that I can’t eliminate- but hope to get more settled. I will be doing a pre-holiday grocery list to get later in November, and I decided on Peppermint Stick Ice Cream, which is seasonal here, and a favorite of mine. My head is already chastising me for something so indulgent, and yet I don’t plan on eating a lot of it, but being able to taste something I really used to enjoy. It’s been at least 12-13 years since i had it, and like usual, I had some and then threw the rest away. This year, I plan to divide it into ‘safe’ portions, and put them in airtight cups to eat during the remainder of the cooler months. That sounds so stupid to have to plan ice cream like that. But it’s either that, or I can’t bring myself to eat it.

    Getting fresh fruits and veggies has been good again. I have to be careful that the low calorie nature of produce doesn’t require increasing other foods to the point that volume becomes very uncomfortable. It seems there’s always something physical that keeps the mental aspect on a rollercoaster trajectory, and that can be exhausting.

    One of my favorite meals (now that there are no external ‘bans’ on any foods or food groups) is a chickpea salad. I combine canned chickpeas, kalamata olives, feta cheese, red/yellow/orange bell peppers (any one or combo), cucumber, red onion, a few croutons, and a Greek vinaigrette. It’s super simple, and good for a few days, so prep is maximized. The croutons and dressing go on last minute. Lettuce doesn’t really have enough nutrition to justify the expense, so my salad is made from salad toppings. I like meat, but with gout vegetarian options are safer for avoiding gout flares, and I like the fresh veggies in this. It’s taken a long time for my head to let me say something is a favorite. ‘Liking’ something has been too close to ending up on some wild binge, though I haven’t really binged for a long time (decades). I’ve eaten things I didn’t plan on, and that freaked me out, but nothing compared to 1981 when I only had an apple or 1/2 baked potato each day during the week, and then went nuts on the weekend.

    The little steps are things most people never think about, and that’s great for them. For me, making the jump from shame to viewing food as fuel seems like climbing Mt Everest on my hands and knees. To ‘want’ something is to risk eating something that has been condemned since childhood. And I still have trouble seeing food as a ‘need’, even though my body (kidneys in particular) have made it clear that they’re fed up with running on fumes. In some ways, the acute kidney failure twice in 4 1/2 years was a wake up call that I could deal with because it wasn’t requiring that I feed myself, but consume enough to protect my kidneys. That probably sounds whacko to ‘normal’ people, but at this point, I’ll take whatever sinks in that leads towards being healthier. At my age, I don’t have more time for failed attempts.

  • Why Did It Take So Long To Get Out of A Therapy Relationship That Wasn’t Working ?

    Why Did It Take So Long To Get Out of A Therapy Relationship That Wasn’t Working ?

    Photo- mine

    I’ve written about it taking nearly 3 years before I ended therapy with my online eating disorder therapist AFTER I felt something ‘off’. It’s been so difficult to leave- partly because I’m out $33K USD, and am not much better off than I was when I started- so hoped I could still eek something out of ‘therapy’. The other part of it is that this has been kind of like an indoctrination, along with some Stockholm Syndrome-like reactions (not full-blown, but being sucked into the drama). It’s sort of like how I imagine grooming in a cult or sex-trafficking. It’s not all at once, and when it’s happening, it doesn’t seem that problematic. But it’s a calculated form of manipulation that is often used to make future exploitation easier, and to get psychological control.

    https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22387-stockholm-syndrome

    https://neurolaunch.com/emotional-grooming/

    Everything started out feeling acceptable, and I felt accepted. There were lots of terms of endearment, and even a nickname she’d use with me. The interactions at first were focused on refeeding safely (even when overweight, it’s possible to have potentially life-threatening complications when eating resumes). I was in contact with the therapist a few times a day for a while, so she could let me know what to eat next, and see where I was with everything. It got a bit more complicated when I ended up with a concussion, and slept for about a week. But for the first 5-6 months, there weren’t any red flags. That’s the basis for being able to BE groomed. It’s got to seem within normal boundaries, and there has to be ‘enough’ trust. I wanted to believe that she was good.

    During those earlier months, I did go from eating nothing for about a week prior to officially starting therapy (food is first with recovery, obviously), after having been doing tube feeding – either supplements or nearly all nutrition- via NG tube (tube from nose to stomach- do NOT try to do that if you’re not trained- or you can literally drown with whatever is in the feeding bag). Before therapy started, I’d restricted down to about 500 calories a day, and ended up in acute renal failure. Eventually, I was eating some solid foods- mostly yogurt, oatmeal, hummus, a few crackers, kefir, and eventually some fruits and veggies, as well as fish (until gout reared its ugly head). And, it also became obvious rather quickly that I’d never known ‘normal’ with food, and this was basically who I thought I was- I couldn’t separate the eating disorder ‘voice’ (like loud thoughts) from myself. Things were more ‘stuck’ than I imagined. And I hated having to eat as much as I was told to, even though the portions weren’t excessive. They just were sent to a stomach that had been in retirement for decades.

    Then I was asked if I could pay double for more intensive therapy for 6 months. I was hoping that would shave time off of the back end of therapy, so I agreed. Within 2 weeks of that, I couldn’t reach my therapist at all. I think it was about 10 days before I reached another patient that I was in contact with as a supplementary support person. She told me that a “kid” (everyone is a ‘kid’ which reinforces the authority of the therapist) from Oceania had shown up at the airport, weighing about 64 pounds, and my therapist was tied up with him at restaurants getting him to eat. I was never notified by my therapist until a couple of weeks later- and it’s hard for me to believe that he just showed up with his mom, from another hemisphere, and it wasn’t planned. I think she knew he was coming when she asked me for double the therapy fee.

    That’s when the “not right” feeling started. I also didn’t need to know his weight- I wanted to be underweight. I understood logically that he needed more intense help, since I understood triage as a RN. But to ask for double the money, for no contact for a couple of weeks, and then a bit more contact for a while, before going back to erratic calls. She said she’d call more often than she actually did. I even asked if we should postpone the intensive time (that went to the skinny guy), and was told no- she could handle both. Not the case. I basically felt like I’d been shoved into a dark corner, and only brought into light when it was convenient. The ‘intensive’ was an intensive drain on my bank account, but I still wanted to get well so badly. Being terrified and desperate makes for poor decisions on my part. I cried a LOT every time I sent in a payment, having to decide if a bit of contact was better than no contact. (Hindsight: NO).

    Things settled into an “irregular regular” set up. I knew that phone calls may or may not come, so I stopped putting off laundry, taking out the trash, getting the mail, taking a shower, getting groceries delivered, etc so I wouldn’t miss calls. Food was still very difficult to manage on my own, so hearing that 2 “kids” living with her were getting stuff handed to them multiple times a day while I was in tears every time I opened the fridge door was more than difficult. It felt like rubbing my face in not having more money to ‘deserve’ more contact. In the beginning, she agreed to the price for one call/week and the ability to email or message 24/7. I’m not the sort to want to contact someone when i know they’re busy, and she knew that. Later, she told me when she was flying to different countries to ‘see kids’ when I was waiting for a stupid phone call. It was more than painful. And yet, there was enough to still think she was at least still a little bit invested in helping me. She had me hooked on her bait of empty promises.

    My therapist then moved from one continent to another, and during that time, we had some contact, and I still had contact with the other patient. Once settled in the next country, calls were happening, but there wasn’t much substance to a lot of them. I started to feel a bit like I was the comic relief for the therapist’s benefit. We did a few actual therapy sessions, but I don’t remember anything that made a difference as far as getting better. That’s all I wanted- was to get better. Not have an international buddy.

    There was always some reason for missed calls…. sick (that was frequent), fell asleep, emergency, migraine, etc. ALWAYS some excuse. OR she’d fall asleep when she was on the phone with me. I asked her repeatedly NOT to tell me she was going to call until she was ready to talk. One night (she liked calling me later when everyone else was asleep), she told me she’d call in 15 minutes, and couldn’t manage to stay awake for that. Then DON’T TELL ME there’s going to be a call that ends up triggering more “not worth the time” stuff.

    Sure, she asked how I was- and she was very good at listening, which kept things feeling like they were “normal” therapy…. except when the calls not made exceeded the ones that actually were made. There were times when some emergency call would come in that she had to take, so I was the one who felt shorted out by contact going to someone else AGAIN. For a therapy that is supposed to build self-worth, not even having a phone call made when others were living with her, or with whom she visited in other countries, was a big blow to any self-worth. I was already running on fumes in this department.

    When the ex-therapist started recording her next book, that took her out of commission for about a year. I did hear from her “enough” to seem like things COULD still move forward, but I was having more doubts. Again, the ‘crumbs’ of contact kept me engaged while allowing her to do other things. But I knew if she’d seen messages or not, and days could go by when that ‘lifeline’ wasn’t being monitored- or she just blew me off. I’ll never know what was true about anything she ever said to me… because that’s part of the whole mess. Confusion. Inconsistency. Hot/cold contact. No response to really rough times.

    During the “good” times, I really enjoyed the phone calls, and kept wondering when the therapy part started. There were some humorous times. But gradually, the calls decreased more, until I heard from her more when she wanted money for a family member or herself, or a quick check-in when it was convenient for her. When I ever mentioned not wanting to keep going with therapy, I got the “you’re not capable of making that decision at this point”…. uh, lady- if a doctor hasn’t declared me incompetent, I can make any damn decision about my health that I want to make… I just wish I’d had the strength back then to get out.

    When I’d run out of money that I set aside for therapy, I told her 3 months before I’d be stopping because of using up the money I’d allotted for therapy, and she said she would still continue therapy, even if I couldn’t afford it. But the grossly inappropriate requests for money continued. I said no a few times, and with one situation, she messaged me to sell everything I could to get her $1000 to “invest” in her website. She has had multiple deadlines for the ‘website’, and I don’t gamble like that. I can’t afford to. I don’t have the energy to sell stuff if I wanted to. I’ve never gotten back to ‘normal activities’. I never got off of activity restriction from the beginning of therapy, though I’ve been able to increase it somewhat. For a therapist to ask for money from a patient for anything but the agreed upon therapy fee is a huge red flag to run like hell… but that isn’t what ‘did it’ as far as totally cutting her out of my life. And I don’t even know if there is a website or other books… on an old blog site, she was working on the book since 2013. I don’t know what to believe.

    In April of 2025, I had some potentially lethal medical issues come up, that eventually involved a biopsy under general anesthesia, and later a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy for more biopsies. My dog was also very ill and was put to sleep on May 22- my only daily contact with a living thing for the previous 12+ years was gone. Then, after doing what she said I could do if things were seriously wrong ( message her, and if I didn’t hear back in 15 min, go ahead and call), I had the call declined, and a message “I’ll call you in an hour IF POSSIBLE”…. what the hell? I understood not being able to get off the phone (though she did when others had emergencies and she was on the phone with me). I didn’t contact her for urgent calls often AT ALL (maybe 2 times in over 3 years). I still don’t know if that polyp is cancerous yet. I can’t deal with the prep volume they’ve doubled, and they won’t work with me at all with that, so I guess I know how I’ll croak.

    Then, I messaged her later that they wanted to do a 2nd colonoscopy with twice the prep over 2 days when I couldn’t get one dose down for the first one. I was in tears, knowing I had to make a life/death decision. She called right away, and said we’d talk the next day about ways to minimize the volume intolerance of a gallon of prep spread over a specific time period. The next day, I never got a call. Or for many, many days after that. Between September 10th and October 3rd (30 min voice call), there was no contact. Then on October 10th or 11th, she wanted to talk to me. I asked why, and she said it was important to both of us. She wanted to tell me she had COVID (one of 120 in the town of 62K where she said she was living). That could have been said in a message.

    She knew I’d flunked the colon cancer screening (Cologuard), had an abnormal MRI related to my colon, and they’d found a large polyp (‘with more possible’ on the report) but couldn’t remove it for what they called an incomplete prep. The message about calling me “IF POSSIBLE”, and then no call were the final straw. The message was crystal clear: I didn’t warrant a reply to an SOS message and call. I was done. I’d already emailed her in mid September 2025 about the problems on my end, and no reply until I called her out on it, and got the reply of “I wrote back. I love you.”. THAT was the reply. To about 2 1/2 pages of emails. She addressed none of the things that I was having issues with re: therapy.

    I don’t know if I can believe a damn thing she ever said, or that she saw me as more than some drained-dry ATM/cash machine. Before accepting me she knew I was selling my house (auctioned, and got a fraction of what it was worth; medical issues made that the least draining physically). That was NOT her money to tap into, and telling me to sell things was way out of line. If she’d been in the US with a licensing board, I would have reported her.

    My feeling is that she’s used to patients acting like some supernatural being is in their presence when she’s around, when she’s actually looking for a payday from patients or their families. I don’t beg anyone for contact- either they have the integrity to do what they say, or they don’t. So, when I saw the article on breadcrumbing, I knew what I was dealing with- a form of emotional manipulation that was never going to change for the better. I think she’s used to getting away with “any contact is better than no contact”, but I don’t play those exploitative and manipulative games. I told her I wouldn’t lie to her and I never did. I wish I knew that she never lied to me, but I think a lot of what she said was bullshit. Her first book even talks about finding things to build someone up- true or not (that’s paraphrased, obviously- I won’t link her first book here). The “I wish I’d been your mother”, “you’re like a daughter to me”, and other quasi-comforting catch phrases all feel like things I want to rid myself of. She also talked about “saving your life”, like if I didn’t get help from her, I was doomed. Um… no. IF anything she’s made my life worse. It pains me to say that.

    I wanted to believe in the person I saw on TV years ago. I wanted to believe that someone who knew that eating disorders aren’t about control, fashion, models, or other superficial nonsense. What I got was more painful than if I’d never contacted her. I should have done what I’m doing now- sticking with my dietician, and YouTube folks who have recovered by not restricting. It’s not easy, but at least I don’t have to wonder if the phone will ring, or if I’ll be stood up again.

    But when I’ve had it, and it’s no longer even remotely healthy to maintain contact, I’m done. I’d sent the emails about issues with therapy and got no reply a month before the last contact. And then I blocked her from the contact platforms that I could. I wish her and her family well… and well away from me. I’d hoped so much that this would have turned out differently. But when I am not worth more than blown off calls or “I’ll call if possible”- yeah, that’s a line in the sand when I’m literally writing “SOS” on the message.

  • Trauma and Eating Disorders

    Trauma and Eating Disorders

    Photo: mine- it was the only footprint in the dry river bed… where did it come from?

    There are plenty of articles and videos about the impact of trauma on the development of eating disorders. The attack on self-worth goes deep. For some, ‘disappearing’ is a response to unwanted contact with people. For others, it’s about misplaced shame. When someone is emotionally, sexually, or physically abused, or neglected, there is a major disruption to the foundation of a healthy view of themselves.

    I don’t like ‘blame’ for how I view my mom who was one of my primary abusers. She did horrible things, but I think it was more that she was broken than deliberately malicious most of the time. My maternal grandmother also did some sketchy things when I was very young, but I still preferred being there than at home… at least with my grandparents, I wasn’t invisible.

    There were traumatic events at the hands of those outside of my family, and one particularly horrific example is with my skating coach. Her husband bludgeoned their six children because he was mad she wanted a divorce. I was 14 at the time, and in another blog I wrote, the comments included many who felt the same way I did… if parents get mad, kids can get killed. I knew the oldest kid from the rink, though not well. My parents also didn’t handle it well, and told me to get over it, it had nothing to do with me. My coach was someone I could just be myself with, and she was very kind to me. I still think about that event every day.

    As a young adult, I was raped, beaten, and sodomized for 6 hours before I was able to escape (he finally passed out), and police came. One of them shot the rapist in my bedroom. He didn’t die and I had to testify at the trial. He changed his plea mid-trial and accepted a 60 year sentence. He’s out on parole now for ‘good behavior’ and the stupid Texas law at the time of the crime, but he’s still my bitch until 2048. He planned to dismember me alive with one of my kitchen knives.

    There were other less intense sexual assaults… one of the students at the U of IL wanted me to go out with him, and he pinned me to the dorm lobby floor, forcibly kissing me, as if that was some kind of lure. I was as disgusted with him as I was the other students in the lobby who just walked by and did/said nothing. A high school classmate groped me in the hall at school.

    Having leukemia was traumatic. The intensity and duration of 20 months of daily chemo of some kind was exhausting, and the stress of the initial weeks when it was possible to die from sneezing and a brain bleed from the increased vascular pressure from a sneeze (or cough, etc) was hard. Being in the hospital for 6 weeks was also difficult, on reverse isolation. I’m fortunate in that the kind of leukemia I had (APL) is curable- not just in remission, and I’m 15 years out from the diagnosis with no sign of it being in my body for the last 15 years (first negative bone marrow test was after 3 weeks of induction chemo).

    I didn’t used to think that trauma had anything to do with why I developed an eating disorder because of the way I was groomed for starvation at home, and the ongoing abuse when I was a toddler normalized it for decades- it wasn’t until after the rape that I was taught about types of abuse. Now I can see that the impact of each trauma/abuse did gut any self-worth, and that has a huge impact on who does or doesn’t engage in eating disorder behaviors. Food = staying alive. When being alive becomes too painful, there is an urge not to support its continuation. It’s not a conscious self-harm/suicidal mentality, but that’s what it becomes even if not acknowledged. I have no interest in dying, but I’m also not really living. I hope that changes.

  • Doing The Opposite Of What My ‘Head’ Says

    Doing The Opposite Of What My ‘Head’ Says

    Photo: Mine, lychees

    This is so hard. I’ve never known “normal” eating, and now have the Ex-T’s “food rules” to undo as well. The entire idea of restrictive eating disorder therapy to undo the restrictive eating disorder is NOT to have food rules (other than those I have to deal with for medical issues- diabetes, kidney disease, and gout). I just want my head to settle down, and not dictate what I eat, how much, when, etc. I’ve had periods of time when it was all less intense, but for the last 4 1/2 years, it’s been pretty constant- the longest continuous time in my life when I’ve been so controlled by ‘my head’ to this degree. I’ve been in acute renal failure/acute kidney injury twice because of not eating enough in those 4 1/2 years. I have to get this sorted out. I do have a dietician, and I’m thankful for her.

    Every time I make a day’s food plan, it’s all about ‘the numbers’. I don’t eat things I like UNLESS they also fit into the days ‘numbers’. Macros (protein, carbs, fats), as well as sodium (can’t go too low or my BP drops which puts my kidneys at risk, and muscle cramping is horrific). If I spontaneously eat something different during the day that messes with those numbers, I have to redo the rest of the day so the ‘numbers’ are OK again. I’m trying to figure out how to just eat stuff without focusing on the stupid numbers as much, but it’s all I’ve known for 5+ decades.

    My hunger cues have been messed up for a long time. For many years, I didn’t feel physical hunger, even though I thought about food constantly and still do. I am starting to feel physical hunger again, and it’s terrifying. I have images of me eating what I want until I feel full and ending up gaining even more unneeded weight. In reality, it doesn’t take much for me to feel full. But the fear is very real. I view myself as already grotesquely overweight, even though when I see TV shows about extremely obese peoples’ weight loss journeys I don’t judge them. I just wonder what hurt them so badly that they are hurting themselves so much. I know that sounds hypocritical. I KNOW all of this is bonkers. And, I can’t just flip a switch.

    I want to set up a day when my blood sugars are more stable (parathyroid hormone is wonky right now, so insulin resistance is increased), and then just try and – for one day only (to minimize panic in my head)- eat what sounds good when I’m hungry, and not worry so much about anything that isn’t focused on getting me stronger. If I make it for only one day, I don’t have the pressure to do it for longer while giving myself the chance to see that it is possible. Then, I can do 2 days, etc. In the meantime, I’m trying to have one thing every day- even if it’s just 15 grams more of something, that is against what my head wants, which is eating close to nothing, although I’m eating ‘enough’ to keep kidney function stable at this point. I do get some reprieve because of the kidney situation, but it’s not all-encompassing. I HOPE that if I can get my eating more ‘normally’ that my kidneys will do better. I am not someone who would do dialysis if it came to that.

    I have found that I do better if I can avoid sweet foods in the morning. I just don’t like them, so the past 3 1/2 years of being strongly encouraged to eat yogurt and berries, kefir, or oatmeal/porridge, and the horrible sweetness of those, have been miserable. I couldn’t find a savory oatmeal recipe that sounded edible. Scrambled eggs were/are allowed, but when my blood pressure isn’t stable, or I’m in a lot of pain, it’s hard to do a lot of stuff that requires prep and/or cooking. I much prefer something like cheese and crackers, and maybe some fruit that has a bit of tang, or even leftovers from another savory meal. Many countries have soups as ‘normal’ breakfasts, and that might also be a good thing to try.

    Single serving items are also helpful, though I have to be careful with prices. For frozen entrees, I have several that are budget friendly and taste good, and only require being popped into the oven or microwave. Lean Cuisine has a lot of flavor options, and for a substantial treat, I’ll get Amy’s Kitchen or MichaelAngelo’s frozen single serve entrees. With some products, I can count out the portion size-and that’s doable. I do like the flavor of a lot of different ethnic foods, so that helps as well. I do have very specific dislikes, but those are easy enough to avoid.

    It’s been good to be having more fresh fruits and vegetables, though with the prices in the US, most are a luxury. It helps to incorporate them into chickpea salads, or other food ‘stretching’ meals, and keep the frozen and some canned items for more ‘bulky’ vegetable servings. Lettuce is too expensive for what it provides, so most of my salads are what I’d put on a bed of greens. It cuts down on the volume without cutting down on the nutrition that comes from the chickpeas, peppers, onion, olives, cheese, and croutons. Doing seasonal grocery lists has been useful, as have some frozen options. I could have fruit and veg with Ex-T, but with the other stuff she wanted me to get in, volume tolerance was a problem. Now, I prefer to prioritize fruit and veggies more, and ‘fill in’ with protein, starches, and fats with an emphasis on nuts, olives, and the occasional avocado or premade single serving of guacamole. It’s still a challenge not to feel too full, but I’m making little steps.

    Mostly, I need to quit freaking out about the numbers at the end of the day. I don’t let myself get to a calorie level that is too scary, and that’s still a problem. Calories should only be an issue in that I get enough to fuel my body for continued healing. Not that are restricted because it’s what the eating disorder wants.

  • Why I Became A R.N.

    Why I Became A R.N.

    Image: Online search results, cropped

    When I was at university, I was studying to become a teacher. Both of my parents were in education, and while they never pushed me in that direction, they were pleased. But then, I ended up getting booted out for anorexia and the overdose, and when I was at the psych hospital the second time, a single defining moment changed the rest of my life.

    I’d been sent off to the psych ICU for some reason- I think it was related to a new medication that had tanked my blood pressure. Most of the hospital was decorated in a gregarious 70s ‘floral’ motif. The ICU had bare cinderblock walls, beds bolted to the floor, bars over the outside windows, windows in the doors to the sleeping ‘cubicles’ (that were locked at night), and the lights were on 24/7, even if dimmed a bit. It was more like the images of a 60s state hospital instead of the private facility that it was. The staff were all pleasant, and the other patients weren’t that noteworthy. But it was rather barren. Everything was clinical, even if delivered pleasantly.

    One week, some nursing students were passing through the ICU during their psych rotation. They were in their late teens or early 20s, so in my age range. They were sweet, but a little intimidated before they figured out none of us were drooling in corners, or showing symptoms of rabies. I had dark straight hair that went halfway down my back, and it was thick. That also meant it was rather unruly in a facility where I couldn’t use many brushes or combs without supervision or at certain times.

    One of the nursing students approached me and asked if she could braid my hair. I wasn’t sure i heard correctly. I was used to “no touch”, and while the staff were always professional and kind to me, personal attention like braiding hair wasn’t in their job description. I told the student I’d like that, and she got my unruly hair braided and secured with a hair elastic. I felt human. That was amazing.

    In the few minutes that it took for the student RN to braid my hair, she reminded me that even in a bare psychiatric ICU, I’d been seen as a ‘regular’ human being. I wasn’t a diagnosis with feet with standard protocols laid out. I was just an 18 year old with long hair that could use some tidying up. She saw me as ‘normal’. It was life-changing, and I began realizing that I didn’t want to teach. I wanted to show people compassion and kindness. I’d always had nurse toys as a kid, and had read medical books (household editions at my grandparents’ home) from the time I could read (age 5-6). It was a perfect fit.

    I got out of the hospital just in time to start the Spring semester to get some adjunct nursing classes out of the way (chemistry, composition, sociology, nutrition, and psychology). It also gave me some structure as I was moving past 1982, and the 8 months I was confined in a place neither of my parents wanted me to speak about. My mom’s mom later told me that she’d never been told where I’d been. I’m not sure anyone knew where I’d been. All I knew was that I wanted to have a job where I could see past peoples’ diagnoses, and try and make at least one thing better for them that day.

    One nursing student changed the trajectory of my life. That’s powerful stuff.

  • Returning to The University and Ending Up In A Coma

    Returning to The University and Ending Up In A Coma

    Photo: online search from capefoxfcg. com

    After a great six weeks working as a cabin counselor at my favorite camp, I had to face returning to the University of Illinois. I wanted to go back, but I didn’t realize how unprepared I was. My mom had also been diagnosed with breast cancer, and had started radiation, so i had to return to campus about 2 weeks before everyone else, so her radiation schedule could proceed. It got dicey fairly quickly.

    Being in the nearly empty dorms was kinda creepy. I was on a different floor than my previous semester. Getting there on a Saturday made it all that much more ‘dead’. It was the female’s side of twin 12-story towers, and there were 1-2 other people on my entire floor (usually there were over 100 students on each floor). I was used to being alone at home, but not in a building that had been so bustling and full of life the previous (shortened) semester. I ended up going to campus bars even though I was underage to be served alcohol, and got plastered most nights before stumbling back to the vertical vacuum of a dorm. I wasn’t a drinker by a long shot. But I needed to numb my brain over my nervousness about being back in school after being removed the previous semester, and my former dorm mates knowing that I’d been in a psych hospital. My mom’s cancer didn’t really enter my mind, which sounds awful, but I think it was a form of self-protection.

    My roommate showed up when the official dorm arrival time finally came, and we got along well. I was still technically a freshman, and it was her first semester in college. I look back now at how young we both were. But we were ready for the upcoming semester, though I tried to hide my anxiety. I continued to go to the bars most nights during freshman orientation week. I’d already been to that a year earlier, so didn’t attend those activities. I was glad to be back, but I was in over my head emotionally. Then classes started, which was a relief and terrifying. I still had academic probation rattling around in my head like a judge, jury, and executioner.

    I was still on antidepressants (they never worked, but I was doing better because my eating disorder wasn’t as intense) and sleeping pills, so drinking was definitely not a smart thing to be doing. But I needed the ‘numb’. I didn’t have any thoughts of suicide. I was stressed out and not sleeping well, but was still focused on doing well in school. The time being alone before everyone else arrived wasn’t good, but it was the only option at the time with my mom’s radiation schedule.

    I don’t remember a lot about the events that nearly took my life, but I do have bits and pieces, and wrote to my roommate later to ask her what had happened. I’m sure that being a teenager, as I was, it was traumatizing for her to have to deal with what she did with me.

    I remember it was a Tuesday evening. I had on a red gingham short sleeved cotton shirt and denim overalls. I was exhausted. Classes were in session, and I was trying to settle into the routine again. I needed sleep, and went out to one of the bars again. I didn’t get sloshed, but I was more relaxed when I got back to the room. I was coherent enough to hold a conversation with my roommate, as well as do some homework, but mostly I was thinking about getting a decent night’s sleep.

    I had a bottle of soda, and was sitting at my desk, with my back to the rest of the room. My roommate was reading on her bed behind me. I got my bottle of sleeping pills- there were ten in the bottle. I do remember taking those, but not to die. It was almost an out of body methodical and rhythmic taking a pill and putting in my mouth, then washing it down with soda. Swallow, repeat until the bottle was empty. I’m sure my roommate didn’t see anything. Not long afterwards, I went to bed.

    In the morning (Wednesday), my roommate wrote that she tried to wake me up for classes, but I said I was too tired. I don’t remember any of that. When she got back from classes later that afternoon, and around 20 or so hours after I took the sleeping pills, she couldn’t wake me up. She went to the dorm floor where I’d been the previous semester to find someone who knew me then, and one of them came down to the newer room with my roommate. That student immediately got an ambulance called, and I was taken to the university student health center, who sent me on to a trauma center.

    My blood pressure ‘numbers’ were nearly meeting in the middle (70/60 territory), which is NOT good, and I wasn’t responding to any stimuli. My Glascow Coma Scale score was 3… next step is dead. When I got my chart later on, and after having worked on a hospital neurology floor as a nurse, I knew what I was looking at. I was lucky to be alive at all. My stomach was pumped, which also included being intubated. I don’t remember taking the bottle of antidepressants, but the bottle of 50 remaining pills was empty, and there were pill fragments in my stomach. I was sent to ICU, where they kept my blood pressure going, and dealt with variations in my heart rate. I have a vague memory of someone pulling an oxygen mask away from my face and asking if I’d overdosed, and I said no. I really didn’t think of it as an overdose at the time. I just wanted to sleep, so I’d do better going to classes.

    The next clear image was when someone went towards my crotch with a syringe. I knew nothing about catheters, or having them removed, but that’s what the nurse did. I asked what I was wearing when I was admitted, because it helped me know what day I’d last remembered- I’d remembered the farmer get-up being what I’d worn on Tuesday. I also didn’t know about the charcoal they gave me to absorb the toxins, but knew exactly what impending explosive diarrhea felt like from months of laxative purging, so unplugged the leads so I could go to the bathroom. I didn’t know that doing that would look like something bad was going on via the EKG monitors at the nurses’ station, so was very surprised to see several people hurrying into the room as I was getting to the bathroom door. I got out of the bathroom, still kind of confused, and asked what day it was- and it was Friday evening. I’d been unconscious for 3 days. The red gingham shirt and overalls gave me a frame of reference for time, weird as that seems in the midst of what had gone on.

    Very early the next morning (Saturday), I was helped to get cleaned up and put in a chair in front of the Saturday morning cartoons- and not really being able to follow the plot of Bugs Bunny. I knew that wasn’t right, but didn’t know why. Everything was fairly uneventful until I saw my parents out at the nurses’ station. I freaked out. I didn’t want to leave school, was too spaced out to understand the gravity of what had transpired, and was horrified that my parents were there. I’d messed up again. My university therapist was called, and she came up to talk to me, even though she was on bedrest for a blood clot in her leg during pregnancy. She kindly explained that the university couldn’t be responsible for someone who might kill themself, whether intentionally or not. I had to leave. There were no other options.

    My parents had already cleaned out my dorm room, and put me between them in the front seat of the car to take me back to the psych hospital in Des Plaines, IL. That was a long 3 hour trip. I felt like a total failure. We got to the hospital, and checked me back in. At least I saw familiar staff faces, which helped a little. The next morning, my psychiatrist from the previous hospitalization came in and told me i was lucky to be alive, and that it was incredible that I didn’t have any brain damage with what I’d taken, and how long it was before I got to the trauma center.

    Later, as a RN, I’d hear other nurses complain about overdose patients. They felt they needed harsher treatment in the ER if they were at all awake, to deter them from doing it again, as if it was a personal affront to the nursing staff. But I never heard one of them ask the person why they’d done it, or if they even wanted to die- not caring about what had brought that person to that point. I didn’t have thoughts of dying. I was young, did some stupid drinking, which dulled any common sense regarding the sleeping pills, and made a huge mistake. I never meant to cause the hospital folks any trouble. I certainly didn’t want my folks involved, or to leave school. My folks never asked why I did it, either. Ever. My mom had another 21 years to ask me, and my dad had another 34 years to ask, and nothing. That amplified the shame.

    Things like ‘suicide attempts’ and overdoses aren’t attention seeking when they’re highly lethal without intervention. They’re a response to overwhelming stress and emotional pain. Why add to that? Being punitive is never productive with emotional crises. Compassion is free, and can change the course of someone’s life. And compassion is why I became a nurse, because of the kindness of a student nurse during the hospitalization after the OD. Change someone’s life for the better. Don’t make it about you.




  • Food At My House While Growing Up

    Food At My House While Growing Up

    Photo: online search

    My folks were always weight conscious, to the point of extreme dieting. Dad didn’t have a weight problem, but thought he did if his trousers felt a bit snug. Mom was ‘normal’, and not fat, but always on some kind of diet or going to some diet meeting. I ended up being most impacted by my mom’s food rules and bribes for me to lose weight starting when I was 6-7 years old and not at all fat.

    Prior to the diet invasion into my life, I don’t remember a lot about food one way or the other. I know we had “kid cereal” when I was younger than 5 years old, because my dad liked it. Food really wasn’t an issue unless it was something I didn’t like (or threw up when I ate it- like cooked carrots, baked beans, and cold french fries). It was when the diet bribes started that my weight was constantly a part of my daily thinking. No child should be on diets that aren’t medically necessary or supervised. And offering a kid a dollar for every pound they lost (when gas was 36 cents a gallon) and a big bag of candy for every five pounds (how that made any sense, I’ll never know) isn’t OK. My mom wasn’t ‘bad’, but she was misguided by her own weight issues and wanting me to look like the beanpole kids at church. I’m built more like a brick. It would never work out. But as a kid, I wanted her to be happy.

    As a family, we always had dinner together unless my folks were out of town, or at a work or church party of some sort. If my folks were entertaining guests for dinner, I got a TV dinner, which I loved ! I could pick whatever I wanted. But a ‘normal’ dinner for three would be one 15 oz can of ravioli, or sharing a box of Kraft mac & cheese (a hotdog would be cut up in it sometimes), or soup. But we did at least eat together.

    My folks travelled over school breaks, and I’d stay with my grandparents (usually paternal since they were closer to our house). I was allowed to eat there most of the time, and would gain a few pounds. Being an active kid, it came off when I went back home. But my grandma always made sure she had some special things for me, and I was allowed to cook when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, with pans she put in a certain place in the cabinet. They had “normal” food. Not fancy, but my Swedish grandma could cook and bake really good food. And it was much more nutritious than what was at home. A big treat was sardines on toast for breakfast. I loved it- and it wasn’t unhealthy.

    In high school, I started doing diet competitions with classmates, and I made sure I always won. My mom had no issue with me having less than 600 calories per day (my usual would have been well under 1000). She’d buy me whatever foods the diet called for. My skating coach was never pleased when I was restricting, because I was a space cadet which could be risky with jumps and spins. More than once I fell and didn’t know why.

    I don’t blame my parents for having an eating disorder. I think they did the best with their own hang-ups about food and weight. I was impacted by it, but I don’t believe it was malicious.

  • My First Hospitalization for Bulimarexia & Depression

    My First Hospitalization for Bulimarexia & Depression

    Photo: mine

    When I returned to the University of Illinois after the winter break, I limped through emotionally, and things quickly became critical. I was still freaked out about being on academic probation (not in my perfectionistic vocabulary), and very depressed. I thought I was falling everything. I wasn’t thin enough, I was evidently very stupid, and I didn’t see any way out that would end well. And the idea of ‘ending things’ was what finally broke me down. The therapist I’d seen the semester before finally heard me say something besides “I don’t know”. What she got was “I want to die.” and followed up with my plan that would have been lethal, and cause trauma to other students on my dorm floor.

    She called the university fire department to take me to the university health center for ‘holding’ until a bed could be secured at a psychiatric hospital near Chicago. The health center was for fairly minor problems or routine surgeries like appendectomies, and I guess for students who were being sent elsewhere. I was at the university health center longer than anticipated because of a severe February blizzard that made traveling to get me not possible. I wouldn’t go with my parents, so a family friend and her daughter came to collect me as soon as the roads were passable. During those days, I didn’t eat and had my jeans and shoes highjacked to prevent any ideas of ‘escape’. At that point, I was too tired to put up much of a fuss, so I sat there while dorm friends came to say their goodbyes. It was horrible. The staff were all very pleasant, but those goodbyes were SO hard. I didn’t want to leave, but knew I couldn’t stay.

    When I got to Forest Hospital in Des Plaines, IL, my worst scenario played out. I hadn’t figured on my parents needing to sign me in since I was on my dad’s insurance. I felt I’d failed them, and was so ashamed. We did the obligatory hugs through their absolute denial and disbelief, and I went onto the locked adult unit, scared shitless that I was entering “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s s Nest” territory. Instead, I found some very 70s floral wallpaper, a TON of cigarette smoke (like clouds), and people with all kinds of diagnoses from depression to raging schizophrenia and hyper manic bipolar disorders. I was the youngest on the adult unit, and terrified. Fortunately, my roommate was in the ‘mundane’ depression category and not scary, so that helped. There was one patient there for the rest of her life after falling out of a 2nd story window some years before, and ending up with a severe brain injury. She was a ‘constant’, which in itself was very sad. She wasn’t that old.

    The first thing my psychiatrist did was ban contact with my parents for a month, to figure out why I was so opposed to seeing them. He also started me on the first of many medications, when I just needed food. I’ve never been depressed or suicidal without being very malnourished, but that realization wouldn’t come for several years. So, I settled in to the hospital routine. My folks came to family group sessions with other families and patients, but never really understood the purpose. Dad’s comment was “the sandwiches were nice”. Great, Pops, that was the goal, said no-one ever.

    The dietician was easy to deal with- too easy. I talked my way into an 800 calorie/day meal plan. The chef (yup- a chef) at that place was incredible, and being a private hospital before insurance companies decided to play doctor without licenses, the food budget was first class. Prime rib, duck (yuck), shrimp, salad bar, and desserts with honey (no refined sugar). For someone who was afraid to eat, it was a minefield. But, it was also good food, and for someone who grew up being restricted by my folks before I took over that behavior, it was great when I finally allowed myself to eat something.

    I was not so well-behaved when I was being monitored for food intake. When I had to eat on the unit vs the dining room, I’d switch out the meal cards so that I got some huge salad for a patient on a weight loss plan, and gave him my double portions. That was figured out fairly quickly… the diet guy wasn’t complaining about my donations, but the staff were not amused. Then they started me on Sustacal (now called Boost), and I poured most of it into the potted plants. That didn’t smell so great after a few days. One day, I tried to go AWOL, and hurdled the gardener’s wheelbarrow, with the gardner still attached at the handles, and got about 50 yards away before passing out on the sidewalk. I was half carried, half dragged back to the adult unit, in a haze of iffy blood pressure. Early on, I spent a fair amount of time in the quiet room (dumb name when one of the patients was in there screaming at all hours), and even in leather restraints, which was a common practice back then. I had small enough hands to get out of the straps, so then they just medicated me with heavy duty meds before leaving me in there, and peeking in the little window every few minutes. It was definitely a different kind of education. My psychiatrist never discouraged the acting out, because he sensed that I was a bit too tightly wound for “normal”.

    I went without eating anything for 2 weeks, and ended up in severe ketosis that was bad enough that one of the nurses smelled me from just walking past me in the hall. That bought me a seat by the nurses’ station desk while they pumped me full of orange juice and toast. My mouth was so dry that the toast literally stuck to my mouth.

    Bulimarexia was a term used back then for what would now be either anorexia, bulimic sub-type or EDNOS (atypical anorexia). Because of my laxative abuse, and the thinking at the time (early 80s), any purging was put into some kind of bulimic category. I didn’t binge like a lot of binges were described at that point, and if I hadn’t purged, the food I did consume would not likely have caused much weight fluctuation. But in my head, any unplanned ‘diet friendly’ foods were binges, so had to be ‘gotten rid of’. I didn’t vomit (tried, but I wasn’t any good at it), so laxatives were my purging preference. For some reason, I thought that was more ‘dignified’ than vomiting. Both are pretty disgusting. I also did a lot of running in place in my room, and when that was discovered, I spent about a week in the day room being supervised around the clock. I had to sleep out there in slightly dimmed lighting and the fog of 24-hour smokers. I ended up starting to smoke there.

    The staff were kind to me, and my psychiatrist was also a decent sort. I can’t say much was resolved with the eating issues, but they kept me alive, and with food, the depression lifted. I was still on meds, but I think that the food did more good than the meds ever did. I was released after 3 months.

    I planned to return to the camp I’d worked at the previous 2 summers, though only for half of the upcoming summer season to avoid too much pressure. My former camp supervisor had visited me while I was at the hospital, I’m guessing to be sure I wasn’t drooling in a corner somewhere, and he was satisfied that I was still the same person who was harmless, but had crumbled the year before when I became anorexic at the same camp. It was hard being there that summer since I wasn’t in the nature center, but because I was going to be there for only 1/2 of the summer, I was assigned to be a cabin counselor. I guess that was a compliment since they were turning me loose on actual kids and not the snakes and goofy ferret. It was still good to be doing something I loved, it got me away from home, and people didn’t treat me like defective goods for having been hospitalized.

    But all was not well….

  • Anorexia and Campus Life

    Anorexia and Campus Life

    Photo- mine.

    Being a freshman at a good state university was overwhelming, and made so much worse by my deteriorating physical and mental health.
    I was also a fairly good student back in my high school, with many college prep and advanced placement classes that I was used to, so the classes weren’t too advanced when I got to college. I loved walking around campus, even though I was getting weaker and much sicker. But I was glad for the experience of dorm life.

    I was taking 40 laxatives/day (10 for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before bed). I knew every bathroom in any building I had to walk into. Diet soda was my main source of fluids. During the week, I didn’t eat more than an apple or 1/2 of a baked potato when I had to make an appearance at meals. I ran the 12 flights up to my dorm room after ‘dinner’ (I could get by not eating breakfast or lunch because of everyone’s different class schedules). I had PE at 8 a.m. several mornings a week, and it was a ‘self-study’ exercise plan, so I jogged to attendance, and then back to the dorm for a shower. At the end of the semester, I ran 2 1/4 miles in 12 minutes- and I’m not sure how I actually did it physically.

    My roommate moved out because I was too quiet. I also didn’t sleep much, and would watch one star go across the sky outside of my window, while listening to mellow music on the radio.

    I saw the therapist every week, and I’m not sure that poor woman ever heard me say more than “I don’t know” to every question, and I wasn’t trying to be a smart ass- I was truly baffled by what I was supposed to be telling her. I had to drop my class hours down to 12 (dad was not happy- he was paying for 4 years, not some marathon of classes for more than that) because I just couldn’t keep up. I ended up on academic probation because of being so weak, and struggling with cognitive function. But I couldn’t see the physical changes. I still felt too fat.

    On weekends, I’d binge. It was typical to have a pint of ice cream, a bag of chips, chip dip, cheese, cookies, chocolate, ramen, and sometimes picking the cheese off of discarded pizza boxes in the trash room after everybody was in their room for the night (usually around 2 a.m.), to avoid getting caught. My diet soda was a lifeline, and I didn’t want anyone taking it, so I labeled it with “herpes” in the floor fridge that held 2 liter bottles. I could only fit 16 oz bottles in the dorm fridge. Nobody touched it. It wasn’t true about the herpes, but I always had my soda.

    My mom arranged for the food service folks to make me a birthday cake big enough for the entire dorm floor (80 girls? Guys had the adjacent tower). The cake was HUGE. I was terrified. It also angered me, which was a really crappy response to my mom wanting to make sure I had a cake for my birthday.

    My ability to concentrate on homework was shot. I got a D in history (hated history back then), and for the first time in my life, I was not doing well academically. I passed out regularly, and was carried down the stairs to the floor with the elevator (and stretcher) more than a few times. It always made me cringe to have one guy pick me up- I thought it would take at least 2-3 firemen to carry my perceived fat ass. But looking back at old photos I was too thin for my body type. I asked a dorm neighbor if the leotard and sweatpants I was going to wear to go skating made me look fat. Her answer ” I can count your ribs”.

    I became very depressed by the effects of starvation, and spent a lot of time in weird places- the top of the stairs that led to the roof (nothing else was up there, so seemed like a good place to hide), or I didn’t leave my room for anything but classes- nothing social. I was sexually abused in the dorm lobby while others watched, by a guy who was determined to go out with me. His approach sucked (it wasn’t ‘major’ but made an impact). I had to meet with the resident director every week as well, so she could keep track of where I was on the roller coaster of chaos. By the break for Winter/Christmas, I was making plans to end my life. I’ve never had that kind of depression unless malnutrition and starvation were involved.

    I lasted for that first semester (not sure how), with many trips to the health center, dietitians, therapist, MDs, etc… the second semester was a short one.

    More on that next time.

  • How I Got To This Point Part 2: The Summer of Anorexia

    How I Got To This Point Part 2: The Summer of Anorexia

    Photo- El Arroyo in Austin, TX online photo

    The summer before I started at the University of Illinois, I was working my second summer at a church camp I’d gone to as a kid for 7 summers (week long sessions). I loved that camp, and still consider it to be one of the most important spiritual factors in my life. Being outside and with nature is one of the biggest ways I relate to God. People lived what they believed, and it was fun.

    I worked in the nature center the year before, as well as that fateful summer. The snakes, turtles, lizards, ferret, and raccoons were my responsibility. I was very self-conscious about my weight (as usual), and decided to use the increased activity at camp, along with calorie counting to get rid of what the ‘numbers’ said were wrong. I also felt I’d be largely unsupervised, which was important. That was back when women were supposed to be 100 pounds for 5 feet tall, and 5 pounds for every inch over 5 feet. That put me at about 135, which is NOT a weight where I look or feel healthy. I do not have a petite bone structure. I was also a figure skater for years prior to then, and my thighs were rock hard muscles.

    I started off that summer by bringing my scale, calorie books, ‘expanding’ tablets to increase the feeling of fullness, and absolutely no common sense. Getting rid of the weight was THE most important thing for me to accomplish before having to compare myself to a university full of students. I wasn’t fat. I did have weight to lose, but I went off the rails. The diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa was different then. It counted the % of weight from the starting weight as the weight ‘rule’. I didn’t know that when I started out, but found out later (another future post). I lost a total of 1/4 of me in about 2 months. Now, it would be atypical anorexia. Face it- starvation is starvation no matter the size of the person.

    What I hadn’t expected was an 88-pound anorexic with bulimic tendencies to be assigned to the same set of cabins I was, and became my guide to self-destruction. We became friends very quickly, and she taught me about laxatives for purging, the importance of exercising like a maniac, and how to avoid eating and nosey (concerned) coworkers. I woke up the first morning that we had campers (there was a week for staff only to get the ‘ins and outs’ of camp life before the kids arrived on Sunday). I ran down to the barn and back (2 mile round trip), and had an apple for breakfast. I felt great. I also was drinking about 6 cans of Tab per day (precursor to Diet Coke).

    I lost 17 pounds the first week, and one of the counselors who went on “adventure camping” weeks (biking, river rafting, etc) didn’t recognize me when she got back the following Saturday. When people from the church I attended back then came to drop off their kids for a week long camp session, my mom would send ‘care baskets’ with body wash, quarters for laundry, and with the weight loss, a pair of rainbow suspenders to keep my jeans up (rainbow suspenders were a ‘thing’ with no other meaning than Mork wore them on “Mork and Mindy”). I didn’t feel any different, but got a ‘high’ from seeing the numbers drop on the scale.

    The head honchos at the camp (direct supervisor, camp nurse, and main boss over the campus) knew something was wrong fairly quickly. They threatened to keep my paycheck unless I ate, but legally couldn’t do that. Over the next 4 weeks I lost another 23 pounds, and the nurse from the year before was in the area, and the camp folks sent me off with her on nights off, to talk some sense into me. She tried hard. But I was already hooked.

    My folks came up to visit me (first time they’d done that, so I’m not sure if they were notified of the weight loss), and actually talked to me more than when I’d been heavier. Coincidence? Maybe- but for weight obsessed parents, I found it disappointing that I was ‘worth more’ if I weighed less. That was a big reinforcement of the determination to drop weight. And aside from the suspenders, they didn’t mention my rapid weight loss.

    Over that summer, I lost 45 pounds altogether, and just had a couple of weeks at home before heading to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. A third of my hair had fallen out, I was freezing all of the time, I’d turn blue, and other students on the dorm floor knew something wasn’t right. When they caught me after I’d gone to the water fountain to fill my water mug, I was in a light winter coat, jeans, and 6 pairs of socks in very humid central Illinois, in late August. My feet felt cold through the socks. They called the resident advisor (more senior student for one dorm floor, for those not in the US), who called the resident director (over the whole girls side of the dorm), and they shipped me off by ambulance for a night in the university health center hospital. I had to talk to a psychiatrist in the morning. I thought they were nuts. I wasn’t thin enough yet. But, the psychiatrist disagreed, and the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa was given. In order to stay in school, and not have to tell my parents I was in trouble, I agreed to the therapist. I saw her for the entire semester, and early part of the next one.

    More on the University of Illinois “routine” with how anorexia impacted me in another post.

  • How I Got To This Point Part 1: Childhood Diets

    How I Got To This Point Part 1: Childhood Diets

    Photo: mine; me, age 5 1/2 (summer before diet bribes started)

    I’ve been a problem eater since birth. I was put up for adoption, and before I could be placed in my parents’ home, I spent 9 days in the hospital in 2 cities because I didn’t like the hospital formula. They got that sorted out, and my folks picked me up when I was 10 days old in the 3rd city I’d been in by that age. My folks were not horrible people. They were fallible humans, like most of us, and for the most part, they did the best they could. I found my biological family decades ago, and have a great relationship with my biological mother, as well as extended family. My birth mom is probably my best friend. When I found her, I found the rest of me.

    I didn’t have weight issues as a kid. Photos show a very normal weight child, who was active and healthy. Then, my mom decided to start bribing me (with cash and candy, which was stupid) to lose weight. I’m not sure where she wanted it gone from, but she never let up. A typical packed lunch was one slice of bread, a boiled egg, maybe fruit, and milk from school (I hated milk from a very young age as well, so got the gnarly orange drink instead). I had a key to the house when I was 6, and got myself home from 2nd grade to get lunch at home, often soup or a sandwich, and then locked up the house and walked 6 blocks back to school.

    My mom and dad were always on diets or restricting food for the whole family. It was typical for 3 of us to share one 15 oz can of mini ravioli for dinner when I was in high school. If they had something I didn’t like, I either ate it, or went without. When we went to McDonald’s for report card day or when we travelled, I was expected to get the smallest/ cheapest things on the menu… the prices when the McD’s reward started, for the entire regular small hamburger, small fries, and small Coke, was 69 cents.

    I was a figure skater as a very young kid (4-5 years old), and took it up again in 7th grade when a new rink opened up closer to our house. I LOVED skating. I felt free at the rink, and my coach was very kind to me. My mom would weigh me before lessons, and if she didn’t like my weight, she refused to pay for the lesson. I’d literally run around the neighborhood to sweat off some weight because I was desperate to get out of the house, to a place where I felt like I was enough just being me. My coach knew I was on weird diets, and never supported them. I found out years after I stopped skating, and had moved away from home, that I had been scouted as an ice dance partner. I knew random coaches approached me during public sessions and asked me to do various footwork sequences, and I did them without knowing they were Senior level test patterns. I just thought it was fun.

    The diet mentality never stopped. My mom was never as interested in what I was doing as when I was on a diet. She’d buy whatever food the diet called for, no questions asked. And, I’d lose weight until the diet was over, then gain it back. Diets don’t work. They screw up metabolic rates by putting the body into a ‘famine’ mode, so it hangs on to whatever it gets. The summer before going off to the University of Illinois, I developed full-blown anorexia nervosa (more on that in another post).

    I did diet competitions with some very thin twins I’d known since infancy at the church nursery. I always won because I had more to lose. When figuring out my average ‘non-dieting’ calories growing up, it came to about 700-900 per day. I was supposed to grow and be healthy on what I was given to eat, and that wasn’t enough, but I didn’t know any different. I knew my friends’ families didn’t eat like we did, but I also knew better than to complain. That wasn’t allowed. I was instructed always to say I was fine, no matter what.

    I started babysitting regularly at age 11 (I was a responsible kid who knew how to handle newborns), and used that money to take my bike to the store to get fruit roll-ups (before they came in boxes, but were wrapped in cellophane), crackers, or anything to help fill me up when I got hungry. Snacks were not allowed, so if i made something at home it had to be from ingredients nobody would miss- like flour and water ‘crusts’ with ketchup with oregano, and microwave it. Gross, but got the job done. Food was something to be ashamed of wanting, or even needing.

    I’ve been learning what are normal amounts for the first time in my life in my early 60s. It’s been physically miserable, and my dislike for food has grown because of the discomfort. I haven’t been asked to eat a lot- it’s all a ‘threat’. I was raised to have an eating disorder. It wasn’t the intent, but it was kind of a normal reaction to an abnormal frame of reference. There are things I like, but wanting them is “bad”. I know logically that food is just food, but because of zippo self-worth, I don’t think I deserve to enjoy what I eat… it’s simply a means to an end, and not very enticing because of that. I want that to change.

  • Chronic Medical Complications From Restrictive Eating Disorders

    Chronic Medical Complications From Restrictive Eating Disorders

    Photo: mine

    Decades of eating disorders have wreaked havoc on my body. It’s also impacted other areas, but for this post, I’ll be focusing on the medical issues. For this post, I’m just going to focus on what I’ve experienced. I will do another post on general complications.

    IF you find these familiar, please get seen by a doctor who understands eating disorders, and don’t adjust what you do based on what is right for me. We’re all different.

    Complications of eating disorders (restrictive in my situation) are not dependent on the weight of the person. That surprised me. But when I started looking at what my body had been through, and the stuff that is now chronic because of restricting, whether directly or indirectly, I was more than surprised. I have equated being overweight with being low risk for malnutrition from restrictive eating. That is not the case. I’ve either been restricted, or done the restricting, since I was 6-7 years old. My body and brain don’t remember “normal”. I’m in my early 60s. That’s a lot of time for damage to build. This doesn’t include the medical issues from starvation, though the dysautonomia touches on some of that… the difference with this post is that it’s been constant since 1996.

    The chronic disorders I’ve developed include:

    – Dysautonomia. This has disabled me to the point of not being able to work for the last 21 years. Being a RN was my main identity. Having that taken away has been very difficult. I can’t regulate heart rate, blood pressure, or temperature normally, which leaves me pretty much housebound. I don’t tolerate temperatures over 65 degrees, even when I’m cold. My body goes into vasodilation, and with dilated blood vessels, blood heads to my feet, and leaves my brain…. so I pass out. My body temperature is so unstable that I have to keep my head shaved to minimize heat retention. Hair is like having a dead animal on my head. My lowest recorded BP was 44/16, and my heart rate has dropped into the 30s for a couple of days (got me 5 days on a cardiac monitored unit). All of this had been known for many years, and NO doctor ever asked about eating disorders. Eating warm food, showers that are a bit too warm, being outside when it’s over 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and pain are also triggers.

    – Diabetes. After an outpatient eating disorder program in Austin, TX in 1986, I was told ‘no diet products’, including soda. I didn’t drink much water back then, and started drinking a lot of juices and regular sodas, though my food intake was still restricted. I gained weight up to 300 pounds (I’m not close to that now). It was horrible. That led to diabetes, which focused on food/diet/weight, and triggered another relapse in 1995 when I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and had to focus on food amounts and types.

    – Chronic Kidney Disease. Until my current nephrologist (a university med school professor) reviewed my history with me, other doctors assumed this was because of being diabetic, though my A1C levels have been good since 1995 when I got my blood sugars sorted out with diet alone (and a relapse into restriction). The real reason (based on never having had protein in my urine) is because of hypo-perfusion, which makes sense. With significant, ongoing restriction, blood pressure, heart rate, and blood volume decrease, making less blood available to nourish the kidneys. So, they stop working normally. This nephrologist also told me to be sure I got ENOUGH sodium to keep fluid up some (balancing act with kidney disease) to support blood pressure. I have to put electrolytes in the tube bag or what I drink. This has also caused elevated parathyroid hormone levels, which cause fatigue, blood sugar issues, and can cause weight gain. If you have kidney disease, please don’t adjust your sodium or other dietary limitations based on my stuff.

    – Dry Skin. I’m a walking desert. My scalp, arms, and legs are especially gnarly. My feet look like I’ve dipped them in chalk. I have limited joint and spine mobility so getting lotion on my feet is rough (no pun intended).

    – Degenerative Joint and Disc Diseases. Because of my weight during the “Coca-Cola years”, my knees took a beating (I was still working, as well). So did my spine. I’ve been in daily chronic pain since 1995, and while I had one knee replaced, I’m not eligible now because of a history of pulmonary emboli (blood clots in all three lobes of my right lung, and right pulmonary artery). My shoulders, hips, and other knee need replacing… but that won’t happen. It’s painful. A rheumatologist told me (with a degree of cold indifference) that I’d end up in so much pain I’d have to go to a nursing home at some point. Nope. Won’t do that if my brain functions enough to still argue. Just getting in and out of the car to go to an appointment requires a day to recover, and the day before the appointment to rest- so 3 days out of my week including the actual appointment day. I use medical cannabis to help with this, along with Rx medications, though I only take leftover pain meds when absolutely necessary so I don’t have to deal with another doctor just for pain. I have in the past, but I’m so tired of doctors, I could scream. This also messes with balance, so I have to be very calculated when I walk on unfamiliar or uneven surfaces, or get into the shower.

    – Delayed stomach emptying. It got used to not having to do much, so now food just sits for hours. I’ve actually burped lunch from the day before the next morning. The last colonoscopy prep was hellacious. Nothing moved for about 7 hours. This has been difficult when trying to increase intake. The bloating is painful, and I often look like some sort of nearly-geriatric pregnant mutant.

    – Swallowing issues. I’m not exactly sure when or how the swallowing problems started, but I’ve used an NG tube for fluids for over 3 years. I was off of it for about a month, but getting food in was very difficult. Before that, I’d sometimes have to pull food out of my throat, because I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I have GERD (reflux), a small hiatal hernia, ‘stuck’ swallowing at the back of my throat (need a lot of fluids), and a gastric outlet obstruction, which keeps food stuck in my esophagus until the ‘valve’ opens into my stomach. It’s pretty uncomfortable. I first started using NGs in the early 2000s for 2 reasons- it got fluids into me at home when my blood pressure dropped to the point of near fainting, and before I knew it had reflux and lost a lot of weight from not being able to eat. I get my own, and insert my own- which I do NOT recommend for someone who isn’t trained in how to insert and manage NGs.

    – Muscle Atrophy. Because restriction was how things went in my house growing up (more on that in its own post), and until getting protein ‘goals’ when I started this latest round of recovery help, I had no idea how deficient in protein I’d been for most of my life. The tendons behind my knees (on the outer side of my lower thighs) had become very visible, even though the rest of me was well padded with fat. It was bad enough that I couldn’t walk through a building (still can’t) bigger than my apartment. I had to sell my childhood home because it was too far from the master suite to the kitchen. I have a wheelchair for distances, and get one at the front door of the hospital when I have appointments with my dietician, or if I have some annoying test or procedure done. My leg and arm muscles have improved, which is good- but it’s also a trigger since they’re larger now.

    – Osteopenia. Softening of bones. This is a direct result of malnutrition and inadequate intake. Because of some sketchy calcium levels a few months ago, I can’t take calcium supplements, so with dairy being my primary source of protein (due to gout), I hope that’s enough.

    – Sleep issues. The body is designed to keep us alive. The insomnia with restrictive eating is felt to be a response to inadequate nutrition, to ‘cue’ the mind into looking for food. Restricting overrides that, so dud sleep is the result.

    – Trouble reading. During periods of time when i wasn’t actively restricting (still limiting intake based on my skewed view of ‘normal’), I would read 3-4 novels a week. I haven’t read for fun since chemo in 2010-2012 (acute promyelocytic leukemia), when I was restricting from not being hungry, and then since i’d gained weight, my oncologist badgered me to lose weight as fast as I could once chemo was over. He was completely apathetic about my history of anorexia. I was able to avoid a total relapse at that time, but with the trauma cancer and chemo cause to the body, I was still under-eating.

    I think I’m missing something, but will edit if I think of it.

  • OK. Time to Start DOING Something

    OK. Time to Start DOING Something

    Photo: mine

    OK, so it’s time to start doing things to move forward. I won’t lie- I’m not even sure where to start, but I know that I have to come up with something that will work for me, and doesn’t seem forced (other than making sure I eat what I’m supposed to, but not be rigid). I have some guidelines from the dietician i’ve seen for many years that include the restrictions I have because of diabetes, gout, and chronic kidney disease (from hypo-perfusion- my blood pressure and heart rate during acute restriction didn’t ‘feed’ my kidneys). I have a number of other chronic medical conditions, but these are the ones I have to deal with in regards to food. It’s a pain in the butt, and does nothing to help me not be focused on ‘the numbers’. I’ve got ideas on what to work on, but I need to get some specific goals that aren’t overwhelming.

    People talk about fear foods all of the time in eating disorder recovery videos, and my ‘thing’ is more about the fear of portion sizes. I’m willing to take a bite or two of a lot of things, but entire servings freak me out. At one point, during the relapse of 1995-1996, eating an egg was ‘bad’ because it was a ‘whole’ egg. IF I was asked if I’d eaten I’d think that I’d had enough if I tasted anything. One spoonful of something was ‘enough’. I know logically that isn’t right, and I’d never support someone else doing that. This all started when I was 6-7 years old, and my mom literally bribed me (with cash) to lose weight when I wasn’t remotely fat. I got the very clear message that eating wasn’t something to indulge in, and that eating more than one container of yogurt for a meal was gluttony. No crackers or fruit- just a cup of yogurt. It stuck. That was more than 5 decades ago. Yup… I’m bordering on ‘geezerhood’, and still dealing with a stupid restrictive eating disorder.

    Ordering from delivery menus is a nightmare. It can take me 3-4 hours to decide on something, and by that time there’s a good chance that the restaurant will be closed. Then I fall back on protein bars or protein water via the NG tube I’ve had in for most of 3+ years in order to get enough fluid in for my kidneys to stay interested in functioning at all. I have a few places that aren’t too horrible, and the idea that someone else put the stuff together means I can’t screw it up, though it’s also terrifying not to know exactly what’s in restaurant food. If I can’t find the nutritional info, chances are, I’ll panic and move on. Individual frozen entrees are also helpful now… but it took about 2 years to be able to eat those.

    I think that instead of fear foods, I need to look at fear ‘situations’. Like if I order something without looking at the nutritional content (except for carbs to know insulin dose, grams of protein so I don’t go over my limit, or type of protein so gout doesn’t flare up). To be able to order something just because I like it has become completely foreign. I am so into numbers fitting into the food log that I don’t bother with just wanting something. That needs to change. I can finagle the amounts to avoid any health issues. To order something because it is something I either want to try or used to eat now and then would be a big step. Even if it’s just adding it to my grocery list- it doesn’t have to be delivery food.

    Something else I need to work on is not panicking when I feel physical hunger. I hadn’t felt it for a LONG time (I’m talking at least 12-15 years), and it’s coming back. Not amused… but I also know that my body is trying to work again, and it’s supposed to work out that if I feel hungry, I eat. Sounds simple to most folks. That is another nightmare situation. I’m terrified I’ll just keep eating, and I have legitimate weight to lose. I’m not a candidate for a reality show, but I’d feel better with less on me. My joints are a mess, and it’d help with pain if I dropped weight. But I have to do it in a way that doesn’t mess me up more.

    There’s also mental hunger, which has been around for a long time, and I very rarely give in to it. But it’s a survival thing- the brain is focusing attention on what the body needs after periods of restriction (this latest more intense restrictive period has gone on for about 4 1/2 years- the longest yet). The preoccupation with food was also seen in the Minnesota Starvation Study after WWII, when Dr. Ancel Keyes studied the impact of restricting food in otherwise healthy conscientious objectors (who wanted to contribute something). They all became fixated on food. They didn’t have eating disorders… they had a deficit of calories and nutrition. So, I need to figure out how to deal with that in a way that doesn’t make me more freaked out.

    I know where I need to change things. Now I just need to start doing something. I need to move forward.

  • General Thoughts About Moving Forward After Ex-Therapist

    General Thoughts About Moving Forward After Ex-Therapist

    There were never any consistent “lessons” with Ex-T (ex-therapist)- I knew her basic beliefs about eating disorders, but that’s it. She mentioned the importance of what I tell myself about myself-and that the brain hangs on to all of that, but that was about the extent of it. I no longer support many of her views and methods. While there are some valid points about the ‘confirmed negativity’ in the minds of people with many types of psychological disorders, I think there is room for other influencing factors as well. She did deal with trauma, but with me it was only discussions of what happened- nothing about what to do with it.

    Some things Ex-T wrote in her book are thing I do still believe, but her “objectification” of criticism of what was going on with MY “therapy” turned into just ignoring it altogether. There was no discussion. I over-objectify a lot of things (even she said that I went too far with something that was just logical to me), but I will NOT objectify my right to emotional reactions, or how long it takes me to work through them. Only robots do that. Or sociopaths. People have emotions. They’re not good or bad- they just are.

    What someone does with emotional responses is another matter. Example- when I was raped, it changed my life permanently, BUT I also knew it had nothing to do with me as a human being. What happened was because of him, not me. And, I didn’t transfer my feelings about men to ALL men because of the CHOICES and torture by one man. I was gutted that day, but I still had some great male friends and coworkers that never triggered me after that rape.

    With Tabitha Farrar, there is a lot of focus on neural rewiring and HOW to do that (to be fair, Ex-T also believed strongly in this- but without the ‘how to’ part, at least with my 3 + years of going nowhere), . She has written one main book, and several smaller books on why it’s important to not give the brain any more ammunition to feed the eating disorder. What we all tell ourselves about ourself matters with mental health. Farrar also believes in the genetic component. Ex-T didn’t, at least when I mentioned it, she referred back to the term and beliefs SHE created. I do agree with her in that the feeling of worthlessness is a core feature of people with eating disorders (and other emotional issues). That’s what struck me most in that news program about her clinic back in the late 90s. I’d never heard someone who ‘got it’, and didn’t agree with the ‘control’ reason (control is shot fairy early on), fashion (most of us wear a lot of baggy stuff- not exactly runway material), or other superficial reasons.

    I have a STRONG genetic ‘link’ in my biological paternal aunt who was (and I think still is) anorexic since the 1960s. She supposedly developed late-onset schizophrenia, but I think she likely has damage from decades of malnutrition that doctors simply don’t assess for, or know what to do with when it’s an adult they’re diagnosing. Adult primary care MDs don’t get educated about eating disorders or the impact of malnutrition (that’s why they do dietary consult orders, or just ignore the issue altogether). In photos I’ve seen of my biological aunt in her later life, she was emotionally connected to and interacting with those around her in a way that I haven’t seen in schizophrenics (I worked psych and nursing homes that had schizophrenic patients). She’s still very petite. Remember, only %6 of those with eating disorders are noticeably underweight.

    At any rate, I wish I’d gone with Farrar’s books a lot sooner, and saved myself the psychological trauma of Ex-T. I have a lot of things to “un-do” from Ex-T’s orthorexic food ‘rules’ and cult-like manipulation and psychological control. I doubt I’m the only one of her patients to end up feeling like this when the real ‘wizard’ was finally seen after the curtain was pulled back, so to speak.

    In looking at the food list she sent me (after a year of promises to do so), it’s clear that she was restricting my food- and yes, I want to lose weight to be healthier, but every other CURRENT eating disorder content creator believes in lifting all non-medical food rules to get to ‘normal’. Not more restriction. I shouldn’t feel guilty for having Special K because of one ingredient that is in it, that isn’t consumed daily, and not in anything else I eat. It’s a great source of protein, and my options for protein are limited by gout and kidney disease.

    If I never have kefir again, I won’t be bothered. And it’s going to take a while to want yogurt or oatmeal again. Most things Ex-T suggested didn’t require teeth, and I think that’s because she worked with developmental stages (not a bad thing, unless it goes on too long and doesn’t involve fixing anything). A cracker was about as ‘toothy’ as it got.

    My dietician wanted me on nutritional supplements years ago, even being overweight, which solidified that my weight didn’t equate to being nourished. I still have trouble justifying feeding what I see in the mirror. I didn’t want supplements, but at least I know that IF I decide to use them, the dietician (Masters’ degree) supports that. She also supports having something now and then just because I like it. I’m not used to that… from long before Ex-T.

    With Ex-T, she wanted to control food- and initially, that was helpful since I was SO terrified. Just opening the fridge door would have me in tears (and she’d tell me about how she was cooking for ‘kids’- regardless of chronological age- at her house while I was white-knuckling it at home alone). More than 3 years later, I’m still very much about watching “the numbers”, especially macros, which I am stuck with to some degree with diabetes, gout, and kidney disease and their associated food limitations. But at some point, it felt like controlling what i ate was more about her having control over me– not helping me deal with seeing food as something beyond terrifying and very shameful. From a young age, food has always been associated with ‘worth’- and according to my mom, I shouldn’t even want to eat. She wanted a kid built like a toothpick… I am built more like a soda can. I’m trying to use that to help in my perception of why I have to eat. Different bodies = different needs. But we all deserve to fuel our lives… I’m just not good at that yet.

  • How I Was Breadcrumbed During Eating Disorder Therapy

    How I Was Breadcrumbed During Eating Disorder Therapy

    Photo from miascucina.com

    I’m going to use the list in this article to go through specifics of how I was breadcrumbed…
    https://www.enotalone.com/article/relationships/10-alarming-breadcrumbing-signs-you-shouldnt-ignore-now-r16587/

    1. Inconsistent behavior.… at times, I heard from my ex-therapist regularly (especially early on, or when I’d tell her I was getting tired of doing therapy). Most of the time, it was a crapshoot. The contact was sort of a Russian roulette of mostly empty chambers. She’d be either hovering (especially at first, and some of that was appropriate because I wasn’t medically stable at all, for many months), or nowhere to be found.

    2. Postponing dates– whether in having contact or her various projects (books being edited- though I was told that at least the first was to be published in late 2022, a website, seminars, etc) OR with phone calls. I never knew if/when I’d hear from her.

    3. Playing the victim... either she was sick (like totaling many months over 3+ years), falling asleep, someone else said something about her that wasn’t to her liking, someone had an emergency and took up her time, when she had legal/court issues in another country it was all about everyone else (and I bought that for a while, but now ???), someone didn’t pay what they promised (I don’t know the other side to that story), ‘couldn’t just say no’ to an acutely ill patient that caused ME to lose therapy time, etc. I don’t even know how many are true at this point. I do know that the acutely ill newbie showed up within 2 weeks of her asking me to pay double for 6 months for more intensive therapy, and then she went MIA. When I asked about postponing my intensive therapy until X was more stable, she said she could do both when I finally heard from her. She did apologize for a couple of things (not about double charging me), but the last emails weren’t commented on or acknowledged at all when I finally cut loose. I wrote of facts mixed with how it was impacting me so negatively. A ‘little birdie’ said that in the 3 years they’d known my ex-therapist that she hasn’t been sick at all… so that adds to the lies that she’s known for.

    4. Late-night communication... I had no clue this was part of it. She almost exclusively called me at about midnight her time, or 5-6 p.m. my time, depending on what timezone she was in. She also messaged me very late my time when asking for money. I was generally up since I don’t sleep well. She said she called late because it was more peaceful, and had fewer interruptions. It also meant that she literally fell asleep on the phone many times (soft snoring doesn’t lie), or would fall asleep before calling, so I heard nothing.

    5. Temporary change… if I emailed her about how the inconsistencies in contact were making it more difficult, and had me wanting to stop therapy, she’d get on board with “I want to talk to you every day.” for a little while. But she also chose words carefully… ‘want’ isn’t a commitment. It was something to check off of her to-do list to pacify me for a while. Classic breadcrumbing.

    6. Vague messaging... neural rewiring is the point of eating disorder therapy, and messaging is critical. Her end of this involved the choice of wording of messages and conversations. It left her with a lot of loopholes to benefit her. If she said she’d call the next day at x o’clock ‘her time’, I had to think about what time/day it was where she was when she said it- but usually it didn’t matter much, because I was more likely not to hear from her at all until the next breadcrumbing occurred.

    7. Lack of substance... she seemed to be invested, but I doubt everything now. When the money ran out, so did the frequency of the breadcrumbing, until I told her not to contact me. (She blamed it on being sick- which happened a lot). Then she started messaging me more often. Too little, too late. I’m slow to get upset, but when I do, and get to the point of nothing to lose, I will message that I’m done- and it’s not some middle school empty threat. I’m done. And I don’t know if I can believe anything that was said over the past 3+ years.

    8. Multiple channels… WhatsApp and FB Messenger were the favorites, with a few brief email replies (generally expressing what she felt, not addressing my concerns at all). She also used Skype for a while, but we never did any video calls. Ever. She did with others.

    9. Low self-esteem… it’s nearly universal among eating disorder patients that self-worth and self-esteem are in the crapper. She wrote a book on the exact topic after her early years treating eating disorders, starting with 2 close family members. But when someone says one thing, and does another that amplifies the feelings of self-worthlessness, it’s incredibly painful. If the Queen of Esteem doesn’t have the time of day for me, I must really be a complete jerk not worthy of anyone’s time. But she’d tell me she was off to fly to see patients in other countries… while I waited for a stupid phone call. Not helpful. And maybe she hoped I’d magic up more money for more contact. I can’t grow the green stuff out of nothing.

    10. In my situation, she didn’t cross any boundaries in this area, or with anyone I’ve heard or read about her, nor could I imagine her doing anything ‘off’ with this kind of thing.

    What I’ve learned (thankfully) is this has nothing to do with me even though it’s had an impact on me temporarily. This is her shit. I do worry about those who think that she walks on water and buy into all of her love-bombing that really is never backed up with actions (that she defined but didn’t complete most of the time). I don’t know if she simply doesn’t know who she’s said what to, or if she is that busy – hard to tell. But what I do know is that it has been a damaging ‘relationship’, and reinforced many core issues of abandonment and self-worthlessness. I worry about the one still living with her and her family- and if that young woman knows that she’s likely being used for something as well.

    I defended her many times when people online brought up the issues with one of the clinics she had. Now, I just want to warn people, but I have to be careful with names and locations, as much as I’d like to be more transparent. All I know is that I’m more likely to believe there is more truth to the stories online, or in a book from a couple of decades ago than I ever thought I would consider believing. I wanted to believe the good. I was scared and desperate for help- and that made me a perfect target.

    For online help (free on YouTube), I recommend Tabitha Farrar and Elisa Oras (they also have very helpful books). There are others who have recovered as well as actual therapists that post helpful videos (Katie Morton is a licensed therapist who covers many topics along with eating disorders). But do your own searching in the recovery community online to find what works for you. I’m early in this ‘solo’ thing, so will update resources as I find them.