Photo: mine
I was so excited to be working at a summer camp associated with the church I grew up in for the second summer in a row. I’d been a camper there for 7 summers for week long sessions, and the idea of 3 whole months, working in the nature center was the best way I could spend a summer. It was the summer before starting at the University of Illinois- Urbana-Champaign campus… and I was nervous. I was looking forward to going, but still felt insecure, and went to camp armed with a diet arsenal of a scale, cellulose tablets to fill me up, over the counter diet pills, and a calorie book. I wanted to look better. I’d been criticized about my weight since I was a young child by my mother, so no matter what I weighed, it never seemed good enough. She wanted a greyhound to somehow come from a cocker spaniel. And I wanted her approval for something.
What I hadn’t planned on was a cabin counselor in the village I was assigned to, who gave me many tips after she noticed what I was doing. (Villages were about 4-6 cabins around a main shower/bathroom building with staff rooms upstairs). She was likely under 90 pounds that summer, and a bulimic anorexic. We became inseparable on days off.
I lost 17 pounds the first week, and was ‘hooked’ to watching the numbers go down. Other staff were concerned, but nothing was reaching my adolescent ‘logical’ brain, and I just kept plowing through. I was down 40 pounds in 5 weeks, and another 5 by the end of the summer camping season. I’d been ‘seen’ doing what I was doing, but I’m not sure that anyone realized how much my buddy at camp was keeping me motivated to keep restricting more. But I arrived ‘primed’. She and I were more supportive of each other’s lousy disorders, but at the same time, we were friends, and kept in touch for years after camp. The folks at the camp did try to get me to stop what I was doing, but nothing got through my thick head.
For those fortunate people who have no idea what an eating disorder feels like, I’ll try to explain it. First, the scale dictates a lot. If there’s a gain in weight, no matter what the weight is, more restriction is ‘required’ by the eating disorder ‘voice’. It’s not an audible voice, but more like loud thoughts, and they are not to be disobeyed. If they are, then more exercise or less food for a longer period of time is mandated. The next thing is watching calories going down in the food logs (there are almost always food logs). It’s a ‘high’ to see ‘disappearing’ or ‘shrinking’ however it happens. If the ‘numbers’ aren’t OK in the food log, then there’s more tendency to compensate, by more exercise, laxatives (my preference back then), diuretics (altered a prescription for those to get many more refills and pills per refill), vomiting (not my thing), or for some diabetics, they can very dangerously manipulate their insulin (that’s a line I won’t cross). It’s having a terrorist in your head that will do more damage if it’s not pleased with ‘progress’ and compliance.
Gradually, more foods are eliminated and categorized as ‘bad’. ‘Bad foods’ are to be avoided at all costs, or the fear is that so much weight will come back that it’s paralyzing to be urged to eat ‘bad’ foods. It can be physically painful. When others, however well-meaning, try and force ‘bad’ food, it causes the ED to dig in even more. There is no weight low enough, no calories few enough, etc. It’s a never-ending cycle of eating less, not making weight goals, and being totally obsessed with all things about food. At the same time, there is hunger for a while, but after enough time under-eating/starving, hunger stops. Initially, I didn’t see why it was such a big deal. To be made to eat more than is deemed ‘safe’ is a legitimate panic trigger. My mind would go blank, and it seemed like I was being tormented by those who wanted me to eat more instead of realizing that it was the disorder reacting. And it’s exhausting.
As far as ‘control’, it’s lost fairly quickly. The drive to keep going is all-encompassing, and outside ‘voices’ do little but fan the flames of the ED. Control is also messed up when the body rebels and triggers ‘binges’ to recoup some lost energy, which can lead to full-on bulimia, or eating less for the next several days, only to set up another binge. A lot of info is coming out now about how binge eaters are likely to be doing a fair amount of restricting between binges- and are not that unlike other restrictive eating disorders. Someone can be overweight and still restricting. Metabolism slows during restriction, so when the body is fed, by whatever means (binge, more balanced eating), the calories are stored as fat for the next ‘famine’.
As time goes on, and more attempts at treatment are attempted, there is a changing awareness of how messed up things are, but still no power to change it without external, safe therapy. Most of us know how we look to other people, and that we’re not normal. And most of us want to be normal- we just can’t get there overnight. We know our food rules and behaviors aren’t healthy. We know our thinking- at least about food and weight is messed up, but many are hard working and high achievers in any other area.
The mental part is largely due to starvation. The Ancel Keys “Minnesota Starvation Study” is a blueprint for turning a mind into an eating disorder maze of chaos. Thinking about food constantly, shopping for food, making food for others, avoiding eating food, for some- planning binges, sleeplessness, headaches, lousy concentration, inability to retain info from reading materials, and many other mental and physical symptoms are because of starvation. Food reverses this- I’ve been there, and yet I can’t just snap out of this relapse. It’s wanting SO badly to be back in a more ‘stable’ disorder- when my head still categorizes food, but I’m not in the ‘retribution’ part of the ED when I do/did eat.
My parents were ‘OK’ with the rapid and extreme weight loss. They didn’t know at the time how messed up I was, or that it’d become a lifelong issue. My weight has fluctuated a lot from visible ribs to multiple chins but my thoughts about food stayed largely unchanged. My highest weights were from drinking calories in soda and juice after one outpatient program that forbade non-caloric liquids (like a death sentence when diet soda was its own food group). But my folks had no clue until the following February when I was sent to the psych hospital, and they were baffled about what the big deal was, even seeing me for a few weeks between camp and the U of I, and sending me suspenders to hold my jeans up. I was still ‘preemptively’ purging with laxatives, and while I tired to eat ‘enough’ if I had to eat around them or others, my head was beating me up a lot.
That summer of 1981 changed my life for decades. It’s been 45 years, and I’m fighting the same ED voice. Each relapse strengthens the internal task master. If you have a child, or other friend or loved one who is showing signs of eating disorders, get them help sooner rather than later, or they will be eaten by the disorder.
Tag: nursing
-
The Summer Of 1981- The Starvation Pact & Understanding Anorexia’s Mindset
-
Why Am I Still Bloating After Eating? ED or Colon Polyp Changes?
Photo: mine
My medical situation is complicated. I have various diseases and disorders which can make figuring out symptoms difficult. And I seem to have a list of diagnoses that makes me a favorite patient to send to various consultants, so nobody knows what the other guy/gal is doing. It gets very old. Some do a great job. Others tell me to tell my primary doc what’s going on. When I found out about the colon polyp (it’s large at 1.5cm), I wanted to talk to my ex-therapist about the ideas she’d mentioned briefly the day before, but when I messaged her to discuss some possible ways to make a very large prep easier (as she instructed), she had to “check her schedule” first. It felt like she told me to just go ahead and die (not her words, but that was the impact). She then told me of her various and incredulous medical issues, as if she were on death’s door- but was flying all over Europe or walking around London whenever she felt like it. Soon it was sick family, COVID & long COVID at the same time, etc. Felt like a huge slap in the face. She had time for other patients, but not to help me figure out a way to possibly eliminate something that could kill me if it evolves into cancer. Right now, it’s ‘just’ a large polyp with suspected other ones because of the size. GI wants it out, but not enough to work with me. Stepford patients.
At any rate, I’m working on getting enough carbs and protein, as well as decent fats to avoid acute renal failure again (2x in 5 years is 2x too many), and the bloating that I expected to get better at some point (it’s been almost 4 years) is still acting up, though not consistently or with any rhyme or reason with types of foods. So, I tend to blame it on what I eat, but there are times when something feels different. I’m not willing to do another colonoscopy at this point since the GI docs won’t work with me on the volume/type of prep because of my kidney disease, even though my nephrologist signed off on a one time use of the products that worked nicely when i had a colonoscopy after I finished leukemia (APL) chemo, and was getting a new baseline work-up to know where I stood in terms of anything sketchy going on. It all went well. Colon was squeaky clean, and free of anything worrying. Great news !!
I’m trying some anti-gas meds, but so far my old reliable Gas-X is not doing much. Next will be some hot tea to see if that eases the bloating (I’m in my 60s and look 6 months pregnant, with a shaved head that has about a dozen cysts/lipomas in various sizes- so i’m a weird sight to behold). The NG is also still hanging out of my nose- so I look like a candidate for a reboot of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and not as a nurse. I want this to settle down so I can move on with a plan to alternate what I eat to minimize protein issues, increase veggies and fruits, and work on eating what scares me in small amounts.
I look like I need about 2 years at a fat farm, but the whole idea behind undoing eating disorder damage and head racket is to go through the hard part of eating in more normal ways and removing food ‘labels’ like ‘good’ and ‘bad’. I’m still terrified, and cannot ‘justify’ feeding what i see in the mirror. It’s horrifying- and yet logically I know that food is fuel, and even my inferior self needs it to live. I struggle with how worth it is it to keep doing what causes physical and emotional discomfort, but is also necessary. I WANT to be “normal”– and from what i understand, it’s about variety, socialization, enjoying the food, and not restricting (though I’m finding more ways to work medical food restrictions safely).
Today was kind of a weird day, which always throws things off with food and fluid intake because of not wanting my plumbing (either way) to get triggered when I’m away from home (another side effect of pelvic floor muscle weakness from malnutrition). I also have a gut that has been put through hell for 50 years. I had an eye appointment (first in 9 1/2 years), and found out that I have a cataract in my right eye (not surgery time yet, especially with summer coming), and a much stronger prescription for glasses (expected that after so long), so $500 later (that was with the ‘no vision insurance’ package deal) I did get some answers about why I’ve had episodic headaches that are new, and why it’s so bloody hard to read without some kind of small microscope (labels in particular are written in microscopic print). Handheld magnifying glasses with lights are helpful, but I need something on my face to read books, articles, etc. I limit reading online for the same reason, though have the blue light filter thingie on my laptop.
Anyway, I digress- the point was that changes in routine are tough to catch up on. It already takes a day before the appointment to get ready and shower, then the day of the appointment, it’s in and out of the car at least twice, and then a day or two to recover- so 3-4 days out of the week for a single appointment (I’ve had appointments 2 days in a row, and I’m feeling it in my SI joint- where the pelvis meets the sacrum). When I get home the day of the appointment, I have to catch up on whatever food and fluid I missed because of the ‘routine’ being messed up. I use ‘routine’ lightly, since I have an odd awake/sleep ‘schedule’ of maybe getting to sleep by 5 a.m. some days, and then sleeping until at least noon, but it could be crazier with not getting to bed until 8 a.m. and sleeping until 4-5 p.m. There’s no actual ‘routine’ other than I get up when I get up, and sleep when I sleep. I like sleeping during the day, especially in the warmer months when I can get more done later when the sun goes down- even inside it matters. This from someone who used to work 4 doubles a week at the coma stim job, and 8-16 hours for the others. I loved 12 hour weekends and Mondays, then off Tuesday-Friday.- lots of time for going out with my camera along the back roads of Texas. Or making the realistic dolls I paint, weight, and sell when my studio equipment is available. I miss those days, but if I ever get the energy to get my apartment sorted out, I can do the dolls again.
But, I keep trying even though some days it feels like hell. -
I’m So Tired Of All Of This; It’s Hard To Eat In This Body
Image- general online search
I don’t know how to do this. There is no interest in food- and not just my eating disorder ‘head’. Physically, nothing sounds good. I have stuff here that I “should” like, but there’s no interest in eating it. I’ve been forcing food that seems “normal” but not anything that stirs up too much fear. I’ve given up on trying to get more protein in. If I happen to want it, OK (still have to limit quantity because of kidneys and gout), but I’m not putting extra effort into seeking it out. I just want to be ‘normal’, whatever that is, and when I look in the mirror, I just see a disgusting body that is not deserving of food. I wouldn’t see someone else, my size or larger, and deny them food- but it’s something that has been in my head for over 55 years. I don’t deserve what others do, even if it’s just food to stay alive.
I’ve been trying to do ‘low pressure’ foods- like cereal and milk for breakfast, a baked potato for lunch, and some broccoli, rice, and peanuts for dinner. That doesn’t get enough calories or protein in for the day- and I’m sick of forcing the ‘numbers’ to come out right. I don’t want to think about it… and yet it’s all I think about. There is always something in my head telling me not to eat ‘enough’, though I’ve never gotten any consistency with the calorie amount set up as my goal- I haven’t gotten close to that.
With protein, it seems that a break now and then isn’t such a bad idea if it can reduce the workload of my kidneys. I know a good chunk of the weight I gained when I tried to eat more is because of muscle gain. My legs used to be atrophied enough that the tendon on the side of my leg, near my knee, was visible- and the reason I ended up with a wheelchair for longer distance walking. Now, my thighs are like bricks with some fat over them. My right bicep had basically disintegrated, but now is much larger. I know muscle is good, but I don’t want it if it means more weight, and muscle weighs more than fat.
I’m still trying, but I’m tired of it. I haven’t quit eating, but I’m not willing to spend so much time trying for something that feels uncomfortably excessive, no matter what the numbers say. I just want to pick at the things I do like and if it works out, fine. If it doesn’t, then so be it. Getting the “food rules” from the ex-therapist out of my head is taking a while, but going better. I’m more interested in being comfortable, and not forcing stuff I have no interest in consuming. I still aim for enough carbs to avoid acute renal failure again, but that’s the most I’m doing right now.
The worst thing I’ve ever done was go on the extreme restriction ‘diet’ in the summer of 1981… the second was seeking help from someone who ended up causing more damage. Undoing the damage, and also trying to ‘rewire’ my brain by doing the opposite of what my eating disorder head says is exhausting, and doesn’t move very quickly. To get ‘positive’ stuff into my head, I’m using a radio station 24/7 that has upbeat songs (happens to be contemporary Christian music with a lot of mental health ‘boosting’ songs). I do wake up with positive messages from the songs going through my head, so that is good. The volume is low enough not to bother my sleep, but loud enough that if I don’t have anything else on (movies, videos), I can hear the songs playing softly.
I’m so tired, but I haven’t quit. -
When Therapists Cause Way More Harm Than They Help
Image: Adobe Royalty-free stock images
It’s hard to even comprehend how someone who is supposed to be a therapist can treat people like street garbage when they know their history of previous trauma. It’s having someone find out what will hurt the most, and then do that. In the 20 years I worked as a nurse, it never occurred to me to emotionally batter someone, or ignore why they were in the facility- to get help- and I took care of some pretty disturbed patients at times. But they were MY patients, and I was responsible for their care. It’s some serial killer mentality to make sport of hurting someone knowing that they’ve already been hurt. It’s manipulative emotional terrorism when it took so little to throw me away. There is no excuse. IF there really was something going on to limit the professional role, then the responsible thing to do is to let patients know that they are no longer able to be a therapist (and quit asking for money for bullshit ‘not-the-patient’s-problem’ personal stuff, especially knowing that I was on a fixed income).
I was stupid not to read the ‘warnings’ before signing on with the person who hurt me way more than other things in my life that may sound worse. Therapists have very personal information to use when making the CHOICES to cause more pain. I’d repeatedly asked that I not be told a call would come in X hours/days to avoid the “she didn’t call… again” scenario, and she refused. I think she figured that a little contact (at her convenience) was better than no contact, and that simply isn’t true. She told me herself that I had abandonment and attachment trauma to work through, and then acted like I was a hobby to deal with after helping patients who obviously were more deserving of her time- though she had no problem taking my money for 3 years. So, she created more attachment issues, and abandoned me like a rotting animal carcass.
That pedestal she has herself on must come with a lifetime supply of altitude sickness oxygen canisters. She made it very clear with the colonoscopy prep “no call” that I wasn’t worth helping to have the best outcome possible with the colon polyp/failed Cologuard test/abnormal MRI showing that there was cause to get the polyp out. Four people from the GI clinic (2 MDs, 2 RNs) emphasized the importance of getting the polyp out (but wouldn’t work with me on a volume I could tolerate). The physical feeling in my chest when she texted me “I’ll check my schedule” about discussing possible ways to make the prep easier was one of absolute worthlessness, and felt like my chest dropped about a foot. I wasn’t worth a phone call even if it could keep me alive. My life was nothing more to her than used toilet paper, after so many fake terms of endearment. After that, why would I get the polyp out? Why would I believe that I’m worth anything? Why would I ever want to speak to her after that, when I needed to talk to her the day she told me to message her, and she’d call me? Why did I waste so much time with someone who had been gradually and more frequently making it clear that I wasn’t worth her time? Why would I think that I’m worth going through hell again to remove the polyp? Why would I want to prolong my life? I’m obviously an idiot to think I’m anything but forgettable rubbish. I won’t actively end my life, but I won’t actively prolong it now, either. That ‘no call’ did a lot of damage.
I wish I’d never contacted her. I wish I’d read the book and court ruling before trying to find her. I wish I wasn’t hoping for something that she obviously didn’t think was worth her time… getting well. I wish I hadn’t believed that she gave a damn about any of her “patients”. She told me more than once that she did 10 phone sessions a day… I wonder how many of them are feeling the way I do. I wonder how many more of her former patients (like many in the 20/20 episodes) are now dead. I wonder why she continues to do things that result in a corpse collection as part of her curriculum vitae. But I don’t wonder about her.
I do hope the ‘captive’ patients that live with her can get away from her before their minds are set up to implode when she tires of them. I hope those who aren’t living with her get a clue before she does more damage to them (I know I’m not unique in how things ended with her, as the book would have warned me about). I hope she doesn’t drain their finances. I hope they don’t stay as long as I did. It wasn’t my job to tell her how to be a therapist, but now, I feel like I have an obligation to warn people to trust their gut if something seems off. To LEAVE abusiveness. To escape the constant chaos of unpredictability. To block all contact, in order to survive. I did block her in multiple places, and I still feel like I’m the ‘bad’ one in this situation. That I am so insignificant as a human that I deserved to be kicked to the curb by absolute indifference.
If she was thinking I’d come up with more money to ‘MAKE me worthwhile’, she was dead wrong. There was nothing left to ‘come up’ with. She once messaged me to ‘sell everything’ (I have screenshots of many, many messages) when she asked me to send $1000 USD for some website that never materialized (always another deadline, and some looney claims about ‘investors’). I didn’t send anything, and that’s when gradual breadcrumbing became ignoring. She didn’t see messages for days to a week, but wanted control over food again… how in the hell was that supposed to work? A month went between calls more than once. If she wanted me to still believe in her, leaving me isolated was the perfect way for me to wake up and realize how much she was hurting me. I guess I can be thankful that her hurting me ‘enough’ finally woke me up to how fucked up things were.
I’m glad I had the flawed mom I had- she did the best she could with how broken she was. I’m thankful for my biological mom, who is so much fun to talk to, and with whom I can just be goofy me without judgement. I’m thankful for previous good therapists I had, who had ethics and standards that kept things professional and fair. Even when there might be something difficult, they were honest with me, and I respect that a lot. I don’t respect creativity with the truth (bad enough that it’s a daily reminder in the US with who is ‘running; things). I don’t respect not following through with scheduled contact, or scripted empathy with no substance. I don’t respect manipulating already hurt people. I don’t respect self-promotion. I don’t respect hollow connections based on nothing.But I’m deeply grateful that I’m not her.
Any reposts are originally from Atypically Recovering. -
Figuring Out Food Intake With Volume Issues
Photo: Adobe Stock
I’m working on a way to get enough protein in, as well as more fruits and veggies. When I eat protein (generally dairy of some kind), it has to be OK for my kidneys and gout. That means meat, poultry, and fish/seafood are very limited. Spirulina, a type of algae (common in green and blue smoothies, and blue/green tinted foods), is among the worst for gout, with purine levels way too high to mess with. I’m not supposed to have more than 400mg of purines/day, and even that can be a problem since I can’t take enough gout meds because of my kidneys. So, I’m working on a plan to do about 1/3 of my protein intake with whey protein isolate powder via the nasogastric (NG) tube. I have to get about 1/2 of my fluids in by tube, so I figured that I’d make it worth it even more by tossing in the protein. I can adjust the amount of Isopure Clear (protein powder brand I like) based on what else I want each day… sometimes, produce and a bit of rice are all I want.Reducing the pressure of protein intake, enables me to eat more produce, which I like and is generally safe. That could change if potassium becomes an issue, but for now, it’s open season on fruits and veggies. The ones I prefer don’t bother my stomach, and when I roast a 9 x 13 inch pan of whatever sounds good (this week it’s zucchini, mushrooms, and Vidalia onions), I have enough for 2-3 days, and can mix them with rice or pasta (still freaked out by those, but rice has gotten easier) or baby potatoes. A sourdough bread roll is also nice sometimes since it’s an individual serving by default, and those are less scary. Toss on a condiment like teriyaki sauce, or some smoked salt and herbs, and it’s a pretty good meal.
I do have meat/poultry/seafood now and then, but I have to be sure that I measure it out, both for purines and protein. Eighty to 90 grams isn’t a lot, but I am an omnivore and do like fish and chicken (especially smoked), so I just appreciate having them at all. Most of the time, I’m a lacto-ovo vegetarian because of gout. I don’t have the stomach capacity for the fluids I need (if I drink them) AND enough plant based protein, assisted by dairy, so I generally end up deficient in something and feeling like a beached whale with bloating. It’s too miserable to even bother with at this point, but the protein powder via tube has been helpful. Whatever works and doesn’t hurt seems to be a decent way to get enough in.
Eventually, I’m going to have to eat and drink without the tube, but while I’m getting through this rough part of figuring out this recovery stuff with YouTube, books, and other media, this seems to be a solution that reduces stress, and increases the variety of fruit and veggies I can get in. I forget which video I was watching, but it suggested aiming for 15-20 different types of fruits and veggies per week. I’m starting out with 10, and will see how that goes, and then increase the variety that fits with my budget. Produce is very expensive in the US (like $9 USD for a pint of organic blueberries vs $5 for a 300 gram bag of frozen ones; my days of ‘luxury’ organics are over), but I do like some of the cheaper options like apples (about $1 each), pears, clementines, bananas, mushrooms, zucchini, spaghetti squash, and potatoes. The others will be seasonal items, which should help avoid flavor fatigue.
I’ve never been much of a bread eater, but found a very good (and flexible) subscription company for sourdough rolls (they also have bread, but I’d waste too much of it), and different types of croissants. I’ve never really liked croissants because the grocery store ones are full of junk that isn’t needed, to extend shelf life to near immortality, and they taste a bit ’embalmed’. Wildgrain products don’t have unnecessary stuff in them, and bake up in 25 minutes or less from the freezer, so always fresh. The individual servings are also helpful with bread as well. There is a decent amount of protein in the ham and cheese fold-overs, and even the rolls add a little. I’m trying to add more stuff that ‘normal people’ eat.
I don’t like that I have to deal with medical food restrictions while working on not restricting, but all I can do is make the best of it. I don’t like the NG tube, but kidney function has already been stressed twice in the last 5 years when I went into acute renal failure from not enough carbs (once during the time I was supposedly being ‘monitored’ by the ex-therapist). Fortunately, I was able to get it turned around. The dehydration and increased workload on the kidneys from so much protein and ketosis are bad news with known kidney disease, but those with normal kidney function can still be impacted.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10121483/ -
Growing Up With A Therapy Stigma… and Then I Was Shipped to The Psych Joint
Photo- online general search.
When I was shipped off to the nut house at 18, my mom was horrified. She thought for sure they’d turn me into some kind of cult member. I’m glad I was able to see the value in therapy when I left home- and had NO ‘judgey’ stuff yammered at me about needing help. They told nobody in the family where I was, except for one uncle who was sent on a recon mission to see if they had me chained to the wall in the dungeon. The rest of them thought I was either still in school, or ??? He brought my flute and a package of Oreos (he did not get the memo that I was there for anorexia and depression from malnutrition)… my folks were BANNED from contacting me or seeing me for over a month.
Growing up, the idea of therapy had come up a couple of times. The first was when I was in Junior High school (grades 7 and 8) after I’d asked our pastor if people who committed suicide got into Heaven. He responsibly told my parents, who were livid. THEIR kid wasn’t going to be talking to people about things like that, and in no uncertain terms was their kid going to a therapist. I had my direct orders. I was miserable and later, as an adult, I realized that the emotional toll was related to a lot of trauma that went untreated for decades.
In high school, I was on a ‘fast track’ to graduate a year early. I was already at least 6-12 months younger than my classmates because of my birthday being late in the year. In my junior year, I had 8 classes and no lunch period for the time it took to get through drivers’ education. That meant, after no breakfast, I had no fuel to function for 8 hours at school, and it didn’t take long before the fatigue and hunger were taking a toll. One of the teachers who monitored the hall I walked down daily noticed I wasn’t doing well. She asked me to answer some questions one day for what I now know was the Beck Depression Inventory, and I did not score well. She went to my guidance counselor (longtime family friend), who went to my dad (school principal) about having me cut out one class so I had a break during the day. That night, dad was fuming. He loved me, but didn’t understand why people can’t just buck up and move along. He reamed me for telling that teacher that I wasn’t doing well. Keep in mind that I spent most of my time after my folks got home in my room, so they had no clue how I was doing. I was told, verbatim, “If anyone asks you how you are, I don’t care if your arm is hanging on by a thread. You are FINE.” Then I got the “You don’t need therapy, do you?” in the same tone someone would ask if someone had herpes. Nope. Not me. I’m FINE. (later, as a detox RN, FINE meant ‘f-ed up, insecure, neurotic, and emotionally unwell, which was more accurate). About 9 1/2 years ago, I tracked down that teacher, and called to thank her for trying to get me help- and I was allowed to drop a class, so she did help, even if there was no therapy involved.
Then, off to college a year later after graduating a semester early. I left high school on Friday, and the following Tuesday, I was in community college classes (two- just to keep me busy between work hours at a gift shop). I got through those classes (history- hated it, and philosophy, which was so boring), and then off to summer camp to work for the summer. That’s when the hardcore anorexia started, after years of moderate restriction- whether by my mom, or my own hopes of getting her approval by dieting on my own. I didn’t want to be huge for the University of Illinois. I wasn’t really huge- but I wasn’t what the weight charts of the times said I should weigh. By the time I got to the university, I was a mess. Before classes even started, I was ‘caught’ going to get some water from the hall water fountain, and had on my stadium coat and six pairs of socks because I was so cold. They could feel the cold through the socks. This was in late August in central Illinois where the humidity all but causes a greenhouse effect on a good day. My dorm mates got the resident advisor, who got the resident director of that dorm, and they called an ambulance to haul me off to the university health center. I had to stay overnight and talk to a psychiatrist in the morning before I could go back to the dorm.
It took the psychiatrist about 10 minutes to diagnose me with anorexia nervosa based on the criteria at the time (Feighner criteria). I’d lost %25 of my body weight, and was still heavily restricting. I was at a normal weight, and wanted to lose another 40-50 pounds, which would have been severely underweight by any criteria. In order to stay at the university, I had to start therapy at the counseling center. I wasn’t opposed, but I had no way to express what was going on, and I’m not sure the therapist/she ever heard me say anything but “I don’t know” during that entire semester. But I showed up so I could stay in school, and not have to face the music of being some mental defect back home. The next semester, shortly after returning from the winter break of about a month, she finally heard something different… “I don’t want to wake up anymore.” And I had a very lethal plan set up that would have been easy to do in a room with no roommate. She called the university fire department to take me to the student health center where I was kept until family friends could pick me up and take me to a psych hospital near Chicago. I couldn’t face my parents because of the shame I was bringing to the family, and mostly their fear of how church friends would react, so they told no one. There was a blizzard that weekend in February, so I was in limbo until the roads were passable, which took about 3 days.
I hadn’t planned on my folks being at the hospital to sign me in since I was on dad’s insurance. I was horrified. Fortunately, I was moved quickly to the locked adult unit (only adult unit aside from the substance abuse floor), and my folks were told they could have no contact with me for a month. No phone. No visits. My assigned psychiatrist knew something was wonky if I had been too afraid to have my folks pick me up at school. I felt so defective for being there, but also discovered that psych facilities are probably the most honest places on the planet. There are no useful defense mechanisms- they’d seen/heard them all. It was all about unloading the secrets and shame, and healing. Granted, back in the early 80s, things were still pretty basic, but cognitive therapy was being introduced via the new book (back then) “Feeling Good”, which simplified it for non-professionals. And if someone was acting up, where were they going to be sent? They were already in the funny farm.
During that first admission (3 months), I wasn’t a model patient when it came to food and supplements. I was also a dissociative mess, and that part of my therapy wouldn’t be truly addressed for years, until I was no longer living with my folks in my hometown. I ended up in restraints in the “Quiet Room” (terrible name for that room depending on who was in there- I was quiet, and that was part of the problem). I wasn’t batshit nuts, but restraints were thought to be a way to keep people safe. They hadn’t planned on me being able to sort of fold my thumb in enough to get out of the wrist restraints, so when they looked in the little window in the door, it looked like I’d disappeared. I’d turn around with my legs crossed at the other end of the bed, and lean against the wall, arms free.
They’d adjust the straps if I was still deemed unstable, or let out if I would commit not to do anything that made them feel I was still too goofy to be let loose in my room again.
I got out after 3 months, and planned to work at the summer camp again for 1/2 of the summer once my boss from the nature center came to visit me in the nuthouse, and found that I wasn’t any different than my usual self, and I think he probably was glad I’d gotten help, after the camp was very concerned the previous summer when I dumped 40 pounds in 5 weeks. It was a good 1/2 summer season, though I was a cabin counselor, so had a much more hectic schedule. Then the plan was to go back to the university once my psychiatrist signed off, which he did without hesitation, making sure I had my prescription antidepressants and sleeping pills.
I had to be dropped off at the dorm about 2 weeks early because my mom was undergoing radiation for post-mastectomy breast cancer. It was weird being in the dorm before everyone else got there (12 story building) with only a couple of people on each floor that usually held at least 100 girls. I made acquaintances with the bars on campus, even though I was under age by more than 2 years. I was getting drunk nearly every night. I know now that the pressure to “look normal” after being sent away the previous semester was too much. I was on a different floor, so not a lot of people knew about the psych hospital. Eventually, I broke.
The other students were there, and classes had started. One evening, I had been to the bar, but wasn’t sloshed because I had homework. I remember taking the 10 sleeping pills one at a time, like a robot. I wasn’t thinking about dying, I just wanted to sleep (escape) from what was going on in my head. At some point, I also took 50 imipramine 50mg tablets (I don’t remember taking those), and went to sleep. Months later, I wrote to ask my roommate what had happened that next morning, because I didn’t remember anything until a nurse was going towards my crotch with a syringe to remove the catheter I didn’t know was there. My roommate said that she tried to wake me up that morning, but I mumbled something about needing sleep. When she got back from classes later that afternoon, I was still in the same position, not responding to anything, and she got help. Again with the ambulance, but this time I was transferred to the trauma center where my stomach was pumped and I was sent to ICU. My Glasgow Coma Scale score was 3. Next step down is dead. I didn’t wake up fully for 3 days. I have a couple of memory flashes of someone asking me if I overdosed while pulling the oxygen mask away from my face. I said ‘no’, which did nothing for my credibility. But I honestly never remembered wanting to die. I wanted to be at university- it wasn’t home, so that made it a better place to be with how messed up my head was.
SO, back to the hospital near Chicago, which I was informed of when my parents SHOWED UP that Saturday. I was so angry. My therapist was called to the hospital to explain that I wasn’t safe enough for the university to want to be responsible for me. There wasn’t another chance. I went back to the psych hospital for another 4 months, with another 2 weeks in medical facilities altogether for 1982. My folks were still not OK with psychiatry, but also knew that I wasn’t OK to be at home at that point, especially with mom still doing radiation, so they took me straight back to the hospital with me seated between them in the front seat. They’d already packed up my dorm room before getting to the hospital.
I was given every tricyclic antidepressant but one and one MAOI, along with anxiety meds, but they didn’t do much. I’ve never been ‘diagnosably’ depressed unless I was heavily restricting food. Meds weren’t going to help. I needed to eat. I was doing better, but still not well by a long shot. I left with supplements since lab work showed poor protein intake, which has been an ongoing battle, unless I allowed myself to get BBQ when I lived in Texas.
After being discharged in early January 1983, I was still going to downtown Chicago for twice weekly appointments with my psychiatrist for a couple of months, then down to weekly. Eventually, he had a second office in a closer suburb (that avoided all Chicago traffic). He didn’t want me to go home at all, but to a halfway house in Chicago in a sketchy area of town, and I refused. He figured out parts of an ongoing puzzle that wasn’t made clear for another 7 years, but he got me through nursing school, which was stressful. I’m not proud of having been in a psych hospital, but those admissions did keep me alive, and removed me from my home, which allowed me to speak for the first time in my life. I didn’t have to pretend I was OK- being a patient already cleared up that I wasn’t OK. They were good to me there, even when I was a jerk with the food situation. I was the youngest on the adult floor the entire time I was there. That facility has since been shut down, but while I was there, I was treated fairly, and became fond of several of the staff members.
There’s no shame in getting help… just in not trying. And for those who also deal with any kind of religious bias against therapy, it’s not a boogie man situation. There are all kinds of therapists and levels of care. Your faith can’t be taken from you- only relinquished. If you need help, I think God would rather have any of us do that than show up to His place early.
<3 -
That Time When I Wondered Why I’m Still Alive
Image: general online search; not my image.
Today is one of “those days” when everything seems to trigger a round of crying. I’m struggling physically with food and fluid intake, which makes everything else worse. I’m super protective of any sleep I get. Most people with eating disorders have some sort of trauma in their lives, and I’m no different. I think this was triggered by such a deep sense of loss about many things in my life, set off by seeing the obituary for one of the family friends who’d known me since I was first adopted as a newborn. The rest seems to be a cascade of things that I never would have imagined to be part of my life when I was thinking about how i saw my life as an adult at a much younger age.
I’m not up for going into a lot of detail now, but I’ve been through various types of abuse. I grieve the loss of so many people. At age 14, the murders of my skating coach’s six kids rocked me to the core. In Austin, Texas, I was raped, beaten, and sodomized for 6 hours, resulting in police shooting the offender in my bedroom after I finally managed to escape when he passed out. He didn’t die, so off to trial. I’ve been through medical abuse and errors. I had acute promyelocytic leukemia that nearly killed me shortly after the first abnormal lab work. I’m disabled to the point of only being able to safely leave home for MD appointments and to pick up prescriptions that can’t be delivered. And few people notice if I’m not around.
It hasn’t been a year yet since my dog needed to be allowed to go in peace, in my arms at the emergency vet clinic. That is something that still haunts me. It was the right thing to do, and she let me know it was time. She only knew me not working, and we never spent a night apart in 12 1/2 years. She knew when I wasn’t OK, and many times, she’d get on the bed and lie down between me and the edge of the bed, so I couldn’t get up unless she moved. I can’t express how much the loss of that sweet dog has hurt. She was only 3 1/2 when my dad died, so since then, she was my only “in town” family. But I’m also so thankful that I had her as long as I did. She truly was special, even though all of my dogs before her were loved very much as well.
When I was growing up, and even when I moved away from home after nursing board results were back after the usual 3 month wait after taking boards when I was 22, I always imagined having a husband and kids, and living a fairly ‘normal’ life. My eating disorder was relatively stable when I first moved (that changed quickly). But, it was the rape that really changed things for me. To avoid any pressure to date, I often chose night and/or weekend shifts so I wasn’t available to meet anyone. I’ve never liked bars or clubs, so that was out, and even church was pushed aside because of work hours. I never wanted to be physically close to another man again, and I never was. I dated in high school and nursing school, and those 2 guys were very kind and always treated me well. I knew good guys were out there- but I was afraid of another sociopath being able to find me (I had been targeted specifically for looking like the rapist’s ex-wife). He had planned to dismember me alive before that day/weekend was over, holding a knife under my right breast, asking what i thought I’d look like without it. I never was afraid of “all” men after that, I just didn’t want anything to do with feeling trapped.
I think about the things that I’ve never known- what it’s like to be a sister, an aunt, a mom, a wife, or to feel what it’s like to be loved properly. I know my folks loved me, and they did their best- and yet they had their own traumas from their childhoods. But I felt like a prop a lot of the time. I had to be worried about ‘family image’ from a very young age, not that I was a ‘mischievous’ kid. It was just made very clear to me not to tell anyone how I felt unless it was all sunshine and daisies. Even when I was suicidal in junior high and high school, I was in big trouble when I answered a depression screening honestly that a teacher gave me in the hall at school after noticing that I was struggling. Dad was the principal at that school, and my guidance counselor (another family friend) approached dad with the teacher’s concerns after she told him about the depression screening. I needed to move away from home so I could just be me. And to get help if I needed it, and I did.
I believe that there must be some purpose for me still being around, even when my ability to work as a nurse was cut short nearly 22 years ago. It feels like all I’ve ever done is try to survive, and my body is struggling with the stress of all of that. The last year, with therapy being irreparably destroyed, has been the hardest because it was so personal. I doubt Ex-therapist would agree with that, but she doesn’t get to dictate how it feels on my end. The rape wasn’t personal- I was targeted, but anyone who looked like his ex-wife would have been- and I’m kind of a ‘generic’ looking person, at least back then. Both changed something in me forever. I’ve survived a lot, and it’s exhausting. I have no interest in dying, but I need to find something to help when the grief and reminders get really hard. I’m having a lot of trouble with nausea and feeling full with not a lot of food, or having to tube fluids because I can’t tolerate the volume of fluids and food. The amount may be the same, but how quickly they go in is different.
It’s hard not to know what is going on with the large colon polyp, or what impact that will ultimately have on my lifespan. And, even if I knew, I doubt it would change what i would do. My kidneys couldn’t handle chemo, and daily radiation for X number of weeks would be way too physically demanding. The GI docs won’t consider a prep that I could handle volume-wise, so that makes it impossible to remove the polyp. Not being allowed to speak with my ex-therapist (as she said she would) about possible ways to make the huge prep (2 days, 2 gallons) easier was the emotional equivalent of being told that I’m disposable. I’d already flunked the Cologuard, the colonoscopy when the polyp was found, and colon abnormalities were seen on an MRI of my pelvis (also had an endocervical biopsy last summer).
I go through days like this periodically, and since i don’t really have anyone to talk to, I write. -
Online Eating Disorder Recovery Help
Image- general online search
I started looking into online eating disorder support options a couple of years ago when it seemed that my therapist was only a part time social contact person, and then only when it was convenient for her. I didn’t expect constant contact, but wasn’t even getting phone calls when she said she’d call, so I knew I needed to find other options. YouTube has been very helpful with eating disorder recovery information (professional and for patients), ED coaches, and people who have recovered largely on their own with the intuitive eating philosophy.
The general idea is to get to a place of eating what one wants, when they want it- and not to restrict anything. Ever. I have some medical food restrictions, but I’m working on the “no rules” eating goals as much as I can, and it is hard. Back in the 80s, I did something similar with Geneen Roth’s books. The idea there was to avoid the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food categories, and just see food as fuel. That is still part of intuitive eating. Back then, I got things I wanted to eat, and kept my pantry stocked. That took away the ‘forbidden’ food idea that just leads to craving those items more, and setting up bingeing because of restricting. If the foods are always available, the idea was that I could have them when I wanted, and took away the obsession with something I wasn’t “supposed to” have. It was a good thing for me, and I focused on things I really wanted, and good quality versions of them. I started to enjoy those things in small quantities because I could have more, but mostly, a few bites was all I wanted. I was never a regular binger, so that part wasn’t really relevant, but with restricting so many categories of foods, the idea of ‘no bad foods’ helped make them less terrifying.
With YouTube, I have favorite ‘recovery journey’ channels (Elzani, Elzani Singleton, Megsy Recovery). Elzani’s journey could be triggering because of her severe emaciation in the beginning, but she had the motivation to get well that was helpful for me and still is. I wanted to try new foods because of her channel, and love how supportive her family is. Megsy Recovery is also good, and focuses on daily challenges with specific foods and topics. They are both pro-recovery, and have been incredibly helpful. Often, I’ll eat while watching one of their videos, both for distraction and information.
Tabitha Farrar is a recovery coach, and a recovered anorexic. She is direct, and has a lot of videos that explain how the body does all it can to survive, and why there is a lot of damage to repair physically as well as mentally. She understands and promotes the idea that body size is irrelevant to the type and severity of the eating disorder. The rules for underweight ED sufferers are no different for those in larger bodies. I’m still coming to terms with that, as I have trouble internalizing the idea that what I see in the mirror ‘deserves’ food, but I’m starting to see how food is simply fuel but can also be enjoyed just for the sake of liking something. Tabitha has written several books. “Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover” is her main book (2nd edition now), but she has smaller books on weight gain fears, and dealing with issues common to those in recovery. Elisa Oras is also very good as a recovered person, now in her second pregnancy. Her focus is intuitive eating as well, and she posts videos on various ED topics. “BrainwashED” is the title of her book.
One of the biggest advantages of online recovery help is that there are no “business hours”. With my weird sleep patterns, I can always look up a video or read something (short amounts, since attention span is still messed up). If I didn’t quite grasp something, I can rewatch or reread their content. I’m not judged, and I can pick and choose what seems like it will be helpful. There are some topics I don’t have issues with (spouse, kids, etc), so I can skip those. Repetition happens at my pace, and with the content that is most useful to me. It’s completely customizable. It takes a lot of repetition to rewire the brain to escape the eating disorder voice and rules. That was supposed to be the goal with my former therapist, but there was no instruction on how to do that. YouTube has excelled in “patient education” via these online recovery channels, as well as professionally directed seminars. I also ‘see’ people who have recovered, showing that it is possible, even without a ‘therapy’ angle. I am NOT ‘anti- inpatient eating disorder treatment’ or therapy in general. If someone needs a higher level of care, that should be the priority. It can help shave months off of recovery done only with outpatient resources, and if someone is medically unstable, hospitalization is critical. Every 52 minutes, someone dies from an eating disorder in the US alone.
https://www.southdenvertherapy.com/blog/eating-disorder-statistics
YouTube also has a lot of professional videos on eating disorders, to explain the nuts and bolts of EDs (not dependent on weight), and topics like refeeding, medical implications, etc. As a former RN of 35 yrs (worked 20 before my body broke), I appreciate the professional information. Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani is one I like. There are also good channels by “Balance”, “ACUTE” (medical stabilization unit in Colorado), and many more.
Besides YouTube, there are a LOT of ‘written’ websites that have really good information. NEDA, BEAT, ANAD, Door2, Balance, ACUTE, and professional research sites have a ton of recovery information. There are many others as well, but these are the ones I’m most familiar with. I’m the sort that likes explanations about why something is happening or difficult, and the internet is loaded with them. I am cautious about sites with no connection to a legit organization. I recently learned that while there are great recovery coaches online, there are also pro-Ana ‘coaches’, which horrified me. If any site or ‘coach’ promotes restriction of any kind, they should be avoided like the plague. There is a sub-type of ‘Ana Coaches’ that get into twisted fetishes, asking people for photos of their decreasing weight, and use those photos for sexually pathological reasons. Their ‘coaching’ is a form of grooming for sexual exploitation, and blackmail is often involved. NEVER send photographs in any stage of undress to an online ‘entity’. Once they are on the internet, they can be shared and sold. You become ‘trafficked’, and some perv is out there spanking the monkey while looking at those photos. Ewww…
Well, this is what I’m using now to get well, I hope. I’m able to understand that all bodies are different by looking at animals… I would like to be a greyhound, but am more of a bulldog. Neither dog is ‘wrong’ or ‘unworthy’, but simply that they are different types of dogs. Humans are also various shapes and sizes, and those are not ‘imperfections’, but simply how each of us is built. To deprive the bulldog of what it needs would be so very cruel, and yet that’s what I’ve been doing (or had done to me) for 55 years. It’s hard to undo that mindset, but that’s what I’m hoping for.
Resources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37906085/
https://www.acute.org/?msclkid=602e9f1d8169160adfe0f6a1d312e2cd&utm_campaign=Branded&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bing&utm_term=acute%20eating%20disorder%20treatment%20center&utm_content=ACUTE%20Brand
https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk
https://anad.org
https://www.door2.com.au
https://balancedtx.com
https://www.gaudianiclinic.com -
Have I Gotten Anything Right Yet?
Photo: mine
It’s been nearly a year since things with my former eating disorder ‘therapist’ went far enough down the tubes to feel like therapy, such as it was, was over. Nobody had asked about my intake for a couple of years, so it seemed like it didn’t really matter if I ate or not. I knew I’d have to make myself get in enough fluids and food to make sure that my kidneys had enough on board not to get worse. It’s been hard, and there are a lot of days when I think about just going back to what was less physically uncomfortable. The emotional end of things has been much harder considering all that has gone on with my former non-therapy.
I’ve tried multiple times over nearly 4 years to get rid of the nasogastric tube that gets enough fluids in for adequate kidney function, as well as blood pressure support. The tube is back in after another try at not having it last month. I made it a few days, with lower volume food intake (tried to eat higher density foods, but I don’t like a lot of them), but then struggled for 3 days, and that’s my self-imposed limit. I can’t risk going longer since I’ve been in acute renal failure twice in the past 4 1/2 years. But I am still maintaining fluids, even if I need the tube to do so.
Food is still a problem. “Normal” eating is still something I don’t feel I deserve, and it’s physically unpleasant with bloating and feeling too full. I’m not a purger, so once it’s in, I have to put up with the side effects. I’m not as ‘avoidant’ with the types of food I will eat, but am still consumed with not eating over X number of calories per day. Tracking food is something I tried to get away from, but I have to know carbs for insulin dosing, and protein for my kidneys. It’s very difficult to get in enough protein when I have to restrict the options because of gout.
I’ve been trying to do the opposite of what my head says, and at times I can do that, but only with some types of food (single serving sizes are helpful). I’ve wanted to let myself have one meal a week or month when I just have what I want, but that hasn’t gone well for several reasons. The medical restrictions on food, only getting X amount of insulin per month, etc are hard to deal with when attempting to break some ‘head rules’ about food. The current “never restrict” goals of eating disorder recovery are hard for someone who has literally always been restricted (when I was a child) or my own active and passive restriction… For me, active restriction is when I relapse and passive restriction is eating how I did for my entire life, eating about one meal stretched over the day. For me, that was ‘normal’. And what I see in the mirror still doesn’t look like it deserves food, even though I’d give more to someone else, whether they were larger or smaller than I am.
I am starting to understand that like dogs, birds, fish, or whatever family of animals, humans have different sizes and shapes that ‘just are’. There’s no ‘defect’, just natural differences. I’m not sure what my set-point weight is (natural weight without restriction) because I’ve never NOT restricted in some way (or been externally restricted). I’ve read or heard (YouTube) that it takes time and an extended period of not restricting to get to that place, so I’m nowhere near that since I’m still restricting to some degree with the fear of going over X number of calories that are below what the dietician I saw told me is ‘normal’ for my age, activity level, and body type. I will never be a greyhound. I’m more of a Labrador retriever. And I still have the urge to be a greyhound.
I understand that repairing the damage I’ve done to myself over decades takes time and food. I know that I’ve gained muscle in my arms and legs, and that there is a difference in swelling if I don’t eat enough protein (hardest thing to get in with medical limitations). Some of that muscle gain is starting to atrophy a bit. I’m tired of most ‘safe’ protein sources, so there is a lot of forcing in of stuff just to get to the minimum, and honestly, I miss that mark many times a week. But I’m still trying. My heart rate is still wonky, and my blood pressure stays low normal unless I’ve taken trash out to the dumpster; then it goes to high normal for about 10 minutes. The higher blood pressure is probably better for my kidneys since poor perfusion is why they are damaged.
Most days I don’t feel like anything will really work to get me rid of the restricting. I still feel worth less than I did 5 years ago when I relapsed, after 3 1/2 years with my former ‘therapist’. It’s hard to feel worth anything when I’ve felt worthless for decades, and I felt kicked to the curb by someone who had no interest in me getting well even though that was the sole purpose of that relationship. I also know it had nothing to do with me personally, I was just another failed patient because I was too broke to be worth the time to get well. I’m not alone there… lots of examples online, which helps in knowing it’s not about me, but also sad that so many have been left suffering more because of that relationship that fizzled out without the decency to finish what was started. I’m working on getting past that, which is hard, but it’s not like this is the first person to be a disappointment and something to recover from. I generally land on my feet, and thankfully am as independent as I can be within physical limitations. There is no limit to my emotional independence since that’s pretty much all I’ve known. So, while I’m broken, I’m not destroyed. -
I Don’t Know How To “Just Eat” Without Shame
Photo: Mine
For something that most people never think about, food is a ‘threat’ in my head. I know it’s irrational, and I know how I’d tell someone else to view food, weight, etc- but in my head, the rules for me are different. A lot of this likely started when I was bribed to lose weight as a 6-7 year old, with literal cash for each pound lost …. I wasn’t remotely fat. I don’t believe it was malicious, but it was very damaging. My mom wanted a child who looked like kids at church who simply had different body types. I am much more like a labrador retriever than a greyhound, and trying to ‘shape shift’ me became a part of my thinking that is automatic. I want so much to change that, and have for more than 45 years.
My parents were very focused on weight and looks the entirety of my memories. I can remember the floor plan of the duplex we lived in when I was 2-3 years old, so I remember a lot (creeped out my dad). Mom was always on a diet. Dad would eat nothing but yogurt and bananas if his pants felt a bit snug. There were no snacks in the house. No desserts unless it was someone’s birthday. There was nothing in the pantry aside from some soup and cereal. The spices had purple inked prices stamped on the boxes or tins from the 60s (after I moved back home, I saw the same kind at an antique mall). I was taken to some weird womens’ workout place with those butt jiggling bands that vibrated, while my mom did her quota of butt shaking. It was all I was exposed to about food, other than holidays or school lunches for the 2 years I attended public school where neither of my parents worked.
I feel ashamed that I feed this thing I see in the mirror. And at the same time, I know that my head is lying to me. If I saw someone much larger than I am eating X kind or amounts of food, it wouldn’t even register. When I’ve watched “600 Pound Life”, I see those morbidly obese people eating huge amounts of food, and my first thought is wondering what hurt them so badly that they are destroying themselves. Not judgement like I do to myself for simply eating a ‘normal’ meal without knowing every calorie and grams of macronutrients. I have to watch carbs and proteins because of health reasons, but otherwise, I WANT to be able to “just eat” without shame. I’ve tried to ‘let’ myself eat what I want for just one day, without limits on what (need to limit quantity on some things for insulin and kidney reasons), and I haven’t been able to do it.
My head is no different than it was when I was diagnosed with anorexia at age 17, days before classes started at a good state university. I used to count curds of cottage cheese, and allowed myself 3 curds, and not the biggest ones in the container. I have gotten better about portions, but my head still tallies up calories (and I log them to have some kind of accountability, as well as knowing I’m getting minimums in- or at least close to what I’m supposed to eat). But I have never known normal eating. I’ve read that it’s about enjoyment as well as nutrition- two things that were never part of the equation in my life. I’m trying to change that, and it’s like putting me in the middle of China and expecting me to be able to use one of their computers without knowing the language at all.
I’m in my early 60s, with decades of direct and indirect chronic medical issues related to malnutrition and lifelong restriction of food. I’m getting things from the grocery store to challenge myself, and am so ashamed to have ‘junk food’ because I don’t “look” like I need food. I have been able to get single serving sizes of some foods that have ‘OK numbers’ and I am so acutely aware of how much I’m stressed by deviating from the usual stripped down options I generally eat. One meal stretched over the entire day is what I’ve had for most of my life. When I’ve been in hospitals, treatment centers, or in public where i need to look normal around food, I’ve eaten more- and then compensated afterwards for my transgressions.
It’s not about how I look, or ‘controlling’ anything (control is shot so quickly with each relapse of overt restricting). It’s about not feeling that I deserve the same as anyone else, no matter their or my size. I don’t know how to fix that, and never got any guidance on that in 3 1/2 years with my ex therapist. I’ve had to wing it with various YouTubers who have eating disorder recovery content, and it’s hard. I’ve had an NG (nasogastric tube) for fluids for 3 1/2 years because I can’t tolerate the volume of food and fluids too close together. At this point, I wonder when it becomes cruel to expect this body to consume what it never has. I’m trying more calorically dense foods to minimize volume, hoping that i can then tolerate eating and drinking without the tube.
I just want to know “normal”. -
February Update 2026: Working on Moving Forward
Photo- mine.
I’m still a long way from where I was in 2021 when this current relapse started, but without the external pressure and ex therapist’s general absence most of the time, at least I don’t feel like I have to follow her orthorexic food rules that go against any of the more recent views on eating disorder recovery. ANY restriction is discouraged, no matter the person’s weight. I’m struggling to get back to my ‘normal’ eating which was still restricting, but different. I was used to one meal spread across the day, and I know that can’t work if I want to prevent going backwards re: my body healing from decades of depletion. Five years is the longest ‘overt restriction relapse’ I’ve ever had – while under the ‘care’ of someone who claims to be the last hope for eating disorders.
https://tabithafarrar.com/2018/06/unrestricted-eating/Restriction is also felt to be the biggest reason people binge- regardless of the type of eating disorder diagnosed. I know a lot of heavy people who eat far less than others- and I have been in that group much of my life. The body is designed to survive, so if it feels it’s not getting enough, it triggers the body to eat to get its needs met. And the BMI chart was never meant for general use- it was designed by a Belgian astronomer in 1832, with no scientific vetting, even for the times. It is pointless- it’s like telling a poodle to look like a chihuahua… stupid. Every BODY is different, and has different needs.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10693914/
https://www.therapeuticcounseling.org/post/breaking-the-binge-restrict-cycleI’ve been fortunate that regular bingeing left me when I left the U of IL in 1982 – where I’d pick cheese from pizza boxes in the trash room on the dorm floor, after the other floor mates were asleep. That was the end of weekend bingeing, that included cheese, ice cream, chips, dip, chocolate, and the occasional bit of ramen. During the week, I ate 1/2 potato or 1 apple per day, and took 40 laxatives PER DAY, 10 at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime- without eating. I drank Diet Rite by the 2 liter bottles- and labeled mine for the big fridge in the floor study room with “herpes”, to keep people out of it (I didn’t have it, but nobody bothered my soda !!).
I also ran the 11 flights of stairs to the top of Trelease Hall where my room was-1224 was my room. It’s no wonder I passed out in the dietician’s office just before Christmas break when I was asking how to survive the month away from school at fast food places where my folks would be stopping. I wouldn’t be where my “habits” were unrestricted or even seen most of the time. My folks never bothered to think someone could eat too little, so that helped, but the bathroom access for my laxative consumption was nerve wracking. I was thankful for young sphincters, and timing any laxatives taken between known meal stops.As far as eating goes now, I still have to pay attention to “numbers” for insulin doses and making sure I don’t have too much protein. I don’t really limit what I eat, but I’m still glued to the total numbers each day, and have a very hard time eating enough per the ‘final’ calorie goal (my former dietician gave me the ‘end goal’ for calories; protein won’t change, and carbs are only restricted by the amount of insulin I’m prescribed). With drinking again, this has caused some issues with feeling really full, so I’m eating more calorically dense stuff to avoid coming in too low on food intake or feeling too full.
I guess I’m getting closer to the “normal” restriction I’ve always done- which isn’t great, but at least I’m not bogged down by food rules that I don’t agree with, or told to eat stuff I don’t normally eat (I do keep kefir around for fast protein- but it’s not a daily thing). I tend to eat fairly dull stuff in general, but like to try new things (couple of bites). I’m eating more than one meal per day, and it’s not terribly comfortable. But I’m still eating without having a therapist lurking around (which she kind of wasn’t for a big chunk of the last 6 months I was still a patient, and prior to that, there had been the gradual breadcrumbing discussed in other posts). She hasn’t known what I was eating for years, so her ‘supervision’ was not good- and I knew it. I did eat what I said I did IF she asked, but mostly, I was invisible.
I’m glad I got the NG out (again). I kept it in for 3 days while I started drinking %100 by mouth, to help relieve some pressure to do it all at once, but I don’t mind drinking non-caloric fluids. The ones with calories take up insulin, and I only get so much per month, but I will drink a bit of soda with real sugar (high fructose corn syrup is bad for gout and triglycerides) if my stomach is upset or I have a headache- but just a few sips.
It was a colossal failure to want help from her, and even more that I didn’t read the stuff written about her in greater detail before signing on. I really liked her as a person for a lot of the time with her- but being blown off over a 2nd colonoscopy prep that was too much to handle physically, when she said she’d discuss some possible options, was the last straw. I felt more worthless by her refusal to help with something that could eventually kill me. She would deny that, but words are cheap when actions scream. She has given various odd medical accounts for her absence- but then flies to see patients in other European countries, has patients living with her, and could send photos of London, but couldn’t pick up the phone. I will never understand that kind of callous disregard for someone she supposedly “love like a daughter”. Gads, I hope not. I will also never understand needing a different name in Europe. -
Perspective From The Past
Photo- mine (single footprint on dry riverbed in Kerrville, TX)
Something that helped me during my 1995 relapse was a gratitude journal, which sounded ridiculous at the time, but I gave it a shot. It was free (minus the notebook and pen), and couldn’t do any harm. I had nothing to lose. It started out fairly pathetically with “my socks match”, “the milk in the fridge doesn’t have chunks”, etc- but it built up into a log of 5 things per day (no repeats) for an entire year, and made a huge difference in how I viewed things. I had a LOT to be thankful for, even having been told I had about a month left to live if I didn’t get my act together. It also showed me how insignificant my ED was in the greater context of the world. It didn’t make it go away, but it gave me perspective, and for decades, I did OK ‘enough” with food.What we put into our heads stays in our heads. I can choose to look at what is left that’s good (living indoors, clothing, my late dogs’ photos to remind me of what love can feel like, etc), or I can focus on how miserable I am (and sometimes, it’s both). But the overall ‘stuff’ I think about IS WHAT I BECOME.
Rewiring our brains doesn’t just include what we think and do with food- but also how much negative we dwell on. It’s not a smooth path- lots of ups and downs, but the point is to look for the good, even in the bad. You can’t expect to have sweetness if you sit in vinegar.
Does that mean ignore feelings like pain, resentment, disappointment, etc? NO- it means being thankful for what good there is- and there IS good. If I CHOOSE not to believe it, then that’s on me. My family wasn’t perfect by a long shot (like everyone’s), but I’d give anything to have them back again.
If I surround myself with negative people or dwell on painful things, what use is that? Yeah, everyone has a crap day/week/month/year (and trauma creates another layer of chaos to that), but even though I’ve been through, and am going through now, some doesn’t mean EVERYTHING is .
My skating coach’s husband murdered their 6 kids when I was 14. It was a lot for a kid to deal with; I knew the oldest girl. I was brutally raped/beaten/etc for 6 hours- but I wasn’t murdered as planned; police arrived after he passed out and I escaped, and one cop shot Numbnuts (my name for him) in my bedroom… I had to clean it up when my apartment was released as a crime scene (1987). He didn’t die, and I had to testify at the trial; he changed his plea after my testimony, and is still my bitch, on parole or back in prison until 2048. I was pregnant from the rape, and thankfully miscarried it- though I felt guilt because of those who miscarry wanted pregnancies. I survived leukemia that is often diagnosed at autopsy. I’m disabled and chronically ill with multiple ED and non-ED (many painful) diagnoses- but I’m not dead. I’m often frustrated and nearly always isolated- but I can still think and watch the Olympics (volunteer or work on a dementia unit for perspective). Every person on the planet has their own version of this.And that forms how they see things and how they react to others.
Bottom line- I might not choose my circumstances, but ONLY I am responsible for my attitude. Nobody else can “make me” feel any particular way unless I let them. And I avoid negative people (not people going through rough times- and there’s a difference… up to a point).
I don’t want to BE what I’d avoid.
-
Tired Of Waking Up In This Body, But Can’t Get Weight Off
Photo- mine
I’m not suicidal, so don’t alert the online mind police. There’s a difference between wanting to die and being tired of this excuse of a life. I’m in the latter category. I’ve spent the last 22 years on disability, and it’s just getting to be a tiresome and self-loathing “life”. I’m housebound because of severe heat intolerance, and have a laundry list of chronic medical disorders. The eating disorder (and being raised on a starvation ‘diet’) is responsible for a few of them. Others are common with aging, though I’m hardly elderly. The epilepsy has been around since a nasty concussion when I was nearly 13, and another 6 months later.
I wanted SO much to get well from the eating disorder, but that was a bust. I ended up feeling more worthless than when I started, with a therapist who wasn’t at all engaged for about the last 2 years I was with her- but she’d have just enough contact to make it seem like something it wasn’t. She wasn’t going to help me with chronic reneging on phone calls. When that went south last Autumn, and I finally got that sinking feeling in my gut that I was worthless to her as well as myself, nothing has felt like it will ever be OK. The damage was done.
I’m ‘atypical’, and overweight, so I can’t stand being in this body. I don’t know how to see my body as just a shell holding me together in space. I was conditioned from a very young age to equate weight with worth. Toss in society’s disgust with anything not abnormally thin, and I feel like a parasite on the ass of humanity. Disgusting to be anywhere near. And when the ‘self-worth therapist’ loses interest, that is the death knell for all things worthy of self-tolerance. I know that her shit is her shit- and it still hurts like hell to end up thinking anything she told me was pure BS. Just to keep getting paid- which now leaves me with nothing IF I’d want to get help elsewhere.
I’m stopping with my dietitian as well- seems hypocritical to keep going when I can’t get myself to do anything “normal” with food. I want to go back in time before I ever heard of that therapist, and not be in this prison of worsened mental health because of her indifference. I needed that last phone call she never made… my life literally may end up shorter because she CHOSE not to call me to discuss a test prep that wasn’t possible; she said she might have ideas to make it easier. And she never called. I’d already flunked 3 colon cancer tests (including one colonoscopy). But without a prep that I can tolerate, there’s no second colonoscopy to remove a 1.5mm polyp. The Cologuard was abnormal (not an acid test for diagnostics, but with the other stuff it’s not good), and an MRI showed some abnormalities. So, that phone call that never happened mattered. The doctors won’t work with me. I’ve tried several different ways to try and get them to understand that the volume is too much. I got my nephrologist to sign off on a prep that I can tolerate, but the GI docs said no.
How am I supposed to be interested in anything to do with being well when I’m kicked to the curb no matter where I look for help ? Why keep working on the eating disorder if I’m not worth a phone call ? What is the point? I’m still looking at stuff on YouTube hoping that something resets my thinking, but I’m not holding my breath. -
Well, I Tried Not Tracking Every Thing I Ate
Photo- mine
Well, I tried a week of not tracking everything, and had NO idea if I was getting enough calories in. I was tracking carbs, protein, and sodium. But I didn’t know if it was getting enough calories. My internal calorie calculator said no… I wasn’t eating enough. So, back to MyFitnessPal.
My biggest concern with not knowing ‘numbers’ is with my kidneys. If I don’t consume enough calories and carbs, but not too much protein, I end up in acute renal failure. My kidneys have been through that twice in four years, so I am afraid of that again. My ‘head’ gives me less grief about what I eat if there is a specific reason for doing so.
I hope that I can eventually get away from anything other than carbs (also needed for insulin dosing), protein, and sodium- to be sure I get enough. My nephrologist told me that I shouldn’t try to aim for only 2 grams of sodium, as our twisted US recommendations push. It messes up the balance of sodium and potassium, and with already lowish blood pressure, I need enough sodium to make sure that my blood pressure is enough to ‘feed’ my kidneys. Everybody is different- so the “one goal for every body” is pretty stupid and narrow-minded.
At any rate, I bombed not using the tracking gizmo. -
What Kind Of Parents Restrict Food From Their Kid?
Image- Shutterstock royalty free
In general, my folks were good people. They weren’t perfect, but they weren’t psychos by a long shot. My dad was a great dad, but when it came to appearances, I had to buck up. Mom was broken and tried her best. I think she did the best she could with what she had to work with in her life. Her mom was an orphan at age 6 because of the Flu Pandemic of 1917, and was distant with her kids. When my mom was 18 months old, she became a big sister, to an asthmatic baby, so she was the “good”, quiet one who learned that she was not as important in her mind. .
My mom and dad weren’t “mean” by nature. They’d lost 2 very newborn babies two years apart, from what was called hyaline membrane disease at the time. Each was born about a month early with placenta issues requiring emergency C-sections. The second one made it to day 6… 4 1/2 days longer than his late older brother, who didn’t even get a name on his birth certificate… just “baby boy’ and his footprints. They didn’t weigh him, either. Mom never saw either of them. He always had a name with my parents and me (and they are appropriately memorialized on the family tombstone). Anyway, a bit of a tangent, but I think it’s important to show compassion even when I was inadvertently given a life sentence regarding a severely wonky relationship with food. I don’t believe for a minute that they would intentionally hurt me.
I was adopted by them before I was 2 weeks old, after spending over a week in the hospital for “feeding problems”. Eventually, after a week in a large Chicago hospital, they got me to take some kind of formula, and I was cleared for placement in my folks’ home. They’d been through the loss of 2 babies just 3 and 5 years before they got me. They wanted me. Mom struggled, I think because she was afraid that I’d be taken away before the adoption was finalized. Dad was initially reluctant to adopt after the babies’ deaths, but said once I was there, he wanted a bunch of kids- he had a lot of fun. Mom said no.
My parents didn’t bat an eye when I would count out three thin slices of hard salami, one small-ish kosher dill pickle, and a cut up carrot, and take that with me to school as my complete lunch (I’d get a diet soda in the cafeteria). That added up to about 175 calories for an entire day. I rarely ate breakfast, and we’d (mom, dad, and I) would share a 15 oz can of ravioli, Hamburger Helper, or a box of mac & cheese- with the expectation that we’d have leftovers from the boxed meals. Mom bought that food.
Teachers at school noticed when I’d start to crater, but if they said anything that got back to my dad (principal at the school), I’d be told to always say I was “fine”. One English teacher, bless her, gave me a depression questionnaire, and took the results to my high school guidance counselor, who had been a neighbor at one time. I’d known him and his family since I was two years old. Dad was furious. I was allowed to drop physics, since I had 8 classes with Driver’s Ed, so no lunch break- and dad was fine with that. He demanded it so I could graduate a full year early. I did manage to bail after the first semester of my Senior year- and was so glad to be rid of that place. I hated high school, and thankfully don’t remember a lot of it. I remember names, and a bit more about people I saw away from school. But for the most part it’s a 3 1/2 year stain on my life aside from some people. I later contacted that English teacher after dad died, and told her that I remembered her kindness, and thanked her for trying to help me. She had been transferred to a different school after her ‘intervention’ with me- and I felt so guilty.
Food was an expense to dad. He had no concept of what made up normal eating, though his mom was a great cook and baker (from Sweden), and his father had gardens of organic veggies every year. He just knew that if something was filling and tasted good, that was enough. The nutritional aspect and how that relates to health wasn’t considered. He didn’t want to spend money on something he saw as a waste. Nutrition/malnutrition be damned.
They were both on constant diets. Dad’s ‘go-to’ was bananas and yogurt until his pants fit as he liked. Mom went to every ‘diet club’ and tried every stupid diet on the planet- Weight Watchers, Diet Workshop, cabbage soup, just cabbage with either soy sauce or taco seasoning on it, and dragged me along to one of those “fitness” places where they’d strap in to some contraption that made every last ass in that place look like a 3-D seismograph. It was appalling to a 8 year old. It’s still appalling when I remember those quaking asses.
Mom started to bribe me to lose weight when I was in 2nd grade (6-7 years old)… a buck for each pound, and then the schizoid large bag of CANDY for every 5 pounds. I wasn’t remotely overweight at that point. She wanted a ‘greyhound’ like skinny kids at church. I’m more of a golden retriever in my natural body type- not the one forced on it by a mom who was too terrified to have a kid with ‘defects’, presumably because she was afraid I’d be taken away. Later, in my teens, she’d weigh me before figure skating lessons, and if I didn’t weigh what she wanted me to weigh, she’d refuse to pay for lessons. Skating was my escape- so I’d run around the neighborhood to sweat off the weight. It was a recipe for a life of eating disorders. She was never as interested in me as she was when I was on a diet. She’d whip out her wallet so fast it was like time travel. Steak for the diet? No problem. Eating grapefruit and eggs for 2 weeks – no issue. Until I started to fall apart from starvation.
I didn’t look like I had eating issues. Nobody knew what was going on at home. Nobody knew that I needed to be rescued from her. Nobody knew that we were all malnourished in that house- and it would be decades before I learned of the Minnesota Starvation Study by Dr. Ancel Keyes (he later became a total douche with lies about saturated fat and heart disease…. there is NO link; he lied with his own research). That study explained everything about what lack of nutrition does to thinking. And I’ve been in that head space for over 55 years.
My folks were struggling with their own self-worth, and that was compounded by the grief over two newborns. Mom never seeing them was a travesty and fit with the view at the time that they weren’t gong to live, so don’t get attached (as if pregnancy hadn’t done that already). I was damaged by their views on food- but I don’t think it was malicious. It was very misguided, but I still think they were mostly good parents, and decent people. -
Struggling Without The NG Tube For Fluids
Photo- mine
Except for a month and a few odd days here and there, I had a NG tube to ensure enough fluid intake to protect my kidneys for the last 41 months, changing it out every 4-6 weeks as needed. It was only supposed to be in for the duration of a bladder infection, but that was early on in treatment, and with increased food (from my ‘normal’), it was too much volume to eat and drink, so the slower fluids via the tube helped. As a RN, I was trained in how to insert and manage NG tubes. ****** it is crucial that nobody who hasn’t had this kind of training attempts to do this on their own****** You could essentially drown yourself if the fluids aren’t going into the stomach, and make a detour at the spot where the esophagus and trachea share limited real estate.
At first, it was so helpful, and stayed that way for quite a while. Then my body started viewing it as the foreign object that it was, and I had horrible post nasal drip, sneezing, and coughing. I’d attempt to take it out periodically, but I seldom made it through more than 2 days without the tube, and struggled to get enough fluids and electrolytes into my system without it. I don’t mind drinking water, but then I had some bad labs come back, and my nephrologist told me that my labs were not normal and that the only way they end up like that is from not eating enough. He gave me 2 weeks to get more fluids and Liquid IV in, or I’d be admitted for IVs.
With the NG, I managed to get things back on track, at least for the time being. I got through a month of no tube, but then the colonoscopy prep wasn’t going to get in without it, so I put it back in for the test. I tried to keep the tube out, but the severe pain from the prep was awful, and frankly, it was traumatic. I’ve had trouble getting enough in again. I keep trying new things- teas, diabetic friendly drinks, some juices (if my carbs allowed for them), and broth based soups. I don’t mind drinking/eating those things, but I have trouble with “enough”.
So now, I’m at a crossroads once again. I have another day to get it together, or I’m going to have to put the NG back in for ‘topping up’ if I can’t drink enough. It’s SO frustrating to want to do things like a normal human being only not to be able to sustain it. I can’t risk my kidneys- that’s the bottom line. And yet, I can’t stand the tube and all of the snot that comes with it. So, I’m hoping that I do better for the rest of the night, as well as tomorrow. That’s my deadline.Since I’m managing it on my own (every MD has seen it, and said very little). I KNOW I don’t “look” like I need it, and ideally, I’d be able to tolerate both food and fluids, but without the tube, something gets short-changed, and right now that’s food and fluids. The fluids I am drinking just fill me up too much, and then the reflux gets worse. With water with Liquid IV, I can let it go in slowly, and avoid the major bloating of 1/2- 1 liter of fluids in my stomach until they take their sweet time heading down the pipeline, so to speak. Low volume- high density foods help, but I don’t like eating like that. I’m more of a cheese board sort rather than someone who likes much on a plate.
I never thought I’d have that stupid tube for 3 1/2 + years, though i’m thankful that I could protect my kidneys with it. But I just want to move on with this, and do things like normal people do. Drinking fluids shouldn’t be that big of a problem. But I’ve never been great at drinking fluids, and growing up, we all had water with meals, but there wasn’t much talk about between meal fluid intake. I did drink a lot of diet soda for years, but quit that because of the nasty sweeteners.But I’m working on this. It’s so much better in other ways without that tube.
-
It’s Been A ‘Bleh’ Couple Of Weeks
Image- online search
The past couple of weeks have been exhausting for no good reason. My activity level essentially never changes with being housebound, but I’ve not felt great. With the colon cancer screening fails, that’s a bit unnerving, but the main areas of discomfort aren’t located in the iffy anatomical neighborhood, so that’s a little bit of a relief. I’ve had what feels like bruised ribs under my right armpit, but haven’t hurt anything there, so I don’t know what’s going on. I have a history of blood clots in my right lung, but that was 18 years ago, and I have no respiratory or cardiac symptoms. I need to make another THC dispensary run, since that’s what allows me to sleep, especially when I’m in pain.
The aftermath of the ex-therapist’s harm continues to be an emotional rollercoaster. I’ve heard and read so much more about her pattern of breadcrumbing and in some cases abuse that can’t be part of any normal therapy. I finally read a book about her, and was surprised but also not surprised. There was one situation in particular that she yelled at me when she called. The way she explained away that type of “therapy” in an interview was that the patients actually want that, so their eating disorder ‘mind’ isn’t as upset over the activity being yelled about, which is generally related to eating.
I’d had a rough day about 7 months into ‘therapy’ with her, and the patient she had talking to me on a regular basis had let her know that I hadn’t eaten what I was supposed to, so when Ex-T was home from her ‘food police’ time with the guy who showed up from Oz, she called me and yelled what I had to eat while she was on the phone, and then “don’t take all day with one cracker” (they’re dry, and I have physical issues with swallowing), “get X and eat it now”, etc. I was stunned, and miserably full when she got done shouting ‘orders’. She sounded SO different than the person I’d spoken with prior to that night. It was frightening.
In an email sent to her a while back, explaining how damaging the lack of contact had been, especially around the 2nd colonoscopy prep my GI doctor wanted done, her only response was how it all impacted her. NO comment about what I, HER PATIENT, had been going through. Then some vague comments about her health (a common explanation for lack of contact), with nothing specific disclosed (her prerogative), which was also a pattern. So, I’m trying to figure out what to do, and she’s having a pity festival over being butt hurt by my email about what was going wrong with the so-called therapy. The health stuff may be true (hope not) but it all fits into the breadcrumbing pattern of toxic control and psychological manipulation, so I don’t know if I can- or should- believe her. She’s still wanting some kind of contact, but I’m so far past wanting anything to do with her that I can’t see a situation where I’d want to talk to her again. At least I could block a couple of ways she could contact me, along with anyone I know who might be used to find out info from me, but I can’t block her on my email, unfortunately.
I am having more days when I’m not as bothered by her behavior, but it’s still hard to come to terms with how much worse this all was than what I’d envisioned. I didn’t think I’d be afraid to speak about her (via blogging), or find so many other examples on videos or in books where she was completely past any type of therapeutic ‘reason’ in what she did. She made up her own ‘condition’ to explain eating disorders, and there are parts of that that do resonate with a LOT of people, including me, though not as much now. She had some very good ideas at times, and when I first heard about her, I was amazed that she ‘got it’. But then having contact with her showed me someone unrecognizable from who I saw on a news program about her clinic. I also found a document on a financial website showing that the clinic had made over $9M CAD. Dun & Bradstreet is a known name, and it just came up when googling the clinic. This corresponds to the comments about how she lost interest in patients who ran out of money. Everything I’d seen in court papers from an investigation into her clinic pans out- and for so long, I didn’t want to believe any of that. That was my foolishness.
The holidays are also rough, not only with most of my family gone (who are around here and with whom I grew up), but with the eating disorder. I have a friend who invites me to every family holiday meal she hosts, which is SO kind, and I truly do appreciate being included. But I still can’t eat around others, and the autonomic disorder makes being inside a space with a thermostat set for normal people difficult, the stuff I’d have to drag with me is nuts, and also the temperature of what I eat impacts my declining invitations. I hope I get to the day when it’s not so hard.
I’m hoping that the pain of not getting well with Ex-T eases consistently in time, and that I get to the point of it being completely behind me. I won’t seek out help from another virtual therapy situation (or any new humans in general), and Medicare won’t pay for much- though I do have a very good dietician, so that helps. In the meantime, I’m exhausted physically and mentally, and am looking forward to possibly getting some snow this weekend. That generally perks me up for a while. -
Getting My Spiritual Life In Order
Photo- mine
I’m not a ‘religioius’ person. Organized religion has become associated with hate, and I can’t ‘do’ that. I was raised in a church way back when they were still fairly inert when it came to discussing social issues. I had a good experience at church during my entire childhood and early adulthood, but when I moved to Texas after getting my nursing boards results back, I worked a LOT of weekends and nights, so church kind of fizzled out, though my beliefs are still strong… they’re just much more moderate and accepting of all kinds of people. I am a Christian, but I’m not going to judge others for their beliefs, or who they love, or anything else that isn’t my business. AS a Christian, I believe that if there’s no compassion involved, I want nothing to do with it.
Because of lifelong pain from humans, I tend to prefer animals and God. It’s much easier for me to believe in something that doesn’t want to hurt me, than a human, whose species has been the source of ongoing pain for as long as I can remember. With animals, there’s no agenda- they just want to live their lives doing their animal thing. With my dogs, they were more emotional support than any human has ever been, though a few have given it a good effort with what they had to work with.
SO, I tend to rely on spiritual things to get me through rough times. For me, that could be finding interesting rocks, the seasons, weather, stars, wild critters, or other things in nature. I feel like the outdoors is my ‘church’, and a favorite activity before becoming disabled was to take my camera out and take a bunch of photos of flowers, storms, tornados, rivers, hills, etc. I’m also getting a lot out of meditation books. They come in all ‘flavors’ with the choice of one’s own spiritual life being left up to each individual. Books like “Chicken Soup for The ______ Soul” are also ones I gravitate towards, along with some of the Hazelden meditation books, or ones like those. They have short chapters, and leave me thinking about a variety of things. They get me out of MYSELF, and looking at the much bigger picture around me. It’s critical for me to have an anchor, and that has always been God for me. But I see God through other things.
I used to be more rigid, when I was going to church as a kid. Thinking was fairly black and white (typical kid stuff), and since social issues weren’t really a church ‘thing’ back then, I had a LOT to learn after leaving home. When I moved to Texas, I encountered my first transvestite- a very nice man in the line at Walgreen’s where he was getting his make-up. I worked during the early years of AIDS, and met so many young men who would never leave the hospital back when everyone died. I got used to different cultures living in Central Texas, and for all of it, I’m so thankful. I met some amazing people of different races, beliefs, LGBTQ (one was a very brave trans man who was transitioning at a time when nobody was talking about it; he was a great co-worker), and other social interests. That was also all part of my spiritual growth. And I’ve stuck to the “everyone deserves respect and to be treated with dignity” way of thinking. I owe a debt of gratitude to the people who showed me how to be a better person from having met them.
I’m far from perfect as a Christian, mostly because perfect doesn’t exist. I’ve been human longer than I’ve been a Christian. I still swear (working on it, just for the sake of really identifying what I’m feeling, and not just blurting something out). I have a lot of work to do, and have realized that nobody knows everything about what God thinks or said. The Bible is important to me, but so is the context of social norms at the time it was written, the things are NOT spoken about, and the fact that nobody could record everything that went on in the thousands of years it was written by humans, inspired by God. But the bigger thing that I was taught is that being compassionate and decent towards ALL people is the most important. With the recent things going, on in my life, that has been challenging. But I’m still trying not to forget what was good. It’s been a minute since there was anything to be an example, but it was there. I’m not sure how real it was, but it was there for a little while, and when I was most unstable medically and nutritionally. I’ve still got to look for the good. -
Waves of Grief and Anger
Photo: Mine
Even though I fully understand that the manipulation and emotional control measures used by my ex-therapist is her pathological shit, it still deeply impacted me. She doesn’t seem to feel remorse about much, and sent me a message saying she hoped i didn’t turn all of the crap she threw at me against myself. WTF? She KNOWS my history of poor attachment and abandonment, and it seems her ‘kindness matters’ schtick is reserved for those who pay for it. I ran out of money, so my former therapist ran off for greener pastures, resulting in a month going by between calls, and always with some reason that didn’t stand up when she said what else she’d been doing. I’m guessing, based on 3 1/2 years of hearing various things from her, that she’s got more patients that are ripe for the squeezing (of parents’ bank accounts). God help them.
I’m still dealing with the grief of not being a success story with that particular therapist, but still hoping that I can do what so many have done, and do it with YouTube videos and the books by those whose channels I prefer. I’m still struggling a lot with what I see in the mirror, and to justify feeding that thing, but at the same time, I know I have to eat enough to stay out of acute renal failure. Chronic kidney disease from poor perfusion (related to decades of inadequate fluids, food, blood pressure, and heart rate) is lousy enough with the protein restrictions.
I’m grieving the person I saw early on in this fiasco, who WAS very attentive, kept in fairly regular contact, went above and beyond a few times when I was sick, or my blood sugar tanked and I was having trouble keeping it up, etc. That person was gone in January 2023. I completely understand that contact lessens with more stable intake and coping with the hell of learning to eat, but then don’t say that a call is coming when the schedule is already booked.
Don’t tell me about multiple (odd) medical issues, that aren’t taken care of, but while being “too ill” to even phone me, she’s off to London to see a patient, off to Canada to see a patient, assessing patients in various parts of Europe, attending conferences in Macedonia, and moving countries again… if she’s so damn sick, she’s certainly not slowed down by it.
When I’ve had medical issues come up, I’d send screenshots of lab work or test results. I can show proof of what is going on. I’ve had multiple chronic disorders since 1995, with pain, dysautonomia, fibromyalgia, epilepsy that was diagnosed in 1986, degenerative disc disease, degenerative joint disease, SI joint inflammation, gout, diabetes, kidney disease, and something I’m forgetting. The epilepsy diagnosis was ‘fine tuned’ diagnosis in about 2005 or so, with a 5 day video EEG that showed increased risk of seizures in the first stages of sleep- however I end up there… bed, low blood sugar, dysautonomia. There have been numerous times when what she told me about her medical stuff, or her daughter’s just hasn’t made sense. She’s not stupid, but I’m not sure if there was some misunderstanding from what the docs told her, or what. But 35 yrs of being an RN, with 20 of that working in various types of nursing (heavy on the ortho and neuro, as well as general med-surg), I can sniff out a skunk fairly well. But it could be that not being a medical person, it was a misunderstanding. All I know is that shit didn’t make sense.
I’ve been doing fairly well with getting food in to meet minimums with macros, and have for a while. I’ve also been using Liquid IV, in order to get enough sodium to keep my BP up (check with your doc before manipulating electrolytes, protein, fat, and carbs for your particular situation). Today, I even managed an apple-cinnamon bagel (scary) with some cream cheese and apple butter, and really liked it. It’s hard for me to say I like something, because my head insists that means I’m going to go nuts and eat an entire package. I was stuffed after that ‘normal’ (not massive) sized bagel and toppings- but I also know that it’s something that is filling, tastes good, and even though I was apprehensive, I got it down without a lot of inner dialogue about eating it.
Individually portioned products are also helpful, and feel safer (depending on what it is). And I’m trying some new things here and there, even if just a bite or two. I do like to try new things, but it’s still scary. Food shouldn’t evoke that kind of emotion. It’s simply a fuel to get my body through the day, as well as repair damage from decades of under-eating.
I am angry at the load of crap I was fed during the love-bombing, and believe none of it at this point. It all seems like one big scam. I feel so stupid for sticking around as long as I did. I think that by not having consistent contact, it’s supposed to make me more appreciative of any crumbs of attention she gave me, but I don’t operate like that. If someone doesn’t do what they say they will, I back off, and take notes. When the BS outweighs anything useful, I don’t let the door hit me in the ass on my way out. And I don’t think she gives a shit that she made things worse. She implied some kind of medical issue that was bad, but in her usual manner, she chooses words wisely that could be interpreted in multiple ways, including pure BS. If she really is sick this time, I don’t wish her any ill will. But I doubt everything she says now. Hopefully, the messages in the archived section of WhatsApp will stay quiet.
I also hope that my head calms down about this. She’s really not worth being upset about, and yet the waves of anger and grief still pop up. Writing helps. So, I write. -
Birthdays With An Eating Disorder
Photo- mine
Birthdays (or any holiday or gatherings around food) are painful for people with eating disorders. I’d hoped to do better this year, but fell short. The ‘plan’ was to order something I wanted without regards to the nutritional information (calories and macros in particular), but it didn’t quite turn out as I planned.
I did manage to get a 5″ cake, but it tasted of the phony ingredients in the sprinkles, so it was disappointing. I did eat about a cupcake’s worth of it. I got a side order of Popeye’s Red Beans & Rice, which I did get down, along with a biscuit. Then things went sideways. I wanted to have a single burger from Culver’s, and onion rings, but when I put those into my food tracker, I freaked out at the total “numbers”, even though I was below my eventual calorie range. It was too much of a jump from where I’ve been.
This goes on with holidays as well. I’ve got a friend who always invites me to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter meals with her family, and has for years. I have a lot of reasons for not going that don’t involve my panic at eating around other people, or other eating disorder freak out triggers. The dysautonomia makes temperature regulation away from home difficult, and requires that I have an ice vest and extra inserts (so another big bag to lug around). My stomach also reacts to hot food, and that can be rough away from home if it sends the meal careening towards the ‘back door’ in a hurry, which isn’t great at someone else’s home where more people will be using the same bathroom. And hot food can trigger a full blown autonomic ‘episode’ where I end up passed out from my BP dropping too low. I also can’t have various foods in ‘normal’ amounts because of diabetes and kidney disease, or much animal ‘flesh’ protein because of gout. I don’t like a lot of holiday food (pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, cooked carrots, etc). So, I suck at being a guest. I don’t like to stick out as some weirdo.
The eating disorder is also a factor. I feel too fat to eat around other people, even though I think nothing of someone larger than I am (or smaller) eating whatever they want. It’s a holiday- have fun ! Eat the goodies ! But not me. My eating disorder ‘voice’ tells me that when I’m small enough, THEN I’ll ‘deserve’ to enjoy food– not just put something in to make the “numbers” look good. I haven’t eaten around anyone (and that was in the car after initial COVID vaccines) since 2021. I haven’t eaten IN a restaurant since 2017, and that was with my uncle. I know nobody is paying attention to what I’m doing when they’re out having a nice time, but I still feel like what I see in the mirror isn’t deserving of food. Not knowing the exact nutritional information is also hard- some of that is necessary for insulin dosing and not exceeding daily protein amounts, but some is just panic.
I want to be able to just enjoy a holiday like a ‘normal’ person, but I haven’t been to a holiday dinner with family or friends since about 2002. I would go after meals and hang out for a while, but always skipped the food, using the dysautonomia as an excuse (and it is a valid one), But the food part is what scared me more. I grew up going to big family Swedish Christmas Eve parties, and love those memories. I try to get some of those foods to have at home, alone.
Birthday is a wrap, so on to what to do about Thanksgiving. I’m thinking about doing a Cornish game hen- small enough not to be intimidating, as well as not having as much waste because i can’t eat a lot of it (I can freeze the extra). Maybe some stuffing. I WANT to eat that. I hope I do better in a few weeks. I am determined to get well. It’s just slow going, with trial and error. I don’t feel like I necessarily failed today- but I do think I’m learning how to minimize panic, while eating things that are still scary. The cake may have sucked, but I still ate it. Next time, I’ll get something different. Live and learn.