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| Wed, 04-14-2004 - 10:11am |
i am a binger/starver and i am scared this morning because i spent the past two weeks out of town visiting my family and a friend. before i left i said to myself it is the perfect time to try to stop starving because i'll have really loving people around me all the time. instead what happened was i basically overate for 2 weeks and now i am horrified by the changes in my body. maybe i am imagining some of them but for sure my clothes are tighter. i KNOW i should be saying to myself "you've already been eating for 2 weeks and you aren't dead, so just slow it down to normal eating and it will be fine." i know my body is just freaking out about being fed and will straighten itself out if i stop bingeing and starving and just eat when i'm hungry. but instead of thinking and doing these rational healthy things i am already starving again. and i can't look at myself in the mirror without crying and i feel like i'm going to fall apart any minute. maybe part of that is missing my family and friend too.
i have a psychiatrist, i started going because my husband and i separated early this year. i am much too afraid to tell him, for two reasons. first, i'm afraid he won't believe me because i am tall and normal weight. second, i'm afraid he will believe me and will actually help me and i'll get better. it's awful but my eating behaviors are so comfortable for me that i only feel good emotionally when i'm doing it, even though i feel like a wreck physically. have any of you had trouble talking to a psychiatrist about this? how did you manage to get everything out? i have thought of writing it all down and just kind of presenting him with a written list. is getting better really something to dread?
thank you for letting me spill all this.

Hello hemmy and welcome to the board. Your struggles and fears sound very familiar, and I am glad you are reaching out for help.
Most people with EDs do not want to give up their habits because they are comfortable, like you said yourself. No matter how miserable we might be, at least the misery is familiar. The thing to keep in mind is that no person on earth can make you change if you don't want to. So you could start talking to your psychiatrist, when you are ready, and if possible just be completely honest. Tell him you are not ready to change yet. And even when you ARE ready, the changes won't happen overnight. Instead they will be very gradual and if you are like me, once you get a taste of what life is like without ED, you want the changes to come faster.
I agree that if your psychiatrist does not believe you it's time to find a different one, but I highly doubt that this is the case. EDs have become more widely known in the last few years and men and women alike of all shapes and sizes suffer from them. If you can, open up and tell him. I know right now you don't want to recover, but it really is so much better to be free of ED. I struggled for roughly 24 years and I wouldn't go back to that way of life for anything in the world.
Please keep us posted and remember, it's all in YOUR time. You have to feel comfortable with what you do and you will know when you are ready. Just start preparing mentally to tell your psychiatrist and see how it goes. If it doesn't happen next time you see him, don't beat yourself up. And please post any time you need to with questions, concerns, or just to check in.
Love & hugs, Kristina
The opinions I have expressed here are from my own experience and are not intended as medical advice or to take the place of your own physician's advice.
Love & hugs, Kristina
last night i also told a guy i have been seeing that i won't see him again. he has been weirdly supportive of my eating problems, telling me not to eat or to throw up, etc. this feels strange, because i always knew hanging around him was terrible for me but again, the "comfortable" thing. also i have turned the mirrors in my apartment to face the wall and threw away my calories/exercise log, and started a real journal in which i mean to avoid listing what i eat and how i work out. these seem like tiny little steps and so far i don't feel that much different but i know they are steps i need to take right now. and i am trying to say if that's what i can manage, that's ok. reading the messages here and at eatingdisordersanonymous.org have really helped.
thank you both again. i'll definitely keep coming here for help and hopefully, evenutally, to help others :)
please HELP!!!
i recently finished a book about bingeing and purging called "Bulimarexia: The Binge/Purge Cycle" by Marlene Boskind-White and William C. White. you might like to read it just because it's a pretty hopeful book. it describes a course of therapy for bulimics. one of the things i liked best about it was the author would describe a patient or certain bulimic behaviors and i would say "yes! that's me!" i could recognize my problem in this book. also this book discusses bulimia as a habit rather than a disease (like you said, it starts to feel more like a bad habit...i express this as "it feels comfortable"). your local public library probably has a copy or can get one for you through interlibrary loan.
one of the things this book describes is the patients coming up with several alternatives to bingeing and/or purging. so when you feel you might binge, you say ok, i'm going to try the alternatives, which might be thinking about why you want to binge, or roller skating, or reading, or whatever. BUT the patients did not have to completely rule out bingeing either. so they had nothing to lose by trying the alternatives first, because if nothing else worked, no one was going to hate them for bingeing. and much of the time the alternatives either took the place of the binge or at least delayed it. and eventually the alternatives became the habit for dealing with whatever brought on the binge feelings instead of actually bingeing. and then after the binge, they did the same thing with purging. "ok, so i binged. here are my alternatives to purging...if they don't work i can still purge, so i have nothing to lose by trying." it makes sense to me and doesn't seem as traumatic or overwhelming as saying "i will never binge or purge again as of this moment."
also maybe try an overeaters anonymous meeting? i went to my first one on friday evening. i was a little concerned that they couldn't address bulimia but i read some of the literature and it seems to really be for anyone who has any type of overeating problem. since you have been getting help for a while, maybe you've already tried it. but if you feel hopeless and need in-person support, maybe an overeaters anonymous meeting could help you. the people seemed very kind. the website has a meeting finder at http://www.oa.org/all_about_meetings.htm
i had a mini-binge this morning but the the whole time i was doing it i was thinking about what i was doing whereas before i read "Bulimarexia" i was just a zombie eating too much. this time i said "i am doing this, this is me doing this," like taking responsibility for it, and it wasn't so bad. somehow connecting myself to what i was doing made the binge not so bad. now i'm working on my feelings for the rest of the day :)
anyway i hope you can find whatever push you need to stop. sorry for the long post but maybe there's something in here to help you.
I just wanted to thank you for sharing this:
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I think I may try that.
Rayah