Still hoping, still eating

Update

2009-05-10T00:46:00.000-07:00

I've had a few comments on my last post asking for an update so people can see how I'm getting on. This post doesn't mean I'm going to be posting regularly again yet though.

The past few months have been extremely hard for me for several reasons. The first is the break-up with my boyfriend which I'm still not completely over, even if I have stopped crying about it on a regular basis. I still think we should have worked together but I can't sit around waiting for him to realise he's been an idiot. I'm not over him yet, I'm not ready to start dating again by a long way but I'm getting there.

I started a new, challenging job in September. I went through a few months of not being sure I was doing the job right, wondering why they'd hired me and thinking that I was never going to get the hang of things. I think I have now. It's got to a point where I think I'm doing a useful job and I'm really enjoying some of my work.

The other implication of the new job was it meant moving home. I moved to a new town most of the way across the country (this is England, not Amercia, so it's not as bad as it could be) from where I'd been living. This means I'm a fair distance from my friends and family. That was incredibly tough.

But I've survived these changes.

I had some bad days. I had some really bad days. And I had some occasions where I spent too much of the weekend eating half the menu of the local Chinese take-away.

There were some extremely rough moments when it felt that relapse would be all but inevitable, but I got through them.

One of the things that helped was something I wouldn't have expected to. I started taking kung fu. I went to the class for the first time more or less on a whim. I'd been here a couple of months and barely knew anyone outside of work, so I could go the entire weekend without real human contact. So I looked up classes and courses that were on at the weekend just so I'd be out there meeting people. I saw kung fu listed and figured why not.

I think that was a good decision for a wide range of reasons. Firstly, and probably most importantly, it's fun. I enjoy the classes and like the instructor. I like the other people taking the class so I get some socialising and am even starting to meet a couple of them outside the classes as well. But the reason that has most significance for me as a formerly disordered person: it's exercise that I don't control.

My instructor is the one who decides whether we have a hard or an easy class. He's the one who determines what we do and when and tells us we should be going home at the end of the session. He is the one who determines how hard I should be pushing myself, not the amount I ate the day before. If you go to the gym, you're in control of how much you exercise, how long and how hard. If you've had over-exercise as a symptom of a disorder, this can be dangerous. But my kung fu instructor has no way to know whether I ate normally or binged the day before, so the exercise is separated from the food. It becomes something that I do, not something that I do out of guilt.

My instructor also brings up the subject of food occasionally in class. For some people, this might be off-putting, but it helps me. He tells people off if they don't eat enough. One of the worst mistakes you can make is admitting in class that you haven't eaten breakfast. It's nice for me to hear someone saying that we should be eating more. He encourages healthy eating, but he does it by encouraging eating, rather than saying things are forbidden.

It's been good for me to know I have an instructor who cares about my general health and who won't be afraid to ask me what I've eaten. I hate lying, so I'm more likely to eat decently to avoid having to if he should ask me. The second time I nearly fainted in class, he started taking a strong interest in whether or not I was eating enough. He doesn't know I used to have an eating disorder and I doubt I'm going to tell him but it's reassuring to me to know that there's someone who'll ask me whether or not I ate after getting home from work, so I'm less likely to skip meals.

If you're in recovery and you had over-exercise as a symptom of your disorder, it can be difficult to know how to get back to exercise. There's no clear boundary between exercise and over-exercise. So I would recommend joining a class or a club of some sort. Make it something you enjoy, so exercise is fun not punishment. And make it something where someone else is in charge. That way, you'll be doing the same level of exercise regardless of whether dinner was half an apple or half the fridge. By turning over control to someone else, your disorder isn't the thing determining how hard you exercise.

So, in conclusion, I'm doing alright. I'm enjoying my job, I'm starting to make friends here and I've found a form of exercise I can enjoy without abusing it. There's another good thing that's happened to me over the past few months that proves there can be good even in bad times. I signed a publishing contract towards the end of last year and my first novel will be in book shops from September.

Giving this a break

2008-06-16T00:49:00.000-07:00

I can't do this right now.

I'm completely messed up about my boyfriend dumping me (for no good reason I can see) and it takes time and effort to research and write coherant posts about eating disorders. I can't face that right now. It's difficult enough trying to keep myself from going back to everything I quit, without making myself think about it.

So I'm taking a break. I won't be posting for a while.

Hopefully, I'll be back when I get my head sorted out.

No video today

2008-06-12T00:22:00.001-07:00

In previous weeks, Thursday has been a day for posting a new video.

I haven't made one this week. Making a video requires time and thinking about feelings. I'm trying to avoid both of those things. I meet people and schedule things with friends and then fill the gaps with anything and everything so that I don't have a spare moment to think about how I'm feeling.

It seems to be working. I made it through most of yesterday before I completely broke down.

I'm not letting myself mope, because once I start, I will hide under my duvet forever and only emerge to get more food.

Over the past few days, I've eaten quite a bit more than I should, and mostly sweets and fatty foods, but I've not had a real binge. That's probably something to do with not giving myself time. If I'm constantly doing things, there's physically not enough time to have a real binge.

It's still taking a huge amount of control to even maintain an illusion of holding it together.

Crying lakes of tears

2008-06-10T03:56:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend has dumped me. He ended a three and a half year, near-perfect relationship. His reason: he was worried that if he stayed with me he'd end up settling down with me.

This is the comment of one friend on her thoughts when she saw I'd changed my relationship status on Facebook: "I was assuming... hoping... believing... that he'd proposed to you - I know that Facebook can be complicated when entering that sort of thing."

Another friend: "Wow, I can't say that didn't come as a shock."

A few months ago, when we found out we'd be spending a year at opposite ends of the country, a friend said, "You'll manage. You're you two."

Another friend at that same time, "I'm sure you can cope with a year long-distance. You're perfect together."

It seems the only person who didn't think we'd be together long-term was him.

Right now I think I'm going to be needing to pay attention to all the advice I've given to other people if I'm going to get through this. I'm spending loads of time with friends, so hopefully that will a) keep me from binging and b) keep me from thinking of him and crying my eyes out constantly.

Weekly Update 8th June

2008-06-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

I am not in the right mood for writing an entry in a recovery blog.

I'd gone over seven months since I'd had a real binge. About eight months since I purged afterwards.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Cry in the Dark

2008-06-05T00:52:00.000-07:00

Recovering from an eating disorder is incredibly difficult. Fortunately, there are charities and support structures out there.

If you live in the UK, there is beat. If you live in the states, there is NEDA. Both of these organisations should help you find help near you.

Sometimes, there are no local groups. Sometimes, the thought of facing someone and telling them what you do is just too terrifying. In those cases, online groups can be an amazing help.

Livejournal communites like ed_friends and purgatorium can help you feel you're not alone. Be careful though, some people find that reading others going on about their disorders can trigger relapses. Make sure you join a group that supports recovery. Look at different communities and read a lot of their posts before joining. You want to join a group that's supportive and friendly, one that doesn't offer tips for continuing behaviour and one which will applaud you as you try to recover.

If you're not on livejournal, there are forums. One that is pretty quiet but very friendly is ED Friends Unite. This forum is very strictly pro-recovery, so it's a good place to go for any eating disorder. If that doesn't suit you, just search google. Remember, always look for pro-recovery. As with the livejournal groups, read through posts and check that the place is right for you. It should be supporting the fight to recover, with friendly members and not sharing tips for how to make your disorder worse.

All Alone in a Crowd

2008-06-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I went to meet the people who are starting on the same graduate training scheme as me. One part of the day was a "speed dating" section which involved us finding out each others' main hobbies. Three of the guys put down drinking.

Watching a presentation about how much fun last year's graduates had had on the scheme, there were an awful lot of pictures of people with drinks in hand.

Talking with the other people, there were plenty of comments about drinking, nights out and hangovers dropped into the conversation.

And suddenly I'm back to feeling like a sixteen year old freak who doesn't want to try drinking, isn't interested in dating and would rather stay in with a book than try and sneak into clubs. I was lucky in school; there were a couple of other girls who also didn't rush to the toilets to check their make-up at the end of the day, just in case they passed a guy while on the way home. I found a couple of people who weren't fussed about grabbing a boyfriend or going out clothes shopping or getting drunk. At university, I found a surprising number of friends who don't drink and plenty of others for whom alcohol is something occasionally sampled as a glass of wine at a party.

But there is still often that sense that I don't fit in. This loneliness and feeling of not being like everyone else was, I think, a large contributing factor in my developing a disorder.

I was talking to my mum the other day about one of my cousins. It seems he really doesn't fit in with his classmates at school because they're all interested in drinking, smoking, drugs and having sex (or at least pretending to be so for the sake of appearences). I went to a private school with a strong emphasis on academic acheivement, which meant that the crowd interested in those things was smaller and less influential. He's at a comprehensive and seems to be the only one not wanting to get drunk, high or laid.

I don't see most of my cousins that often, but I do sometimes worry. There is strong evidence that eating disorders have a major genetic factor. I can remember comments from my aunt in the past about how he seems to eat a lot but stay thin. Maybe he's lucky. Maybe he's energetic. Maybe my aunt has a different value for "a lot of food" than I do.

But I wonder and I worry and I wish there was some way that I could let him know that things get better. He won't always feel like he's the only one not interested.

Look what's inside

2008-06-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

I like to know precisely what's in my food.

This is why I rarely eat out or buy food from cafes; I can't tell what's been added. I've no idea if the chef has added a load of olive oil or fried the ingredients in butter or added piles of fat. Not knowing what's in my food scares me a little sometimes.

I even have it with my mum's cooking. I'm travelling most of the length of the country and, rather than do it in one go, I'm staying at my parent's house tonight. My mum will be cooking dinner. She's a very good cook and is usually on a diet, so I know that what I'll be eating will be a healthy mixture of fresh ingredients. But I hate the fact that I don't know exactly what's in there in what proportions.

When I'm out somewhere and buy food, I would rather choose a less healthy option that comes with nutritional information and an ingredients list on the side, than buy something that looks all natural and good for me.

I've learned to cope with this fear. I will go out for dinner and not spend an hour pouring over the menu trying to decide which is the least fattening option. I will enjoy an item of food that doesn't say in clear numbers what it contains.

But in some ways, I feel like those people who have to overcome arachnophobia by being made to look at spiders, then handle them, then eventually pick up a tarantulla. I can control my fear of unknown foods well enough in normal circumstances, but I think I'm a long way from being ready for the tarantulla.

Weekly Update 1st June 2008

2008-06-01T05:23:00.000-07:00

After Friday's near failure, it's hardly surprising that I haven't lost any weight this week. It's not helped by the fact that I went to watch a show with friends yesterday (Ockham's Razor aerial show - it's brilliant) and bought some sweets in the interval. I ate most of the packet (I shared) and then, when I got home, ate the jaffa cakes I'd bought on Friday. I'm not even sure why. I wasn't feeling like I needed to binge, I just opened them and ate them knowing full well I'd regret it in the morning.

When I got on the scales this morning, they said I was the same weight as last week. The thing is, I don't trust scales so I'm automatically paranoid that it's an illusion. My period's just finished and my first thought was that I must have been bloated last week and now I've lost that water weight.

Why do I believe scales when they say I've gained but not when I stay stable or lose?

Ah well. I could have done without Friday's mishap, but the rest of the week was pretty good.

Breaking free from bulimia Part Three

2008-05-31T05:04:00.000-07:00

After my near miss with binging yesterday, it seemed appropriate to continue with my posts on recovery since the third in this series is about perseverance. Recovery is a hard and slow process. It can take years and for half of the time not seem to be getting anywhere. There are bad days where you seem to forget everything you've learned and embrace the bad habits completely. But it is always worth fighting.

The day when you put the food back on the shelf at the supermarket and decide you're not buying binge supplies, that day makes the ones where you've slipped up seem less important.

The day when you can eat normal meals with friends make it worth the struggle.

There is no miracle cure. You don't just get better. But recovery is still possible.

Keeping going

Don't aim for a complete cure in one go. You're certain to slip up a load of times before you reach recovery. Trying to get better all at once is going to lead to you seeing these slip ups as failures. They're not. They just happen.

Instead, set smaller goals. "I will not binge at all tomorrow." "I will go two days without purging." "I won't binge on more than x amount of food."

Set yourself targets of short lengths of time without binging. Start with a day, then go to two days, then three. It will take a while and there will be many occasions when you don't meet the targets you set yourself, but it will feel amazing when you can say that you've gone a week without binging.

Try not to be discouraged by the times you don't meet your goals. Just set yourself another, possibly making it slightly smaller, and try again. That's the important point. Try again. And again. And again.

Sometimes it can help to try with other people, whether in real life or online. There are pro-recovery groups and online communities. Ask other members to join you in trying to go without binging for a few days. It may make it easier to succeed if you have to admit to others when you slip up. Some people find this just puts pressure on them, makes the whole thing more stressful and makes them binge more. It's up to you to do what works for you. If sharing your attempts at binge-free days helps you, then do it, if it doesn't, find something else that helps.

It might help you to keep a record of when you binge. Over time, you can look back and see the binges getting less and less frequent. On the other hand, this might be discouraging if all you see is a list of all the times you messed up. Remember, only do this if it helps you. It might be better to record the days when you don't binge, focussing on the food rather than the bad.

Find reasons to recover. Spend time with friends and people you care about. Spent time doing things you enjoy. Life can seem bleak and horrifying when you're disordered, but it is worth living. Try and spend some time each day doing things you like doing that aren't connected with food and this will serve as a reminder of why you're trying to get better.

Always, always keep fighting.

No more exams

2008-05-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

Today, I had my last exam at university. This is a wonderful feeling.

I hate exams. I feel I have to get perfect marks. I'm terrified of doing badly. So, I eat. That's how it's worked since GCSE. Even since recovery, exams = eating. I eat more than is healthy, sometimes picking at food when I'm not hungry, sometimes eating quite large amounts in one go. It's as though for the length of the exam period, I acquire the symptoms of compulsive overeating disorder.

I know I don't have this disorder, but exams make me act like I do.

I don't purge anymore. I don't fast or skip meals. I exercise a healthy amount. I don't swallow loads of diet pills daily.

I worry more about purging techniques than I do about binging, which means that the week or so after exams, I feel horrendously guilty about what I've eaten, but don't get the satisfaction that always used to come with over-exercising or skipping meals. I eat way more than I should for the week or so that I have exams, but I don't burn it all off the way I used to. It means that weeks or months of being healthy get undone in a few days as the fat piles on again.

The worst times during my disorder were when I had exams. The times I've come closest to relapsing afterwards have been during exams. Today, after I've gone so long without a real binge, I went to buy something for lunch and ended up buying:

A pack of sandwiches
Two mini apple pies
A snack-pack of biscuits (two biscuits)
A packet of jaffa cakes
Two bottles of fizzy drink
A packet of crisps
And a huge, huge bag full of pick 'n' mix

Compared to binges in my past, that list is very short. The fact that some of the food remains uneaten is a sign of how far I've come. It was helped, no doubt, by the fact that I met a friend soon after buying all this. I could have gone and eaten it all in one go. Instead, with little difficulty, I stayed and ate some of it in a large, but not binge-like lunch. The rest stayed hidden in my bag.

I didn't binge today. I ate more than I should and this food, combined with dinner, have left me feeling fuller than is comfortable, but I didn't binge.

It doesn't change the fact that my reaction to stress is to go out and buy food. Even if I don't eat it all, that habit still lingers from my disorder. I haven't acted in a way that would classify as bulimic for years. So why can't I be rid of this need?

Can you hear me now?

2008-05-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

I've seen various documentaries about eating disorders. I can't think of one that doesn't, at some point, mention rape or abuse as a possible "cause" of eating disorders. I remember one documentary talking about how eating disorders sometimes start when a teenager's parents get divorced. They stated clearly that not everyone whose parents divorce will develop an eating disorder, but failed to even mention that a lot of disorder sufferers have parents who are happily married.

I think people look too often for causes in the environment. Some people are biologically susceptible to developing disorders and the triggers can be just about anything, sometimes events so small that the sufferer doesn't even remember them later.

I've read posts in other blogs talking about how families are often seen as the cause of a disorder, with people believing that someone develops this illness because of problems at home. So often, that's not the case. Eating disorders can be started by anything. What matters is recovery, not finding someone to blame.

To tell or not to tell

2008-05-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

I was meeting up with a group of friends in a coffee bar on campus before going off to an event. I'd been eating healthily all day, done a fair amount of walking and hadn't had a great deal for dinner. I was feeling proud of myself for not binging despite it being exam time, usually my biggest challenge.

So I decided to get myself something to eat. I hadn't had anything sugary all day and I thought it would be alright to treat myself, so I bought a rice crispie cake and a chocolate bar. I was actually feeling good about buying them, telling myself that I was like any normal person and didn't have to feel guilty about induging in sweet things every once in a while.

In the group was one girl who a few people had been teasing about the amount of sugary drinks she consumes on a regular basis. She's fine with this and happily joins in the joking. Then she sees what I've bought myself and comments that maybe she's not the only one who should cut down on sugar.

My first reaction was, "Oh god, my friends all think I'm a fat, greedy pig."

I know she didn't mean it in that way. She was continuing with a light-hearted conversation and did not for one moment intend it to sound insulting. She had no way to know that the teasing she'd been happily receiving would seem like a crushing blow when aimed at me.

I don't advertise the fact I've been disordered. The number of my friends who know is probably so low that you could count it on your fingers and not run out of digits.

After the other day, I began to wonder if I should change that. My friends can accidentally hurt me without ever realising, because they don't know what a difficult subject food is for me. Because they don't know, it would be easy for them to step onto what is for me very rocky ground.

But I don't want to tell them. There's so much misunderstanding about eating disorders. I still worry that they won't understand, that they'll think I'm trying to get attention or that I was just a silly teenaged girl trying to lose weight by a stupid method. Even if they try to understand, most of them probably won't.

Then there's potential awkwardness. Food comes up so often in social contexts and I dread the idea that they would start acting differently towards me at those times. I want to be normal and that means being treated normally. I don't want my friends to start worrying if they ought to be offering me a sweet. I won't want them to wonder what I'm doing if I need to use the toilet after sharing a meal.

I want things to carry on as they are. But at the same time, I want them to know not to make comments I can interpret as them saying I'm eating too much.

I guess I can't have it both ways.

Breaking free from bulimia Part Two

2008-05-26T02:51:00.001-07:00

As with part one, what I'm offering here is suggestions. My ideas won't work for everyone but if you think they might help, give them a go. They idea is for you to build up a collection of tools that help you cope with your illness and move on from it. Find what works for you and never stop trying.

Avoiding purging

By purging, I don't just mean induced vomiting; I'm referring to all forms of purging behaviour. This is where bulimia gets dangerous. Yes, there are health problems associated with binging and overeating, but the health risks associated with bulimia generally come from purging techniques.

Find out what those dangers are.

Whether you purge by vomiting, laxatives, diet pills or excessive exercise, there are dangers. Work out a list of what you do to try and lose weight after or between binges, then look up the dangers of those online. There are websites with some gruesome pictures of the dangers of repeated vomiting or laxative abuse. There are photos of the bodies of dead bulimia victims. It's horrible and it's gross, but looking at those pictures are a good way to scare you into wanting to avoid dangerous techniques.

Once you've worked out your list of techniques and the dangers, list the techniques you use in order of how significant the health risk is. For example, induced vomiting is more dangerous than excessive exercise, taking large quantities of laxatives is more dangerous than taking the recommended dose of diet pills, and so on.

It would take incredible will power just to stop purging completely all at once. It's easier to try and cut down slowly. You now know which behaviours are the most likely to do permanent damage or even kill you, so cut down on those. If you perform purging behaviours that have very little associated risk, keep going with those while you try and tackle the more dangerous ones.

As you reduce the number of binges, it naturally becomes easier to reduce the purging.

If you still feel the need to purge, try and remember those horrible pictures and they might remind you why you don't want to be doing this.

Now I'll try and give you ideas for avoiding specific types of purging. Don't just follow this list. Everyone's behaviour is slightly different, so you may find your own tricks that work better for you.

Try and spend time with other people. A lot of purging activities are time consuming and you will be able to do less if you're with friends. This will also help reduce binging. Because bulimic behaviour is very private, it's unlikely that you'll want to perform any in front of friends. This may also help reduce depression and increase self-esteem if you're spending time with people you like and who like you. Have fun and just try to spend time not thinking about your body.

Spend more time in public places, even if you're on your own. Instead of staying in your house, start hanging around in places where the only toilets are public ones with several cubicles. You won't want to throw up when anyone could walk in and hear you and start asking if you're alright.

It's about reducing the opportunity. It's a lot easier to resist the temptation to purge if you have less chance.

If you purge by excessive exercise, schedule trips to the gym but make sure they're before something else you need to do. That way, you can go to the gym, do a healthy amount of exercise but then you'll be forced to stop. If you know you have only an hour to exercise before you need to go and meet someone or attend a lecture or perform some task, then you won't be able to do more than an hour.

Exercising for small periods of time is a good idea. It will help reduce feelings of guilt from eating and any binges which might still be happening. It will keep your body healthy but, by keeping the exercise sessions short, you won't be putting too much strain on your body.

Set a limit on the amount of exercise you will do a day; an hour would be a reasonable amount. If friends or family know about your illness and that you're trying to recover, tell them about this limit. That way, they will see if you go over it. They will be able to persuade you to stop and it will be easier for you to keep to the self-imposed limits if other people can see you doing so.

Throw out any diet pills or laxatives that you have. You can't use them if you don't have them. If there is a shop you go to that sells them, try and only go to that shop with other people, because then it will be easier to resist the temptation. If you do give in to the temptation to buy more, throw them out again. It may be a waste of money, but it's better than damaging your body.

Now for the hardest idea of all, try to convince yourself you don't need to purge. Even if you eat a large meal or have a bad day and binge, tell yourself that you don't need to get rid of it. This will not be easy and it will not happen all at once. If you can delay the purging, that's a good start.

Try and work out the emotional reasons behind your binging and purging. I won't advise you how to tackle these issues; you'd be better off talking to friends or a qualified therapist. There will be emotional issues involved in your behaviour. If you can find a way to tackle those, the rest will become easier.

And just keep trying. There will be bad days. There will be worse days. But there will be good days too. Just keep hoping and fighting until the good days come more often than the bad.

Weekly Update 25th May

2008-05-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

My weight's stayed stable this week. I haven't binged. I haven't over-eaten. I haven't over-exercised. This is almost a surprise, because I had an exam this week and I've another one next week. Exams are usually my trigger for a major pig-out.

On Wednesday, I had to take my car to have its MOT done and I had to spend several hours wandering round a nearby shopping centre because I couldn't go home until they were finished with my car. This involved a few hours sitting in cafes and coffee shops, but I managed to avoid overeating. I did fall back on bad habits in that I ordered for lunch a sandwich containing an ingredient I didn't like, simply because it was the lowest calorie option.

I also bought some more diet pills. These have actually be scientifically tested and there are clinical trials showing they bind to fat and prevent digestion. They don't appear to have had any effect on my weight, probably because I usually eat very low fat foods, so there's not a lot for them to bind to.

I know the diet pills were a bad idea because they bring me back to old habits, but I'll be able to stop taking them when I finish the packet and not have any feelings of guilt, because I know they don't make much difference.

All in all, this was a good week.

Breaking free from bulimia Part One

2008-05-24T00:18:00.001-07:00

Breaking free from bulimia is difficult and can take a long time, so I thought I'd share a few ideas that have helped me. They may not help everyone because everyone's different, but if you suffer from bulimia, search for your own tools to escape this disease.

Avoiding binges

Stopping binging is really the key factor in recovery, because this prevents the guilt and dangerous purging methods. Binging can be caused either by emotional factors or by physical ones. The physical causes are much easier to deal with than the emotional ones.

The human body has had billions of years of evolution go into its creation and in most of that time, food was short so we have evolved instincts for avoiding starvation. Your body doesn't want you to die. So, when you restrict too much or exercise far more than your consumption, these starvation instincts kick in. You start craving sugary and fatty foods. This is a natural response that almost everyone has (the ones that don't are probably diagnosed anorexics). When you deprive your body of food, you will feel an overwhelming need to eat. Your body has evolved in times of little food so that when you see an availabilty, you will stuff your face because your instincts don't know when you'll have another opportunity.

This is a perfectly natural response that can be avoided. Never let your body get so hungry that a binge is instinctive. Eat regular meals and light snacks between them. I always have a supply of carrot sticks and dried fruit so that I can have something to eat if I get peckish and never get starving hungry so that I end up eating half the contents of a vending machine in one go.

Another method of avoiding binges is to remove the opportunity. Don't keep binge foods around. If you don't have any in the house, this puts an obstacle between you and the binge and can make it easier to resist.

Whenever I went to the supermarket, the temptation was there to fill up my basket with all the fatty sugary junk I used to binge on. So I never went to the shop on my own. Persuade a friend to go with you. If they know about your eating disorder, explain that it's to make sure you don't end up buying binge foods. If they don't know, then presumably you don't want them to know so it will be easier for you to resist buying all the things you know you shouldn't. Another possibility is ordering food online. I get most of my weekly shopping delivered by Tesco. It's much easier to resist a picture on a screen than a packet of biscuits within easy reach.

Someone on a forum mentioned a time locked safe. She puts biscuits and things like that into a safe that she can only get into once a day. When it opens, she can take out a couple of items, but for the rest of the day she doesn't have the ability to get in so she can't end up binging on whatever's stored in there.

Find whatever method is right for you, but make it hard to binge. If the nearest shop to you doesn't accept cards, make sure you never carry cash around. That way, you'll have to go further to buy supplies.

If you do feel the need to binge, go somewhere that doesn't give you the ability. Go into a cafe and order something small. You will be able to eat and get rid of any physical hunger, but you won't be able to binge.

Just keep putting hurdles between you and the binges and eventually you'll be able to resist them. Find whatever method works best for you.

Try and avoid triggers. What makes you want to binge? Are there certain places or types of events that make you feel the need to binge?

For me, loud parties with lots of people getting drunk always make me feel out of place, awkward and antisocial. I get miserable and feel like a freak for not enjoying myself. Then I go and eat. I've learned to politely turn down invitations to these events. It means I feel antisocial when I reject the offer, but I don't have a miserable evening that makes me go to the nearest late night shop or vending machine and stuff my face.

If there is any event that almost always makes you binge, don't go.

If you struggle to resist temptation when there's a large availability of food, don't go to places that offer a free buffet or eat anywhere that sells all you can eat.

Triggers are different for different people. Try and work out if there are factors that link your binges and then try and work out ways to avoid those factors in future.

That's not enough to be free. You will still struggle and binge and hate yourself for it, but if you can reduce the number of binges, you'll reduce the self-loathing and that will reduce the desire to binge again. There will still be the emotional factors affecting your desire to binge. It may be that the best way to deal with those is to talk to friends or see a therapist. Because the contributing issues are a varied as the sufferers of this disorder, I can't give a list of ways to make them go away. You'll have to deal with those yourself or get professional help.

What I'm offering is just a couple of tools. You'll have to built your own toolkit that helps you fight back against this disease.

Recovery

2008-05-23T06:11:00.000-07:00

Another blog I read posted a list of what recovery looks like. I thought I would try the same with my own experiences.

Recovery is...

Walking into the supermarket and coming out again with only the things that were on my shopping list.
Not instantly thinking of an excuse to leave when a friend mentions ordering take-away.
Eating a slice of birthday cake and feeling good that it's my birthday not horrible about the amount of fat and sugar.
Going out for a meal with my boyfriend and focussing more on him than working out the calorie count of my dinner.
Buying an item of food because I like the taste, even when it has five more calories than another option.
Standing on the scales in the morning, seeing my reflection and feeling hideously fat, then going and eating a healthy breakfast.
Having a bad day, eating a load of junk in one go, and then managing to eat more than a stick of celery the next day.
Taking a biscuit when a friend offers me the packet and knowing I'll be able to stop after one or two.
Going to the gym because I want to keep fit, rather than because I want to burn off a binge.
Not having a load of wrappers hidden around my room because I'm scared people will spot them if I throw them in the bin.
Eating a bar of chocolate, fretting about the calorie count and then managing to cook dinner.
Going for a long walk and not having to worry that I'll faint on the way.
Being scared that I'm fat and hideous, but not letting it stop me living my life.

One and Lonely

2008-05-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

Another Superchick song.

I would like to point out for any Americans who are watching this that the "size 12" mentioned at one point is the British size 12. This is size 8-10 in US sizes.

Scales

2008-05-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

I don't use BMI to judge my fitness. It's a terrible scale and I can't understand why it's so universally used. It doesn't take into account muscle mass or bone structure. I know that weight isn't the best judge of fat content. So why do I still weigh myself every day?

Why do I feel close to panic when I see that I've gained three pounds since yesterday?

To gain three pounds of fat, I would have had to have eaten more than 10000 calories more than my body expended. Even my biggest binges wouldn't have reached that total.

My boyfriend took me out for dinner last night. It was at a nice restaurant with excellent quality and I enjoyed it. I was able to focus not on the thoughts of, "Oh, god, how much fat is in this?" but on the fact I was sharing delicious food with someone I love. That alone is a sign of how far I've come over the past few years.

But I still stood on the scales this morning and all the old thoughts rushed back. I know logically that I can't have gained that much fat. I know that it's natural fluctuations, water content and the remains of the dinner still in my digestive systems. Yet it still felt like failure.

There were a lot of times during my eating disorder where it felt that my mind was split into two parts. I don't me an actual split personality disorder. I just mean that I felt there was the sensible part of my mind that could see what was happening and understand it. And then there was the rest of me. Every time I went to buy food for a binge, the sensible part of my brain would be saying, "Make yourself a sandwich if you're hungry. You don't want to do this." But the rest of me was still under the control of the disorder and wouldn't listen.

Over time, the two voices have shifted position. Now the sensible part is the louder voice and keeps me in control. That's the part of my brain that tells me it's alright to have a biscuit and that just because I ate a lot the day before it doesn't mean I shouldn't have dinner. But the little disordered voice is still there in the background, whispering that I'm fat and a failure and that an hour at the gym just isn't long enough.

I wish there was some way to make that little voice disappear. All I can do is try to ignore it and hope it fades further into the background.

But I will keep getting on the scales each morning. It means giving in to that little voice a bit each day, but it's better than the alternative. It's better than not knowing and having my imagination add pound upon pound to my weight.

What Disorders Look Like

2008-05-19T02:19:00.000-07:00

I had a comment asking, not quite so politely, why I wasn't skinny if I'd had an eating disorder so long. Why is there an assumption that eating disorder sufferers must be thin? Many aren't.

In this post, I will describe the general trends in weight of sufferers of the four main eating disorders COE, binge-eating, bulimia and anorexia. I won't discuss EDNOS, since the sufferers can have a wide range of symptoms and fall just about anywhere on the spectrum.

I would like to emphasize that I'm generalising. With the number of eating disorder sufferers in the world, there are bound to be exceptions.

Compulsive Over-Eating Disorder

Trying to find a clear definition of this disorder, I've found a lot of sites trying to tell me that this is the same thing as binge-eating. It's not There are similarities and there are wide grey areas between the two where sufferers might be classified as one or the other, but they're not the same.

With COE, the sufferer has an addiction to food. They will use it as a means of coping with emotions. They will eat when they're not hungry, eat until they feel uncomfortably feel uncomfortably full and spend excessive amounts of time thinking about food. COE sufferers might binge, which is why this disorder is often confused with binge-eating disorder, but they also might graze. Grazing refers to constantly picking at food.

Almost all sufferers are overweight or obese. Some might exercise or try to graze only on healthy foods, so the affects might not always be obvious. Generally though, these people are consuming far more calories than is healthy and so will be overweight.

COE is possibly the most misunderstand disorders, because people assume sufferers are just greedy or lazy.

Binge-Eating Disorder and Bulimia

I'm discussing these two together because I feel they fall at either end of a range. With both disorders, the sufferer will binge, where they eat vast quantities of food in a short period of time. With bulimia, the sufferer will try to compensate for their behaviour by various means such as induced vomiting, diet pills, exercise and fasting. With binge-eating disorder, there are no compensatory methods. I say they fall at either end of a range because it's hard to put discrete values on these compensatory methods. There is no clear line where binge-eating disorder becomes bulimia. A sufferer of BED might occasionally exercise or try diets, but not classify as bulimic. A bulimia sufferer might not use some of the more extreme methods and so be closer to being a BED sufferer than others. With these definitions, we are dividing a continuous scale into discrete sections.

Sufferers of binge-eating disorder will be overweight or obese. They will consume large quantities of food in their binges but there will be no purging activities to bring their weight down between binges or to prevent digestion of the food.

If someone displays the symptoms of binge-eating disorder but is not particularly overweight, it is more likely that they are bulimic, even if they don't induce vomiting after binges.

Bulimics can be overweight, or even obese. Bulimia often starts when a person tries to diet but ends up depriving their body of too much food and causing instinctive cravings for fat and sugar. A large number of bulimics will be a healthy weight or slightly overweight. Even with the purging form of bulimia (where the sufferer induces vomiting after a binge) it is impossible to empty the stomach completely and some of the food will be digested. Since the body is in "starvation mode" all the food will be stored as fat. Between binges, the metabolism will be slowed so fewer calories will be burned than for a normal person.

Some bulimics are underweight. This group will almost always perform extreme purging methods and many will have strong anorexic tendencies. Again, we get back to the problem of indistinct boundaries. Where do you draw the line between bulimia with anorexic behaviours and anorexia of the binge-purging type?

So, bulimics might be underweight, sometimes severely, or they might be a healthy weight, or they might be overweight, sometimes severely. That makes it rather difficult to tell if someone is a sufferer just by appearance, though there are more subtle signs.

Purging bulimics will usually have damaged teeth from the vomiting. This is very often not obvious, particularly if the sufferer is aware of the damage and tries not to open their mouth too wide.

Purging bulimics may also have cuts on the back of their hands. However, they could easily try using something other than a finger to induce vomiting if they wish to leave not visible marks.

A large number of bulimics suffer malnutrition or nutrient deficiency. This is because the foods used in binges are often high in fat and sugar. These junk foods are often lacking in nutrients so even if they don't purge, they won't gain any goodness from what they do eat. If the bulimia sufferer fasts or skips healthy meals, they will miss out on essential vitamins. The signs of nutrient deficiency are often invisible. A bulimic may be pale or tired-looking, but this is difficult to judge. If someone tans easily or has a naturally darker complexion, paleness will not be to any extent which makes it noticeable.

Another sign is brittle hair. Sometimes the hair will fall out. This is a symptom that the disorder has in common with anorexia, but because the bulimics get some food, this symptom usually sets in after the disorder has been present a lot longer than would be the case with anorexia.

A person can be bulimic for years before the signs ever become visible.

I think this is one of the major problems that needs to be overcome when a bulimia sufferer seeks help. Generally, they will not look ill. This can lead to people believing they are putting it on for attention or the sufferer being scared to ask for help because they fear that's how it will seem.

Anorexia

This is what people think of when they think of eating disorders: people so thin that their bones are poking through their skin. The physical signs of anorexia are much harder to hide than with bulimia, though sufferers will often try, wearing baggy clothes and severe make-up.

The obvious sign of anorexia is weight. To be classified as anorexic, a person has to be noticeably underweight.

There are other signs, but by the time these are visible, the weight will usually be enough of a giveaway. An anorexic will be pale, tired-looking and will have brittle hair, sometimes falling out in clumps.

There are plenty of other physical symptoms, such as bad teeth and lack of menstruation, but in terms of appearance, you won't need to see these to know that there's a problem.

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So there you have it. A person with an eating disorder may be any weight and the problem may be almost invisible if you don't know the precise signs to look for.

Never assume that a person doesn't have an eating disorder simply because they look a normal weight.

Weekly Update 18th May 2008

2008-05-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

My weight's pretty much the same as it was this time last week. So, I've not lost any weight, but I've not gained any either.

I can't think of a single thing I've done this week that someone would class as bulimic behaviour (eating too much fudge doesn't count as a binge, since I made the box last three days).

Overall, I class this week as a minor win.

Dear Anonymous

2008-05-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

I received a comment on one of my earlier posts. The commenter gave a question, but since he/she was anonymous, I don't have any way to reply. So I will answer it here.

"how are you still kind of fat if you spend so much time starving yourself? You're not huge, but you have a lot of fat on your stomach area..."

Thank you for that wonderful boost to my self esteem. [/sarcasm]

I gained weight during my eating disorder. Quite a large number of bulimics do. During the periods of starvation/eating only vegetables/strenuous exercise, there are parts of the brain that are tricked into believing there's a famine. The body starts to crave fatty and sugary foods as a survival instinct. The metabolism slows down because the body is getting less food and so outputs less energy as a response.

Then I would binge. I would eat a huge amount of junk, most of which was full of sugar and fat. My body would then store all of this as fat. Even bulimics who throw up never manage to completely empty their stomachs. The body still digests part of the binge as stores it entirely as fat. This is why the majority of bulimics are a healthy weight or even overweight. Those bulimics who are underweight tend (this is a generalisation and not always true) to be bulimic with strong anorexic tendencies. Some may even qualify as anorexic with binging when their body mass drops enough.

I would starve myself and use diet pills and exercises and every trick I could think of to lose weight. But I would put it all back on when I binged.

Being eating disordered doesn't mean being skeletal thin. With most bulimics, you'd never know by looking at them that there was anything wrong.

Other cultures

2008-05-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

The statistics in this blog entry are from three different sources, so they don't analyse exactly the same thing and I can't be certain that they define anorexia in exactly the same way. This basically means that any conclusions are scientifically invalid, but I'll keep my opinions nonetheless.

I've spend considerable time in Finland including a three month stretch last summer. I noticed a lot of things about the country but one of them was that the population was, on the whole, thinner. Sure, there were overweight people, but a lot less than I see in England and usually not quite as fat. I don't remember seeing a single morbidly obese person in my time there.

The canteen at the place I worked served, on the whole, healthy food and there was always an option to go for the "green line." This was a wide variety of salads with something light as the main meal. It was very rare for there to be anything particularly unhealthy. Even the deserts were usually of the stewed fruit and yoghurt variety. Occasionally, there were cakes as an option, but no more than once a week at most.

There was also a lot of emphasis on exercise and sport. Children play a lot of sport at school, there are wide cycle paths through the city and alongside the main roads (something I wish Britain would imitate) and people walked quite a lot.

Then, there might be a genetic element to it. Finland gets incredibly cold in winter, so maybe, over the centuries, Finns have bred a tendency to a good metabolism because keeping the body warm means they're more likely to survive the cold season. Certainly, the Finns I saw didn't seem to skimp on the portion sizes and were still a healthy size.

Whatever the reason for it, the Finnish population appear, on the surface, to be a much healthier group than in the UK. They appear to have a much healthier relationship to food and exercise than those of us in the US or the UK. From what I'd seen and the people I'd met, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to find out that eating disorders were rare in Finland.

So let's look at the stats.

According to a nationwide study, 2.2% of Finnish young women suffer from severe anorexia nervosa. Up to 5% of Finnish women suffer anorexic symptoms in their lifetime.

That doesn't look very good. Then again, there are some large figures floating around the web stating how a huge proportion of people in America have an eating disorder. I looked solely at the numbers relating to anorexia, since those were the only figures I'd found for Finland.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health in the US, somewhere between 0.5 and 3.7% of females suffer anorexic symptoms in their lifetime.

That's low. That's a lot lower than in Finland. Now, maybe the definition is less strict in Finland. Certainly, I feel that the American definition has some problems with it, because it focuses on physical rather than psychological symptoms. I can't be sure. But it's obvious the result I was expecting doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

So let's look at the UK. According to the eating disorder charity Beat, 1-2% of women are anorexic at any one time. Comparing this with the other Finnish figure now, it seems that more than that were anorexic at the time the study was performed.

Again, different definitions of anorexia might be responsible, but it seems obvious to me that appearances can be deceiving. On the surface, it might seem that Finland has a much better relationship with food and exercise than we do in the UK, but anorexia is at least as common. Maybe Finland has lower rates for binge eating disorder, compulsive over eating, bulimia or ednos. Maybe not. Until the results of a nationwide survey on those released on the web, I can't be sure.

I think it's reasonable to believe that eating disorders appear in every country, even ones where the culture and social behaviour is quite different from that of the UK. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to blame our schools, media and culture.

2008-05-15T01:59:00.000-07:00

I wanted to celebrate how far I've come. This song really suits my feelings because of a couple of appropriate lines.

"Never thought I'd have this feeling. Never thought I'd get this far."

"Changed my mind, changed my ways. Wasn't going to do this anymore."

There were a lot of times during my recovery when it felt like I was going nowhere or worse. I want to show that it is possible to reach a point where life can be good again. I climbed out of darkness and now I get to fly.

Duchess against fat

2008-05-14T00:38:00.000-07:00

Britain is "eating itself to death."

There's an article in BBC news about how Duchess Sarah Ferguson is planning on a campaign to promote healthy eating. Those are the words used in the opening paragraph: "healthy eating." So how come it spends the rest of the article talking about fat?

The message I'm getting from the article is that the only way to be healthy is to be thin.

I'm very much in favour of healthy eating, but people need to understand that healthy eating doesn't always involve losing weight. The right ballance of food is important, the right nutrients and the right amount. I wish articles would stress this as much or more than the need to be thin. If the message is targetted at the obese, I could understand it, but the article seems to imply that everyone in the country needs to shape up and get thin.

I hope the documentary is better. I really hope it takes some time to consider eating disorders and those who take dieting too far. But I won't be watching to find out. I don't need former royalty telling me that I need to be thin from my TV screen.

Weekly Update 11th May 2008

2008-05-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

I've eaten more than I should this past week, but I've not binged. I've had Chinese take-away two days in a row, but it's been shared with friends as part of a fun evening and I've enjoyed eating the food I ordered. I will try and focus on that fact when I see my reflection in the bathroom mirror tomorrow.

I have done exercise over the past few days, but not out of guilt. There was badminton and there were games with friends, all of which fun and none of which driven by guilt. I will go to the gym tomorrow, but because I'm trying to be healthy, not out of a desperate urge to burn off the egg fried rice. The line between trying to be healthy and trying to undo days of bad eating is a fine one, but I'm still on the right side of it at the moment.

My university work has been handed in and there's nothing that I can do to change the marks now. It's like a cloud has lifted from my thoughts. The need for food to calm me about grades has faded for the time being.

Pro-ana sites

2008-05-10T01:03:00.000-07:00

Sooner or later, almost every blog dealing with eating disorders must have a discussion about these sites.

There are a lot of sites, groups, forums and communities online for people with eating disorders. These can be divided into two sets. One has all those sites for sufferers trying to recover, with members offering support and advice to each other on how to get better and be happy again. The other set has all those sites for people trying to do "better" with their eating disorder, with members offering support, tips and inspiration to help each other achieve their goal weight and be happy.

There are also plenty that fall somewhere in the middle, with some members of each type.

I will talk about these sets as though they are distinct, but I'm sure there are many examples where the lines blur a little.

Let us consider pro-recovery sites. These are places where eating disorder sufferers can share their experiences and know that they won't be judged. They can talk about their feelings openly. They can get support and advice when they feel depressed. For the vast majority of the users, these places are a great help. I've used them myself because it's easier for me to write about my feelings than talk about them.

Unfortunately, there are those people who use the sites for all the wrong reasons. There are disordered individuals who read accounts of people's experiences and, instead of seeing support, simply see new ideas. They see new methods of eating less or throwing up more or hiding their disorder. These are individuals so caught up in their disorder that they fight to keep it rather than fight to heal it.

In many ways, these people are those most in danger from their eating disorder. Those who join the sites for support have acknowledged that they have a disorder and most of them will be trying, however successfully or not, to fight it. These others are not fighting. Some or all of them may accept on one level that they have a problem, but their actions are to continue with it. Perhaps reading the eating disorder websites will inspire them to try to recover themselves. Or perhaps reading the sites will just gives them ideas for new techniques which put their bodies and minds in danger. There's no way to tell and there's no way to block from viewing the sites those who would take away the wrong information.

So even the best pro-recovery sites may end up hurting some of their users.

Then, at the other end of the spectrum, are the pro-ana sites. These are filled with girls declaring that they're going to start being anorexic because they need to fit into a smaller bikini. There are people on these sites who think it's fun to be anorexic or that an eating disorder will let them lose weight quickly. Most of these users are ignorant of the real affects of eating disorders but they share information with others equally ignorant, so they think they know all they need to. They offer thinspiration to encourage each other to lose weight. They offer tips and tricks on how to perform disordered behaviour.

I read a post on one community where one girl was asking how to make herself throw up. I've been in that girl's position. I remember once after a binge sitting on the bathroom floor and crying about what a failure I was because I couldn't even throw up properly. Right then, I would have loved someone to come to me and tell me how. But now I'm glad I didn't try and ask for tips online, because it meant I couldn't develop another dangerous and addictive habit. I wanted to tell this girl that she should be glad that she wasn't going to be able to destroy her throat and teeth. But several other girls had already replied, offering advice on how to do it.

There are so many people joining these online groups and learning how to behave in a disordered way because they think it's a diet or worse, a game.

I don't believe that reading these sites causes eating disorders. However, there are people who are predisposed to eating disorders because of anxiety, perfectionist tendencies or the physical make-up of their brain. If these people are reading pro-ana sites then it's likely that they've already been worrying about their looks and maybe already started some disordered behaviour patterns. Reading about other girls doing it might be all that's necessary to convince them this is the right way for them to behave. The sites would be the point that tips them over the edge from bad habits to a full disorder.

But on the other hand, there might be someone who feels like a freak because she has a disorder. Then she reads these sites and sees so many other people acting the same way. Maybe that would be enough to convince her she's not the only one and maybe that would help her hate herself less.

Even the worse pro-ana site may end up helping someone with a true disorder.

The pro-ana sites give eating disorders a bad reputation. People see these girls trying to starve themselves because of fashion and they think that's all that eating disorders are. The real illness gets hidden behind a screen of girls going, "OMG! I just ate a chocolate bar. I feel so fat!"

I would love it if some of the worst of these sites were shut down so that it would be easier for people to see the sites offering real advice and information. I would love to find every wannarexic on these sites and point them so some of the pro-recovery places and show them that they should try to be less disordered, not more. But all I can do is add my voice to the crowd of information. Maybe if enough people offer stories of real disorders, the pro-ana cultists will see the truth of what they're doing.

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Anorexic's advice – a site intended for wannarexics, offering the truth about eating disorders, advice on how to lose weight by healthy means and tips for recovery. This is one of the best sites I've found.

lol_anaz – a livejournal community for poking fun at the wannarexics on pro-ana sites. Most of the members of this community have actual disorders and are sick of wannarexics playing for attention. I should stress that this group isn't for making fun of eating disorders or sufferers, just those that think they want a disorder.

ed_friends – another livejournal community. This one is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Most of the members are genuine sufferers after support, but a few are wannarexics looking for tips.

ED friends unite – a forum for genuine disorder sufferers. This site is for people who have a disorder and need support. It's very much pro-recovery and has strict rules against people asking for or posting tips.

Beat – a UK organisation to combat eating disorders. This site contains information about disorders and contact details and helpline numbers. People from all over the world can get support, help or facts. People from the UK can find out about local support and groups.

Advertising rant

2008-05-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day because I've just seen something to make me really mad.

It's an advert for Slim-Fast. This is a brand of products supposed to make weight loss quick and easy. Originally, they just had milkshakes. The idea was that you would eat one for breakfast, one for lunch and then cook yourself a proper dinner in the evening. Then they started doing soups, bars and drinks as well. I've not tried them and I don't know anyone who has.

The advert has "How will you slim happy?" written in large letters. That seems to me to be implying that you can't be happy until you're slim.

To make things worse, the woman in the advert doesn't look like she needs to lose weight. She doesn't look skinny, but she doesn't look overweight either. She looks normal, healthy and not like someone who needs to resort to diet products.

I'm furious about this advert. It suggests that thinness is required for happiness and it shows someone who doesn't need to lose weight resorting to extreme diet measures.

I don't believe that adverts and media can cause eating disorders, but it can trigger the development of one in a person who is naturally susceptible. I'm not one for protesting about things I see in the media, but I may well make a complaint in this case.

Pull the String

2008-05-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

Continuing my weekly video pattern. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to keep this as a weekly thing, because there's a limit to the number of songs I can use.

One thing that I've shown in this video are the scars on my wrists. I tried to kill myself when I was fifteen. It was undoubtedly the stupidest thing I've done in my life, but I'm glad I did it.

When it failed, I admitted to two of my friends that I'd been depressed. I didn't tell them about the binging because, at the time, I still didn't believe I had an eating disorder. But I was able to talk about other issues that bothered me and they were able to support me through the bad days.

My best friend was so completely distraut when I told her I'd tried to kill myself that I decided never again. I swore to myself that no matter how bad things got, I would never try to take my own life.

Which meant I was left with two options: I could spend the rest of my life being miserable and hating myself, or I could get better. That was the turning point for me. Yes, the binging continued for a couple of years more, but I was determined that I would recover. I was able to make more friends when I started sixth form, do things I enjoyed and actually have fun.

I feel quite proud when I look at this video and see that the scars are barely visible at this quality. I hid them for ages under bracelets when it seemed like they'd never fade and that they'd declare my idiocy for the rest of time. But they have faded. The evidence can only be seen if you look closely. And I kept my promise.

I never tried again.

I never will.

Perfectionism

2008-05-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

The end of my degree is looming and my grades so far put me right on the borderline between a 2:1 and a first. For those who don't know about the English degree classifications, a first is as good as it gets. A 2:1 is the second best grade. Most people would be delighted with a 2:1 in a subject where the university is one of the best in the country.

Yet I can't shut up the tiny bit of my brain that says I must get a first or else.

At this point, with the grades I have from previous exams and assessments, I'd probably have to fail a module not to get a 2:1. I have a well-paid job already sorted for after I graduate and there's no condition to the offer. If I'm too ill to even sit my final exams or my project report spontaneously combusts meaning I somehow fail, I'll still have my employment sorted. I've had four years of taking part in societies and events, I've made friends, I've, by some miracle, found a boyfriend. As one friend put it, I've won university.

So why am I still terrified of getting anything but the best marks?

I would love to blame my parents. When I got the job offer, one of my dad's first comments (the actual first comment was "congratulations") was that now I had no distractions to stop me getting a first. But I've talked with my mum and I know she's happier that I've found a job I want than she would have been if I'd come out with a really high first and no idea about employment. My mum is happy for me and I know she won't think any less of me if I don't quite make the grades for a first.

The rational part of my brain knows it doesn't matter. I got AABB for my A-level results, which didn't give me the three As I needed for Oxford. Before the results, it seemed that missing out on my Oxford place would be the biggest disaster imaginable. But it happened. The world didn't end. I went to my second choice university and I've had a brilliant time here. I've been happy despite what, at the time, felt like a gigantic failure.

Now I face a situation that is far less drastic. I have nothing riding on these results. In a few years, no one will care if I get a first or a second, since potential employers will look at my work experience not my uni grades.

I can tell myself quite sensibly that these last marks don't matter. The classification of my degree is unimportant.

But, like so many times before, the rational part of my brain is not the loudest voice. The desire for perfection is shouting loudly enough to almost drown it out. That voice is telling me that it will be terrible if I miss out on a first by a few marks. That voice is telling me that I will be a failure.

Someone really needs to invent some way of gagging these paranoid parts of myself.

Body Dysmorphism

2008-05-02T02:24:00.001-07:00

Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental condition where people are convinced they are ugly because of a minor, sometimes even imagined, flaw in their appearance. It's not limited to sufferers of eating disorders, but it is frequently a symptom.

If you watch documentaries on eating disorders, you'll see victims saying that they're fat, or drawing themselves in a distorted way. One example of this is in the documentary Thin. A girl is asked to draw what she believes her outline to be. She then stands inside this and someone draws her real outline, which is considerably smaller.

For a long time, I didn't really accept or understand this. I couldn't conceive that an anorexic might look in the mirror and not be able to see the bones sticking out as a sign that there wasn't enough fat and muscle. This half-blindness seemed a ridiculous concept.

I still don't understand it, but I'm forced to accept the ugly truth of its existence.

When I was younger, I used to take part in a village show put on every year. I did this between the ages of seven and fourteen. Looking back on my life, I consider that my eating disorder starting somewhere between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, but I have some distinct memories of the last village show I was in.

I wondered if part of the reason I hadn't got the role of the princess was because I was too fat.

I hated having my measurements taken for the costumes. I was convinced that the lady who made the costumes would look at what she was writing down and think I was some fat pig.

I was horrified because one section of the show required me to wear a really skimpy costume. I was terrified of the idea of going out on stage with my huge stomach on view to hundreds of people. I nearly quit the show because of it.

The show was recorded and all the cast got a video of it. My dad recently spent ages transferring videos onto DVD and yesterday I watched the show again. I wasn't skinny, but I certainly wasn't fat.

I was thinner than the girl who was playing the princess (which is a blow to my ego regarding my acting abilities :) ). In the part I was concerned about showing my stomach to the world, there was barely any difference between my size and that of the girl standing next to me, in an equally skimpy costume.

Looking back, it's clear that I was already in a disordered mindset. At that point in my life, there were no real binges, there were no drastic attempts to lose weight, but I was obviously well on the way to becoming disordered. The mental patterns set in long before the behavioural ones.

I think that's one of the main problems with curing eating disorders; we can't catch them soon enough. By the time the physical signs are noticeable, the mental patterns have been in place too long and they've formed an addiction. Eating disorders are going to continue to be a problem, no matter how many health centres and support groups there are, until we can find a way to prevent the disordered mindset forming in the first place.

With our society getting more and more bogged down in calorie counting and recommend amounts of carb and fat, I think we're heading in the wrong direction.

2008-05-01T05:10:00.000-07:00

This is another video of my experiences with eating disorders. I may make this a regular weekly feature, but I might run out of songs.

This video shows the way I used to behave, not how I currently do. It shows the methods of purging I used: mainly diet pills, skipping meals, throwing away food, eating only vegetables and excessive exercise. It also includes vomiting. This was a very rare occurance for me, but I felt it worth including. Every time I threw up after a binge, I swore it would be the last time. That promise was rather difficult to keep.

I show myself reading a novel at one point. This is Perfect by Natasha Friend. It's an excellent story of a girl suffering from bulimia.

The next clip shows me with a DVD. This is the movie Sharing the Secret, which is based on a true story. It deals with a bulimic girl being discovered by her mum and her journey towards recovery.

I took a lot of comfort from stories like this because it helped me feel less alone.

There are also clips of me looking at websites. These are Food Focus, which is a site for calculating calories eaten and burned, Anorexics Advice, a site aimed at wannarexics but helpful to those with eating disorders, Why We Hate Anorexia and my own blog.

Blame

2008-04-27T00:02:00.000-07:00

I read a piece on another blog about blame. The author there felt that she was pressured into pointing fingers and blaming parents or the media or biology. She felt that we don't need to blame anyone.

Her piece got me thinking about my circumstances and who I should blame for my own disorder.

One scapegoat a lot of people point fingers at are pro-ana sites. These are definitely not to blame in my case. I didn't these sites. I never even considered joining a group discussing eating disorders because I didn't believe I had one. I never looked for tips on how to hide food or to burn off more calories. So the pro-ana cult is completely innocent, at least as far as my history is concerned.

Another common scapegoat is the media in general, with magazine printing pictures of super skinny models and stories about how this actress has that eating disorder. Never read them. I couldn't care less about actors' social lives and I never fussed about the fashion pages. The only magazines I ever bought were ones to do with writing, and I don't think they ever mentioned the subject. So I didn't feel pressured to be thin by pictures of celebrities.

Then you get to bullying and abuse. Nope. I've never been abused physically, sexually or emotionally. I was never bullied at school. The school I went to was a good one which encouraged respect and where getting good grades was a thing to be proud of, not a cause of bullying (at least for most of the pupils, including me). None of the other kids at school ever made comments about my weight. It helped that the friendship group I was in wasn't openly fussed about that sort of thing. They weren't into fashion and trying to date every other guy in the boys' school down the road. They would have accepted me no matter what.

So we get to parents. Another very common subject for blame. Do I think my parents played a part in my eating disorder? Certainly. Do I blame them for it? No.

When I was in my early teens, I was a bit overweight. I wasn't hugely fat, but it was enough to be noticeable. My family has a history of diabetes and one of the factors that can affect whether someone develops diabetes is their weight. My mum advised me to be careful and to start thinking about weight. Genetics plays a huge part in whether or not we're predisposed to be thin and my family certain aren't. My mum thought it would be easier to start thinking about weight then and being careful than becoming seriously fat and then trying to diet it away. She was of the opinion (and generally, I believe her) that keeping weight off was easier than losing it once gained.

She was always nice about it. She didn't talk about it in terms of how I needed to lose weight, but suggested that we both get a bit more exercise (she was suffering from middle aged spread). She wanted us to support each other, help each other and encourage each other in a sensible diet.

So, yes, my mum called me fat and that made me self-conscious about my weight, but I can hardly hate her for it. She was concerned about diabetes which is, at best, a life-altering condition and, at worst, a life-threatening one. She was trying to ensure I had a healthy future, as well as looking good and not being a risk of being teased for being overweight. She only ever had my best interests at heart and I think her encouragements were sensible. I don't want to have to worry about insulin injections or maybe lose a limb to a condition, so I'm happy to have received that advice.

Then consider my sister. There were plenty of times through my teenage years when I hated her for merely existing. She's three years older than me, thinner than me, pretty and has always done extremely well academically. To top it off, she's an excellent musician, good at art and gets near-perfect grades. I know my parents never compared us, but it was hard, when I fourteen and fifteen, for me to see it that way. I struggled to see me good points and just saw all the talents that my sister had that I hadn't.

I couldn't sing a note. She reached grade three in piano in less time than it took me to reach grade one.

My pencil sketches were mediocre at best and my paintings worse. She had a painting framed in the kitchen.

I did well at school. She'd been there before me and had a list of A's, so even if I got good results, it would be nothing special.

When I was doing my GCSE's, she was doing her A-Levels and doing well. She was applying for university and getting offers from Oxbridge.

My parents never pushed us to compete or favoured one of us more. I know the competition was all in my mind, but it was there nonetheless. I wanted so badly to be as good as my perfect sister, but I didn't believe I ever would be. She never bragged. She didn't try to encourage me in my belief that she was better. She's told me since that she hated me for a portion of her teenage years because I did well at school, shone in maths and could write better stories than her. It seems that each of us had a competition going on in the privacy of our heads and the each of us found ourselves to be the losers.

But can I blame my sister? No. The need to be perfect came entirely from me, not from her. My sisters grades were something I fixated on but I should hardly expect her to do less than what she was capable of, simply to appease me own ego. She did well and that's great for her. A large part of my problems back then stemmed from my desire to compete with her, but she didn't know about it and she isn't to be blame. I created the competition not her. I was the one who set myself standards of perfection I could never reach.

School played a huge part in my depression that led to my binge eating, which lead to everything else.

The school I went to was an excellent one, with helpful teachers who encouraged us to achieve our potential. My parents never told me I had to get the best marks. They never sat me down and forced me to do my homework. They never put excessive pressure on me. But still, I knew I was expected to do well. I come from a family of high achievers and it was generally accepted that I would be one too. I felt that a lot as I was working for GCSE's, and later A-Levels.

I felt that anything less the perfect marks would lead to my parents being disappointed in me. I wanted to please my parents. I loved them, they'd given me the best that they could, and I wanted to live up to their expectations. So I pushed myself into believing that I had to get straight A's.

I know now that my parents would still have loved me had I done badly in those exams, but it was hard to believe it at the time.

I would like to blame school for my eating disorder. I would love to blame exams, which sort us out and rank us so that the world can see who's better. The exam boards slot us into categories so that getting a B at a school full of A's and A*s feels like a crime.

Yeah. Please can I blame exams?

But I should be honest with myself. I was the one who put so much meaning on these little letters. I was the one who cared so much and felt that the world would come crashing down if my marks weren't good enough. I was the one who stressed so much that the only way to feel calm was in that numb period where I was shoving food in my mouth without thinking.

I'm running out of scapegoats.

Can I blame biology? Probably. In the end, everything comes down to biology.

I watched a documentary on eating disorders. It said when they look at the families of eating disorder sufferers, there's usually a family history of anxiety conditions (and often other eating disorders). My mum jokes about chocolates being anti-depressants, so I know that food can be a comfort for her.

My grandmother on my dad's side is a worrier. She plans everything to the tiniest detail and then panics if things don't go 100% right. I'm no psychologist, but I'd say she has an anxiety condition. I wouldn't have said the same was true of my maternal grandmother, but she did like everything to be in its place. I can't comment on my grandfathers because I barely remember one and never knew the other.

I know my mum has problems with anxiety. Apparently, it used to be even more severe, but she's got passed the problem and managed to build herself a life she can be proud of.

I think there's a decent case for my family being predisposed to anxiety and passing on those genes to me. So I guess I can blame my parents, since they're the ones who gave me these genes. But it's not fair on them to do so. They had no choice when they gave me an anxious disposition than when they gave me brown hair or type A blood.

There's a lot of evidence to support the theory that eating disorders are influenced by biology. I'm willing to believe that I was born with a natural tendency that made me susceptible to developing bulimia. The pressures from school, my parents and my sister only gave me a slightest nudge, but I was born standing on the edge of the precipice, so that nudge was all that was needed to send me spiralling into disordered eating.

Everything else, all the other pressures, were dreamt up by me. I can only really blame myself for the things I did.

But that goes both ways. I may have caused my own condition, but I shouldn't focus on blame.

I was also the one who cured myself and I should be proud of myself for that. And I'm the one who'll keep fighting for the rest of my life if I have to, and I'm pleased with that determination. I won't focus on the fact that I can drive myself into despair. I'll focus on the fact that I crawled my way back out of the depression and into happiness.

I did that.

Me.

And that's a good part of myself that no one can take away.

Weekly Update 1

2008-04-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

This is the first of what will be a series of weekly updates about how I'm coping and whether I slip up.

I mentioned in my first couple of posts that I went to the supermarket last week and bought supplies for a binge. The good news is, I didn't binge. The bad news is, I showed no self-restraint whatsoever and the last of the food went yesterday.

I'm just trying to cling on to the fact that I didn't eat it all in one go.

On a brighter note, I went to the shop again yesterday because I was out of milk and low on vegetables. The most unhealthy thing I bought was a packet of low-fat, wholemeal biscuits. They're sitting in a cupboard in the kitchen and I'm determined to eat them gradually.

I've been to the gym a few times for a couple of hours at a time. The sessions have been tiring, but I've not been pushing myself too hard.

Overall, I've gained a couple of pounds this week, but I can cope with that. Everyone goes through bad patches and I'm not about to start starving myself over this one.

Non-purging bulimia

2008-04-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

When people think of bulimia, most of them would think of the classical pattern of binging then throwing up. A lot of people don't realise that there's far more to it than that. Plenty don't even imagine there are different forms that bulimia can take.

Even in groups that deal with eating disorders, when people talk about bulimia, they usually mean the purging kind. When people talk about the dangers of bulimia, they mostly consider the dangers of repeated, induced vomiting. They don't consider that there are other actions that lead to the same disorder. So I'm going to explain a little about a different form bulimia can take.

The definition for bulimia talks about binges – eating vast quantities of food in a short space of time and feeling out of control while eating. The definition also talks about feeling of guilt follow such binges and self-evaluation being based on image and body shape. Then it mentions purging behaviours.

Purging behaviour can include vomiting, laxatives, diet pills, fasting or excessive exercise.

Note the "or."

It is completely possible to be bulimic without throwing up.

I'll explain a little about how I used to act, but I don't believe for a moment that this is the only pattern non-purging bulimia can take.

I used to binge. I would buy a load of junk food and then stuff my face. A binge would usually be a bag full of biscuits, sweets, crisps and cake. Sometimes I would buy a microwave meal as well. Sometimes, I'd stop by the sandwich shop and buy a sausage or a bacon sandwich. If I didn't have enough food, I would eat something from the fridge or the larder as well. I would eat until I felt stuffed but I wouldn't be able to stop.

Then I would hate myself for being so weak and greedy.

So I would focus once more on my diet and be determined to be even stricter with myself to make up for my behaviour. My diet consisted of skipping meals whenever possible. My mum went (and still goes) away on business quite a lot. Once my sister started university, it was my job to cook dinner. I always tried to time it so that I would finish cooking a few minutes before my dad got home. That way, I could pile most of the food onto his plate and leave just enough on mine to make it look used. Then Dad would get home and I'd just be finishing up the last bit of carrot or piece of broccoli. When I mistimed things, I would be careful about serving things out, so I would get more vegetables and he would get more of everything else. But I couldn't do it too much or he'd notice, so I absolutely hated those meals.

At school, I would make a show of eating. I would obviously go to the vending machine and make jokes about how I ate quite a bit. I knew I wasn't losing weight. I would rather my friends thought me slightly greedy than guess that I must be binging and know that I was a disgusting pig. So I made certain they saw that I was eating... then I would throw away the packages with almost all of the food still in them.

I never ate breakfast. When I had to eat other meals, I tried to make them as low fat as possible and threw away anything I could get away with.

And I exercised. I played a lot of badminton and went to two different clubs. This let me play for at least five hours a week without anyone being even slightly suspicious. I went to the gym with my mum one evening a week. And I went jogging. I would get up early on a weekend morning and go out running. I tried to do this before anyone else was awake, because I didn't want them to realise that I wasn't losing the weight that I ought to be doing. I would rather my family thought I was lazy and didn't exercise enough than guess that I must be eating so much sugar and fat when they weren't looking.

Then, in the privacy of my room, I would do sit-ups and lunges and any sort of exercise I could given the confined space. The rest of the time, I would worry about how many calories I was burning. I would sit in my lessons at school and twitch my legs or wriggle my fingers or anything to give just a little bit more movement.

I bought myself an ab belt. It's one of those machines that you put over your stomach and it promises to give you more definition and a flatter stomach. The one I had said on its instructions not to use it for more than half an hour a day. I used it for at least three on full power.

I took diet pills. I tried loads of different brands and varieties: thermogenics, appetite suppressants, fat metabolisers, detoxifying complexes. I was careful about how many I took, because I didn't want to accidentally overdose. I would follow the instructions for each packet carefully, taken the maximum recommended dose. But I would be taking at least two different brands at the same time. Again, I was worried about overdosing, so I was careful to take brands of different types. I'd happily take a dose of detoxifiers and one of an appetite suppressant, but I wouldn't take two different thermogenics.

I also tried cold baths. I'd heard that people burned off loads of calories keeping warm, so I would run a deep bath of cold water. Sometimes, I was able to sneak some ice cubes from the freezer to the bathroom and put those in. I would sit in the icy water for at least an hour, shivering like mad and delighted that I was burning off fat. It usually took me ages to get to sleep after that, because I'd be lying in bed still shivering. But at least shivering used energy!

Then, after maybe a day or so of this, I'd be famished beyond belief and craving sugary, fatty food. I'd smell something delicious and lose all control and rush to the shop to buy another hoard of junk.

But I didn't often throw up. I only stuck my fingers down my throat on less than half a dozen occasions and, generally, it didn't work. The times when I did throw up, it was usually unintentional. I'd just eaten too much for my body to cope with. This particularly happened if I binged late in the evening and then went to bed with my stomach still too full.

I didn't believe I had bulimia, because I didn't stick my fingers down my throat after each meal. I didn't force myself to vomit so I didn't fit the standard pattern.

I want people to understand that there's more to it than just throwing up.

Look at Me

2008-04-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd go for something slightly different today. For ages, I've made music videos for shows and films that I like. I thought I'd make one a little more personal.

This video reflects my feelings back at the start of my recovery, when I was desperate to hide what I was doing and wishing so hard that I could be happy again.

Help

2008-04-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

I picked up a leaflet yesterday. It's called "Beating eating disorders." The leaflet contains very general information about eating disorders, mainly anorexia and bulimia, links to a website, a helpline number, and some advice for sufferers or friends and family of sufferers.

One of the pieces of advice for sufferers was to go to a doctor as soon as possible. It advised the reader to seek out professional help because it's hard to recover without it.

I've never had professional help for my disorder, so naturally I started thinking about this. The main reason I didn't seek medical help was that I didn't believe I had a disorder until I'd already begun to recover and was considerably better than I had been. Another reason was that I was thoroughly ashamed of what I was doing. Even now, I struggle to even mention my illness to people I know in real life.

There's a lot of stigma attached to eating disorders. Too many people don't believe they're a real illness and think that people pretend to have them to get attention. Seeking help and getting a professional diagnosis means being labelled forever as an ED sufferer. Even when people do understand, they may watch what you eat in a way that's intended to be helpful, but is actually torture. When you turn down a cake, they will be watching and wondering if you're just lying when you say you're full. I can understand not wanting that sort of pressure. The fact that I've hidden for so long is proof of how terrifying the idea of being labelled can be.

So, am I advising people not to seek help? Not at all.

I was lucky. My disorder was nowhere near as severe as some people's, even for its type. And I believe that non-purging bulimia is probably one of the least damaging physical of all the eating disorders. You don't suffer all the myriad of conditions that afflict anorexics and you don't get all the problems from constant vomiting that most bulimics suffer from. The worst that happened to me was that I was found to be borderline anaemic and that was after four years, by which point I was already over the worst. Four years of skipping meals, and then binging on junk left me low on a few nutrients, but not in any danger.

The affects of anorexia, purging bulimia or COE would be a lot more noticeable and pose a much higher long-term threat.

If you have an eating disorder that is associated with more severe health risks, the slow route to recovery alone is probably just going to leave you at risk for longer. It would be hypocritical of me to tell every sufferer that they ought to go and get help, but it's something to think about.

It never occurred to me to seek out an eating disorder specialist or attend a support group, but if you know you have a problem, it would be worth at least seeing what the options are where you live. Particularly if you know your disorder is linked to serious physical health problems and long-term damage.

Misconceptions

2008-04-22T01:23:00.000-07:00

Plenty of other blogs have mentioned the whole John Prescott thing, but I feel it doesn't highlight an important issue.

There are so many misconceptions about eating disorders. A lot of people assume it's all about teenage girls trying to be thin. They don't have a clue about the deeper, emotional issues behind it and they don't even guess that it could affect older people and guys.

That makes me wonder, what about the people who suffer?

How many guys have an eating disorder but don't know anything about the subject, and so don't believe that they do? For several years, I didn't believe I had an eating disorder, simply because I didn't know enough about them. In my mind, anorexia was not eating, bulimia was throwing up a lot, and EDNOS didn't exist. Since I didn't make myself throw up, I didn't think I was bulimic and I obviously wasn't anorexic. So I thought I was just weak and greedy.

I can't be the only person whose lack of knowledge blinds them to an illness. There must be plenty of people out there, whether guys, or older women or girls of the average age who don't follow the usual pattern, who don't know what they're suffering with. Because they don't guess it's an eating disorder, it doesn't occur to them to read up about them.

And then there are the healthy people who no a disordered person. I remember reading a comment online from a guy saying he had no sympathy with anorexics. If they wanted to starve themselves to death, he didn't see why people should fuss about trying to make them eat. Unfortunately, this attitude is far too common. People don't understand the disease and assume it's just about wanting to be thin.

There are too many misunderstandings around these illnesses. The pro-ana cults really aren't helping those of us who are suffering, but that's a separate rant. There are just too many people who assume it's dieting gone too far who don't bother to read about the problems to learn the truth. Maybe that will change.

I hope that Prescott's admission will open people's eyes and make them realise that it's about deeper issues than that.

I hope that people who don't fit the clichéd pattern of eating disorders will look at their lives and realise they have a problem.

Most of all, I hope Prescott manages to recover completely. He did an incredibly brave thing in admitting to his problems and I wish him all the luck in the world with his fight.

Boundaries

2008-04-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

I was in the gym. I went through my usual exercise routine, which involves quite a large amount of cardiovascular work. Then I wondered if I should do a short session on the rower, as well as what I would normally do. As someone who's recovered from an eating disorder, I always worry about falling back on bad habits. Over-exercising to compensate for binges was one such habit.

I spent several minutes wondering if it would be a sensible reaction to do a bit more exercise, since I'd eaten more than I normally would, or if that would be a minor form of purging.

The problem is, there's no way to draw a barrier between exercise and over-exercise. One more minute on a treadmill doesn't suddenly change something from a healthy pastime into a danger. While I'm certain I could have done ten minutes on a rowing machine without putting my body in any danger, I didn't. The reason I didn't (aside from the fact I was already tired from an hour and a half of other exercise) was that small things lead to big things.

That can be taken as a general statement about eating disorders. A person doesn't switch overnight from being normal to being disordered. Looking back on my life, I can't tell you when I developed mine. I know there was a time when I ate normally, though perhaps with a tendency to snack when I was upset. I know there was a time when I would binge and hate myself and hide food wrappers where my parents wouldn't see them, and try and skip every meal I could to make up for the binges. But, seven years later, I can't see how I moved from one to the other.

Everything involved with eating disorders is a mixture of grey areas and blurred boundaries.

I had a comment conversation with someone in a lifejournal group were we discussed the different categories of eating disorders and the fact that many sufferers are classified as EDNOS while suffering almost all the symptoms of anorexia or bulimia. They were left out of the category because of a "loophole." We came to the conclusion that the official definitions for anorexia and bulimia weren't quite right. I think the problem is they treat these illnesses in the same way as they might treat a virus. But you don't suddenly go from being healthy to being infected.

Let's look at the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. This is taken from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. A person must have all four of these before they can be considered anorexic.

A. Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height (e.g., weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight less than 85% of that expected; or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight less than 85% of that expected).

B. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.

C. Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight.

D. In postmenarcheal females, amenorrhea, i.e., the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles. (A woman is considered to have amenorrhea if her periods occur only following hormone, e.g., estrogen, administration.)

The definition is very clear cut. If your body weight is 86% of what's considered normal, you're not anorexic, even if you starve yourself, exercise, take diet pills, think you're fat and have every other possible behaviour pattern of an anorexic. The day you lose that extra pound, you suddenly shift from being EDNOS to being anorexic, without any change in behaviour.

Let's take a hypothetical person. She was extremely overweight and began showing some of the symptoms of anorexia. These symptoms grew from an occasional skipped meal to full starvation. She began exercising furiously. She tried taking laxatives and diet pills when her parents made her eat. She developed an obsession with how much she was eating and how many calories she was burning. She dropped pounds and pounds of weight in a dangerously short amount of time. Now this person is slightly below average weight for her height and has missed a period. She eats only when forced to and tries to throw it up again afterwards. She is clearly ill and disordered. But this hypothetical person doesn't class as anorexic, because her body weight isn't low enough.

The official diagnosis criteria don't take into account the weight she was when she started.

Let's consider another hypothetical person. She was a ballet dancer, who kept a low body weight by careful eating and plenty of exercise. She was athletic and healthy and made sure to eat the right balance of nutrients to give her energy for performances and practice. She was very aware of her body and how to treat it right, but maintained a body weight about 13% below what would be considered normal for her height. She was given a large role in a performance and this involved a lot of extra practice. She didn't eat much more to compensate for the extra exercise and so lost a few pounds over the course of a month or so and reached the 15% below normal limit that is required for anorexia. But she doesn't display any of the other symptoms and is quite happy to eat, albeit carefully.

I feel that the body weight shouldn't be given in such a fixed way for the diagnosis. There is nothing special about the number picked. They could have chosen a percentage either way, and it wouldn't change who has the disorder and who hasn't. While I agree that a definition of a disease such as anorexia nervosa ought to have weight as one of the factors considered, but it shouldn't be given as such a fixed boundary. Doctors ought to be asked to consider starting weight before giving prognosis. Besides, all definitions say that this is a mental illness, so why do the definitions focus so much on the physical aspects such as weight and menstruation?

The definitions are a little better for bulimia, but they're still very clear cut. You either have it or you don't, according to the definitions. I think the medical dictionaries need to be reassessed to take into account the huge grey areas around starting a disorder and the blurred boundaries between them.

The same problem applies outside the realm of disorders as well. Just take a look at one of those BMI charts. It divides into neat segments of healthy, underweight, overweight, etc. If you're on one of those lines, half a pound either way could be the difference between healthy and fat. Those clear boundaries aren't real and shouldn't be applied to a process with such gradual changes. But we apply them anyway.

We judge ourselves by labels slotting us into one category or another, when really we should look around and see that the walls between those categories are as flimsy as the paper the medical books are printed on. As soon as you leave the text book and enter real life, there are no lines that separate the healthy from those who need help.

Yesterday

2008-04-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

This is what happened yesterday, which made me think about starting a blog.

It wasn't really a binge, but it was a bad sign.

A friend invited me and others round because she was cooking dinner and she made the suggestion of bringing more food. I asked what kind of food and she suggested a vegetable side dish. I thought about this and decided what I'd bring. But, I wasn't sure how many people were going to be there and wanted there to be enough, without using up all the vegetables I had in the fridge.

So I went to the shop to buy supplies. Perfectly reasonable.

I wasn't feeling bad yesterday, at all. There was a slight guilt because I'd not been doing the university work I should have been, but I had no reason for feeling depressed. Just the day before, I'd been feeling really optimistic about my fitness test results.

So why did I fill my basket with loads of junk?

It's the big question. I knew it was stupid at the time, I knew I'd regret it. But I piled in the crisps, sweets and biscuits. I bought some hot stuff from the deli section as well. And then I checked out.

I know I'm better than I used to be. The time was, I'd have eaten half the food before I even made it back to my house and then I'd have kept eating. As it was, I ate the hot stuff, at a pace that most people probably wouldn't have considered particularly fast. Then I started eating this cheese straw thing I'd bought from the bakery. I decided I didn't like the taste and I threw it away.

It seems crazy that that's a big deal. But I decided I didn't like the taste of something so I stopped eating it. There were times when I was at my worst when I'd have eaten anything and I wouldn't have stopped for something so minor as taste.

I ate some of the chocolate when I got back but there is a bag in my room that still contains two packets of Pringles, a packet of biscuits, some Go Ahead bars, some fruit flakes, some chocolate and some sweets. I didn't eat it all. I didn't even eat half of it and what I did eat yesterday I didn't shove down my gob in one sitting. I can clearly see the improvement, but it's still depressing that I have these tendencies to go out and buy loads of unhealthy food and to eat when I know I'm not hungry.

I may have eaten more than I was supposed to yesterday for no particular reason, but I don't think it was a binge. It's just worrying that, even after all this time, I still do things like this.

I didn't throw up.

I'm not going to starve myself today because of it.

I am going to go to the gym, but only because I'd planned to anyway and I want to keep fit.

The title of my blog starts "still hoping." So, I'll keep hoping that there will be a time when I don't get urges like this.

Getting started

2008-04-20T01:25:00.000-07:00

I used to have an eating disorder. Most of the time, I consider myself recovered, but I still have my bad days and still suffer from some of the tendencies I had when I was at my worst.

I suffered from non-purging bulimia and my eating disorder, combined with pressure at school, drove me into a depression serious enough that I attempted suicide when I was fifteen. I have never been officially diagnosed with an eating disorder and I have never been professionally treated. For years, I didn't believe I had a disorder because I didn't know enough. As far as I was concerned, bulimia meant throwing up after meals. Since I never deliberately threw up, I thought I wasn't ill. I was just weak and greedy. It's taken me a long time to get out of the cycle of binge-eating and then starvation, self-hatred and over-exercising.

Recently, I came to terms with what I've been through and decided that I would try and help others who have eating disorders, who are recovering from disorders or who have had disorders and are worried about relapsing. I also want to help increase understanding of what eating disorders are and how the effect those who suffer from them. There is a lot of misconception out there around these illnesses and I hope to show people how things really are.

One of the things I have done is to join online communities. I wanted to be there to offer advice to people who are still struggling with the things I've gone through. After all, what was the point of climbing out of hell if I can't help those who are still struggling down there?

Another thing I did was to start writing a novel. I have been writing stories for as long as I can remember, but this is the first time I've written something so deeply personal to me. The setting and characters are completely fictional, but there's an awful lot of my experiences and my emotions in the central character. I may be sharing extracts from the story here and asking for feedback. If I can get the story published and help spread the message, I think I'll have done a good thing.

I decided to write this blog because I want to talk about what I'm still going through in more detail without drowning the communities with endless posts. The main reason for coming to this decision was that two days ago, I was pleased with the result of a fitness test which pronounced me much improved on previous tests. Then yesterday, I went to the shop, bought a hoard of food and ate way too much, for no apparent reason. I'm still doing things like this, even years after my supposed recovery and I feel the need to talk about it somewhere.

My plan for this blog is to write a weekly update of how I've been in terms of eating and exercise, to show my progress towards being healthy. I will also write about my feelings and actions when I have either a very good or a bad day. I will also write about issues that I feel are important to people with eating disorders.

I hope that this will offer information to those who don't know enough about disorders and hope to those who are suffering or recovering.