Anorexia/Binge Eating Disorder

Many many hugs for you from a recovered anorexic (*hug*)

Don't beat yourself up for relapsing. It's common with any eating disorder recovery. There is a part of your brain that is quite literally afraid of consuming food: it's hardwired into your neural pathways, and it takes a while to shut that down completely.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but your "binging" is not actually binging. These binges are your body's way of screaming "FEED ME PLZ." You've run up a massive energy deficit, and you need lots and lots of food to fill it. LOTS. It's only natural that your body will try to grab whatever it can get when it knows it's starving.

But I know from experience that all this isn't as easy as "just eating a cheeseburger" as some people are fond of recommending. I knew I should have eaten. But I couldn't. You know you should eat. But you can't.

Eating disorders are such nasty sicknesses because they're able to hijack any aspect of your life and culture and use it as a reason for you to eat fewer calories. EDs are often portrayed as the result of our modern, thin-obsessed culture, but anorexia's been around for centuries, probably even millennia. Hundreds of years ago, anorexia convinced people that their self-induced starvation allowed them to rid themselves of their putrid bodies so that they could be holy and pleasing to God. Nowadays it tries to convince us that we'll be beautiful and avoid all the negative stigma that comes with being fat.

I lost weight unintentionally at first, but soon I found I was afraid of eating foods that I didn't think were "healthy." I got high off of controlling my food intake. I felt so superior to everyone else around me who would go for seconds or eat dessert. I was disciplined. I was master of my appetite.

It really blew out of control when I received sexual attention for the first time from another guy. But then when I had lost enough weight to the point where my body completely shut down my libido, my anorexia convinced me that I needed to keep losing weight because it would be awesome to stay like this. I have had a problematic relationship with sexuality in general since I could comprehend that I had one, to say nothing of homosexuality. If I kept on going, I could just be an asexual. No more having to worry about any of that. I could cut my gayness out of me.

I never actually believed that I had an eating disorder, even though many people who had not EVER commented on my weight/shape began to express concern about how thin I was. It was only when I started having binge episodes that I started to look into it because "binge" is a word in my mind inextricably associated with EDs.

The thing that made me want to recover was thoroughly researching eating disorders. It helped me make sense of a lot of my experiences. It convinced me that I was actually sick and that everyone else was not just jealous of me losing weight like a boss. I also realized that I was coming dangerously close to doing some really awful damage to my body. Arrhythmia, osteoporosis, and kidney failure, not to mention death, did not sound appealing.

So I got help. It was really easy to eat at the beginning. It was a honeymoon period. As long as I had this massive appetite, I could feel good about what I was doing. But the ED's not going to let you go that easily. It made me feel anxious about "overeating." I was afraid that I would gain too much, that I would overshoot my ideal weight. I was disgusted that much of the weight I was gaining was plopped straight onto my belly. But your body knows what it's doing.

I also entered therapy. I learned to rethink a lot of what I thought I knew about weight, fat, and body shape. I think really the most helpful thing though was accountability. There were many, many times while I was recovering that I wanted to start restricting again. But because they were weighing me at every session, I was afraid of being caught. So I kept on eating.

The thing I've come to realize is that priority one needs to be weight restoration. People always say it's "not about the food," and that's true to an extent. There's lots of psychosocial reasons for why we develop these illnesses. But starving fucks with your brain. It will be really difficult to get the most out of therapy if you're not in a fit mental state.

I was one of the lucky ones. I was able to persuade myself to stop restricting. But herein lies the dilemma for most anorexics: sure, we want to get better, but if we could eat, we would.

So if you want to get better, and you don't think you'll be able to consistently give your body what it needs because the ED is too deep into your brain, you need to surrender control of your eating to someone else. Are you living with any family or friends who could support you in this? Who could make sure that you eat? If you don't think that's feasible, it might be a good idea to consider an inpatient program.

Next you need to reform those malfunctioning neurological pathways by developing healthy coping mechanisms for your food anxieties. You mentioned that this is your second relapse. What helped you get better the first two times?

If at all possible, seek out a therapist and a physician with specific training to handle eating disorders. It's appalling how little some general practitioners now about EDs. When I first visited a nurse to get my vitals checked at the beginning of my recovery, she told me that I should eat to maintain. At a weight that was only a few pounds above my lowest starvation weight. That was just ludicrously wrong.

Recovery is really worth it. This experience taught me a lot.

So that turned into a massive wall of text. But, the tl;dr version is this: be kind to yourself and your body. Give yourself the nourishment of both food and compassion that you've been starving for.

If you ever want to talk, let me know. (*hug*)

 

I have EDNOS and recovering against my will. I don't know what advice I can give you because I don't want to get better.

 

If you ever change your mind, you can call or do an online chat with someone from the National Eating Disorders Association (unfortunately only during normal work hours) to find help in your area. If you ever want to work with a therapist, many of them are willing to do phone appointments as well.

And of course the invitation to message me stands open. I wish you nothing but the best.