Topic : Anorexia

HI TO EVERY ONE WHO READS OR WRITE TO THESE MESSAGE BOARDS, I AM 38 YRS OLD MARRIED AND HAVE THREE KIDS TWO BOYS 13 AND 14 AND GIRL 18 YRS.I HAVE HAD A EATING DISORDER FOR A LONG TIME  NOW THE LIGHTEST I HAVE WEIGHED IS 40 KILOS AND NOW 46 KILOS AND I STILL HATE MY BODY I RECENTLY HAD A BOOB JOB HOPEING THAT WOULD HELP AND IT HAS A LITTLE. MY HUSBAND IS VERY CONTROLLING BUT DOES'NT REALISE BUT HE CAN'T CONTROL MY BODY  I HAVE HAD HELP IN THE PAST BUT I PUT IT DOWN TO I WILL ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS, PEOLPE SAY I'M SKINNY BUT I'M SURE THEY SAY IT TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER, I HAVE IMPROVED OVER THE LAST 6 YEARS THATS WHEN MY WEIGHT WAS 40 KILOS I COULD'NT GET ANY LOWER THAN THAT.. I AM SORRY FOR WINGING  BUT IT HELPS TO TALK EVEN IF NO ONE READS MY MESSAGES   

THANK YOU BYE FROM PAULA 

       I am posting a message reguarding my friend. She has recently became anorex. She lost close to 50 pounds this past summer and she wont admit to having this disease. I have always thought that she has been pretty but with her losing this weight she looks great!!! How ever when people tell her this (that she looks soo good from losing all this weight) it makes her not eat even more cause it is giving her the attenchion that she wants. Its hard for me to be around her cause all she ever talks about is her being fat!! and it is so annoying. I dont know what to do with her. I have talked to her about it and how it makes me feel but this is where it becomes hard. At the same time she lost all this weight i also had lost weight. How ever i did it by throwing up. I know not good but i am still heavyer and i am not concered about me i am not near a dangerous weight. She will than turn it around and act as though she is concered about me. I need help with her! Any ideas?      ~~a concerned friend~~ 

  

  

my name is anna, when i was 15 years old i got myself into a very bad relationship. i started to not eat and make myself throw up to relieve myself of stress and to make myself feel clean, and forget everything. soon after i started doing that, before i started losing weight i started dating the new guy, whom i am still with today. that is when it started getting worse, because i couldn't forget things from the past. i lost 30 pounds in 1 month. after that i felt so proud of myself, and it made me feel like everything had gotten better. so i became obsessed with my body and weight. my boyfriend took action and helped me to recover. it took 2 years. it has been about 8 months since i have been really bad with it. now i want to lose some weight, after i recovered i gain a bunch of weight. i am not fat, but i want to lose some weight. every time i start to work out and stuff i get carried away and over do it, and dieting i take it to far. i have asked my boyfriend to help me but he gets upset, he doesn't want me to worry about that. i don't know how to get in shape, and not trigger my eating disorder to happen all over again. i would love some advice. i don't have anyone to talk to about this. please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Hi,  

  

Thank you so much for responding! I really appreciate it. Wow, I'm really happy that you found some place to give you the tools to live!  I'm going to contact Center for Change and get information. She's finding it hard to let go this time with her job and family but she is running out of time. Literally! There is only so much I can say to her because if you say to much she will ignore your calls and emails so I really have to learn to be patient BUT it's frusterating..the waiting part. What  did it take for you to realize that you needed help? 

I am 33 years old and have been battling this disease since I was 8 years old.  For the past 25 years, I have felt all alone in this disease that nobody would ever understand, for I myself did not have much understanding about it.  Within the past couple of months I have come along way in understanding what this disease is all about, and have joined a support group in my area. 

 

This past July I was 82 pounds and I am 5'1", I was on my fifth day of not having anything to eat, and the mere thinking of eating anything made me feel sick to my stomach.  I was having heart palpatations and very very weak, as I was laying down on the couch, I knew that I had a choice to make which was a life or death situation, either let the Anorexia win, or fight the battle with everything I had in me, so I decided that my children did not deserve to have a mother die at such an early age and I needed to fight this battle.  I have some what recovered and am now at 92 pounds, but because I have battled with this disease for so very long, my body is shot, I have no energy, my thinking has slowed way down, my teeth are destroyed, which I can't fix them, I have told my husband that it won't be the anorexia that will kill me, it will be because I can't afford to get my teeth fix, that will most likely end my life.  I am at a point in my life right now, that I am tired of living in a sickly body, I am tired of battling this disease.  So I have started the process in getting treatment, but a road block was thrown in my way.  I was planning to go to Shades of Hope in Texas and have found out that I need to come up with the whole cost upfront because my insurance will not cover the inpatient treatment that I need.   They want 21,000 dollars for the 45 days of treatment!   I can't come up with that kind of money, but I am not losing hope, because I am praying that the Lord will find someway for me to get this treatment, for he is my strength when I am at my weakest points. 

 

I have four children, but my two oldest are already showing signs of having an eating disorder.  My oldest son who is 10 and my oldest daughter who is 9.  I don't want them to go through what I have gone through, right now though, I don't even have the energy to help them with their disorders because I haven't fully dealt with mine! 

 

I am not the typical Anorexic which made it easier for me to be in denial about having an eating disorder for a whole lot of years.  I do not overly exercise, I do not count calories, I don't watch what I eat or don't eat, I do not have a distorted body image.  I just starve myself, and most of the time I don't even realize I am doing it, I just don't get hungry, oh, and I avoid eating around ANY ONE I don't know or don't feel comfortable around.  I usually eat just one small meal a day, like today all I have had is a piece of pizza.  Sometimes it will take me a couple of days to realize that I haven't eaten anything at all in the past 48 hours and really need to eat something.  So when I do realize I have gone that long I really try to eat something. 

 

I am finding it a comfort to finally realize that there are other people that have this disorder and really understand what I have been dealing with for the past 25 years. 

 

May the Lord bless all those that suffer from this eating disorder. 

Hehe it was my parents that decided I needed the help!  I was stuck in the hospital for a month on bedrest (kinda, I was a brat back then) and my parents got Medical Guardianship over me.  That means that they can do whatever they want to me medicine-wise, like the tube feedings and such.  I told them about this place I had researched online (Center for Change) and they looked it up and really liked it.  I was kept in the hospital on tube feedings until the day before I had to leave for Utah.  They didn't want  me to die at home :(  So I was sent to Utah because my parents wanted me to go, but in the end, it's a good thing, because my main goal with my Anorexia was never to die, it was just to be loved.And I got that love at the Center for Change, and they saved my life when I passed out during the interview!  The 5 weeks of tube feedings were Hell, but it was worth it.  I was there so long... a year and six days.  I'm sure if you asked the staff about a girl named "Sunshine", they'd have some stories to tell you :) With a name like that, no one forgets me...  Umm... I hate insurances.  They suck.  I believe the Center for Change has a Foundation, but I'm not sure what it does?

As for me now... I'm slipping... I want to lose weight so badly and it's not for any stupid reasons like because of men or stuff like that.  I do it for me.  I want to look good in the mirror again.  I'm sorry I'm such a hypocrite, telling you what a wonderful place the Center is, but like I said, it's only a start.  They can get you up to a healthy weight where you can think properly again and make more informed choices.  Then it's up to you to take what you learned from the Center for Change and use it in your life.  Some people come out of there and are totally cured!  Some are so-so  struggling, but not relapsing, and some of us just relapse.  I wish your sister the best.

She wrote to me and she was telling me about her insurance.  I don't know what to say about that.  What happened to me was that I was in a job and then I went into an Eating Disorders Program.  They tried to hold my position open and eventually I came back for about a month, but I relapsed and had to go back to the program.  It was at that time that I had to resign from my job and I lost my insurance.  Somewhere along the line I picked up Medicaid and Medicare (my mind was soooooooo fuzzy back then).  I think my parents did the work for me.  I could ask! 

Bjork

Honey, you need to give yourself a break. Remember, it took you two years to recover! And, ending the behavior is only one side of the coin. I'm sure many of us can attest to the fact that this mindset is NOT an easy one to lose. Until you can look at your health from an objective point of view, it's better to stave off the notion of weightloss. So before you start obsessing about weight from ANY aspect (even one that you consider to be harmless), give yourself permission to live your life without guilt, without self-contempt.  

  

You are in control of this disease now. Don't hand over the reins again. You're better than that. You deserve more. 

  

We all do. 

What am I to do? My therapist retired, and my insurance won't pay for another therapist that deals with eating disorders, the church is sitting on my case because family is very important to them, but what is the family to do if I die from my eating disorder? isn't getting me well the best thing for the family, I thought I could try and recover on my own, so I tried to eat and let it kill me inside, I got on the scale and I gained 5 pounds, I cried all night long, yelled at my hubby and the whole world, I cussed myself out for doing that to me, I felt fat, worthless and so much more,  

  I live in a world of insecurities, My parents either beat me, or molested me, my brothers raped me, I was rejected by my parents and by my peers in school I had no one, and now I live with all those same insecure thoughts and feelings, I don't let no one in my life much, I tend to make a friend and they talk to me and then they just bail on me a few days latter, I am cursed and not worth anything, I need help, and yes I want help to escape my mind and my thoughts and be a strong woman some day but I can't seem to get help, I get turned down just about everywhere, I guess being 5'6" and weighing 100 pounds is no big deal, I guess I am just not under weight, I don't know, I am so lost in  a sea of mental disorders and eating disorders, I have no where to turn, no one to turn to, my hubby feels hopeless when it comes to me, But at the same time he is dealing with depression and I am having a hard time coping with so much in my life, I tried suicide once and the thoughts are always still there though I won't do anything, but yes I do at times wish I was dead to get away from all this, I hate my parents for what they did to me and how I feel now, I know it is my control now, but I blame them for my low self esteem, they always told me I am worthless and a sack of sh*t and other things, so am I that same worthless person? I never graduated from high school so I feel like a failure at everything I do, losing weight gives me that taste of success that I so desperatly need to taste and feel, the more bones I see and feel the happier I am. I know I am very sick and need help, but there is no help for me the diseased. 

Hi hun. I just wanted to reply to send you lots and lots of hugs. First of all, I am so sorry for everything you have gone through, no one deserves to be hurt in the ways you have been hurt. I wish I knew what to say to you to make it all better, but I know very well that that is simply not the case, no matter what anyone says it does not matter because the voices in our heads are much too powerful and overbearing. What you were saying about feeling like you were worth nothing, really stuck a cord with me. I was talking about that very same thing in therapy today. My therapist asked me what I would say if I were a therapist and my client was saying how she was good for nothing. I said I would say "well, everybody has value." Thta was a very hard thing to say becasue I knew what she was implying. I just want to let you know that no matter the what the voices inside tell you, you ARE worth it. Nobody is worthless, hun. Trust me, I know how hard that one is to fight and maybe you don't have the strength right now to fight it, but just know that I don't think you are worthless; I believe you deserve every bit of happiness that is possible. Take care hun, and please keep us posted on how things are going.  

Sending lots of hugs, 

Julie