*image courtesy of bing image search
Hey everybody.
I know I've been gone a long time. If you know me in real life (which is the majority of my readers), you know that I've struggled with bulimia for the past nine years. Well, maybe you didn't know it was nine years, but I've been very open about my recovery process.
I don't know what happened to me in October, but I had a complete and total relapse. I will spare you the details, but it was ugly. I was probably in my worst mental state that I had been in since first starting counseling in 2011. I had several complete and utter mental breakdowns from October until the end of December (half of which happened at work...shout out to my beautiful family of coworkers for not just straight up having me committed...seriously.) and I realized that I couldn't, in good faith, give advice about getting healthy while I was destroying my body.
I made a promise on December 31, 2014 that I would not purge, starve, take energy supplements, cut, or do any of my self-destructive habits in 2015. As of today I am 55 days clean, and have kept that promise. I'm not going to sit here and say it was an easy decision, or that every single minute of every day I am still as gung-ho about it as I was New Years Eve. It's not been easy. Some days are harder than others. There are days where the only thing that stops me from being destructive is that promise that I made to spend 2015 free.
I have been wanting to make a post about this for a while now, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. I do want to make it loud and clear, though, that every pound of the 110 pounds that I have lost was done in a healthy fashion. I did not starve, I did not purge, and I did not use diet supplements to lose the weight. I tried as hard as I could, but I swear on my heart I did not lose 1 pound with my destructive habits. Last night, though, I realized that it is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2015 and figured that there was no better time than right now to raise awareness of the most fatal mental disorder.
Everybody knows somebody with an eating disorder. Probably 80% of my coworkers didn't know that I was one more tick on their list. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (anad.org), up to 24 million Americans suffer from an eating disorder. Eating Disorders don't discriminate, either. You can be female, male, rich, poor, black, white, and/or speckled. One of my biggest fears as a young woman deciding if I want children is that one day, due to my history with mental illness, my children may end up with an eating disorder. I know the nightmare that I've lived through, and I don't want that for my children, or their children, or anybody else for that matter.
**I just realized that not everybody knows which eating disorder is which. Eating Disorders are mental illnesses, not crash diets. To put it in very VERY simple terms, Anorexia is a refusal to maintain a healthy body weight (there are 2 subtypes, non-purging and purging). Bulimia is when one binges on large quantities of food then compensates by form of purging (self-induced vomiting, laxative abuse, compulsive exercise, and fasting are all considered forms of purging). Binge Eating Disorder, similarly to bulimia, is when an individual binges on large quantities of food but does not compensate by purging. Finally, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) is disordered eating habits that can be a combination of any of the above. My official diagnosis was bulimia because of how often I was purging, but I spent the majority of my "sick years" EDNOS.**
Just because someone "looks healthy" doesn't mean they aren't suffering from an eating disorder. While the criteria of diagnosis for anorexia is refusal to maintain a normal weight and being 15% below what is considered a normal weight, most bulimics are a healthy weight or slightly overweight. Also, Binge Eating Disorder (BED) has finally been recognized as an eating disorder. Many people with BED are overweight or obese, and have the same health complications anybody with obesity faces. Same goes for EDNOS. They may binge one day, restrict three days, eat a healthy amount for two days, and have fluctuating weight the whole time. You can't see a mental illness the way you can see when someone has a broken leg.
A great resource for opening the doors of communication if you suspect a friend or loved one has an eating disorder is in the "How to Help" section of this link. If you want to talk to a friend or loved one who you suspect may have an eating disorder, there are right and wrong ways to do so. First off, do not start off in an accusatory fashion. The quickest way to shut down someone with an eating disorder is to start off a conversation with "I think you have an eating disorder." It is tricky, your friend or loved one may get very angry with you. It isn't them being angry. It is the disease. Eating Disorders are like having your own little (deadly) secret, and the host (which is just what I call the person suffering from the disease, the host body for the demon) will probably lie, deny, and lash out. Starting off a private conversation with something specific, such as, "I noticed you aren't eating much for lunch lately. What's been going on?" or "I've heard you throwing up. Do you need to talk?" will get you farther. Maybe not much farther in the beginning, but offering an open line of communication shows your friend or loved one that you are there for them, and you're willing to listen to whatever they need to say. Maybe they have had a lot of stress at home. Maybe they have food poisoning. Maybe they have an eating disorder.
If you suspect there is a problem, do not use phrases such as "You look fine," "You're not fat," "Just try portion control." An eating disorder doesn't stem from weight (or a weight problem). In my personal experience, I was fat, but I also had inward issues that I chose to project into my eating habits. Even something as harmless as "You look healthy" can cause a downward spiral for someone suffering from an eating disorder. They may think they want to look as thin as possible, and if people see them as healthy, they think they are failing. Even the best meaning compliments on someone's body should just be avoided when talking to someone who is suffering from an eating disorder. Their disease can skew anything to fuel the fire, and it will.
There are several resources available for use if you or you suspect someone you know has an eating disorder.
The NEDA website has it's own toll-free, confidential hotline that can be reached Monday-Thursday 9am-9pm (EST) and Friday from 9am-5pm.
1-(800)-931-2237
If you click on the NEDA link above, you will go to the Help & Support page where you can request toolkits, find treatment referrals, support groups for family and friends, support for if you've lost a loved one to an eating disorder, and a host of other links. You can also navigate the NEDA site to learn more about eating disorders, as I have not even scratched the surface in this post.
If you prefer e-mail, ANAD has a special email address you can use to reach them for help.
An eating disorder will turn your world upside-down. It won't make you attractive, it won't make you popular, it will turn you into a shell of the person you were before. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here. You can find me on facebook, you can send me an e-mail at ankromrd @ yahoo . com (no spaces), you can leave me a comment and we'll work something out. There is hope for you, and you are so much more than your eating disorder.
I realize that this isn't the light-hearted post that I usually make, but this is a cause very important to me. I will continue on in some form of schedule eventually, but for now, I'm back, kids!!
xoxo,
Rachel
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