Sick Enough

I often feel like I'm not sick enough; like things have gotten all blown out of proportion and my disordered relationship with food isn't all that bad. And if it's not that bad then I don't need to recover because there is nothing to recover from.

I was slow to seek help because I never felt like I had a real problem; at my worst I felt like I was failing at having an eating disorder.  I still feel this way:

I am failing at having an eating disorder.  

When I told this to my doctor she actually laughed out loud. Not in a rude way but in a
that-comment-caught-me-off-guard-because-you-can-not-fail-at-having-an-eating-disorder,-the-very-idea-of-that-is-crazy type of way.

I am not anorexic and I do not meet the criteria to be classified as bulimic. I am a prime example of someone with EDNOS (Eating Disorder not Otherwise Specified). A 'catch all' phrase often used to classify those of us who aren't sick enough yet to have a label all our own. I've seen it described as the term for someone who, if left untreated, will most likely develop a more serious eating disorder with a "proper label" but I feel like this label (EDNOS) is true to the wide assortment of symptoms that people can display. It represents the wide spectrum of what disordered eating can be.

Moreover, it allows me to cling to my belief that I'm not that sick, that things have somehow just been blown out of proportion and I'm not really THAT GIRL.

This belief was broken down a little bit when I read on the F.E.A.S.T. website that

  EDNOS symptoms can be more lethal than those associated with 

anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. 

Wow! What a wake up call. This is real. I am lucky that my body has been able to handle the abuse I've handed it. I am lucky that I found help when I did.

I am officially done arguing with myself about whether or not I have a problem. I am officially done feeling like an outsider from the ED world. I do belong in such groups. My opinions on eating disorders matter. I am sick enough.


Please don't misunderstand this post. It's not about comparing and a twisted game of "You're sicker than me". It's about me trying to convince myself that I do have a problem and the voice in my head that's telling me to just stop treatment and return to 'normal' life is wrong.

Who is 'That Girl'?

Most people have some sort of assumption about what type of person has an eating disorder. I think it's partly a way to protect ourselves. There is a 'them' and an 'us'. We are not like 'them'; this makes us feel safe and to some degree lucky. We can sympathies with, support and love them but they are not like us.

As a member of society my heart hurts for 'those' girls. We see eating disorders portrayed in television and movies. We hear reports about actresses who suffer from them. The terminology has become part of everyday conversations and facebook status updates. Before I found out that I am 'that girl' this is what I thought about her:

A person with an eating disorder is weak and stupid. She would have to be in order to continually harm her body that way. She has an unbelievably low self-esteem. She is one of those girls who is continually (and often annoyingly) looking for praise and complements. When she gets them she often argues or disagrees with them. She is fragile, pathetic, insecure and selfish.

I'm embarrassed and ashamed to think about how wrong I was.

This is not how I would describe myself.

This is no longer how I would describe any one with an eating disorder.

This is what is keeping me silent. 
I have no idea what my loved ones preconceptions about eating disorders are and I can't bare to think that they might be as wrong as I was. I can't bare to think that they might feel this way about me. Or even worse they might not believe that I have a problem because I do not fit their preconceived notions of who 'that girl' should be.

Blindsided by the Down Slide

I read a great blog post the other day about how the game of Chutes & Ladders is like recovery: sometimes we slide downward but never back to the same place we started at.

In the game of recovery I was blindsided by a slide today and I don't know why. I was doing so good. I thought I was doing everything right. So how did I end up on a square with a chute on it?

Now I'm left feeling sick and the food so desperately wants to come out. I don't understand why people want me to keep all this food inside. Yes I know it's wrong to binge but once the food is in there how can you ask me to keep it inside? It's too much! my body needs help dealing with it.

I've eaten so much I feel sick to my stomach and if that's not enough the thought of how much and what I ate makes me down right nauseous.

-tears-

I don't know what to do. I want to recover! but I also really want to get this gross awful food out of me!

Temptation

I was driving home from yet another out of town business meeting yesterday, which created the perfect situation for an 'incident'. I was alone (no one could judge me and I could hide all evidence), I was bored and I was tempted. There was nothing preventing me from stopping at any number of convenience stores and eating everything. As a matter of fact, so the store clerk didn't think I was a pig, I could stop at many stores and just buy slightly too much at each (a 'trick' that I have used in the past to save face). As the epic battle between relapse and recovery ragged on in my head I managed to drive past every single store! and the thing that distracted me enough to keep driving was thinking about the Tea Party song Temptation.

You can listen to it here: Temptation

With the exception of one line ('Shaking as her sex takes hold')  this song perfectly describes my disorder.

What makes recovery so hard is that temptation is right in front of me all the time. Recognizing that 'temptation will never let me down' is helping prepare me for battles. Temptation wont change. It will always be there. So instead I must change. I must be ready to fight temptation at any given moment.

Seriously though, look at these lyrics, this is my life, this is my battle:

Driven by restrained desire
I want what I need

I've lost all control

Drowning in a sea of rage
I taste the embrace
Helpless as it steals my soul
I've lost all control

Temptation
It never lets me down
Temptation
One foot in the ground

We exist in a world where the fear of
Iillusion is real
And we cling to the past to deny and confuse the ideal

Destined by a fate so cruel
And drugged to delight
Laughing as these lies unfold
I've lost all control


Temptation
You satisfy my soul

*NOTE: The above is not the entire lyrics of the song. They are just the lyrics that I found most relevant to me. 

Now What?

Alright I've come to terms with it: I have an eating disorder. Now what?

Initially the thought of recovery made me sick to my stomach. I could only think of all the positive things that this 'voice' in my head has done for me but now I see the truth and am ready to recover (alright, most days I see the truth and I'm already sick of this so I better get around to recovering). All I need to do is change how I think, what I think about, my eating patterns and habits, how I view the world and how I view myself. No problem! If only it was that easy.

I got angry at my boyfriend yesterday because since we found out that I have an actual problem (a real eating disorder - it's not just that I'm an emotional eater) I haven't been able to purge as often; now purging does more than just hurt me physically it also hurts him emotionally. Most days I am grateful to have this extra presence and awareness of my disorder in my life but some days I am angry that I can't just take refuge in the calmness of a purge. A purge wipes the slate clean, gives me a moment of emotional peace and lets me move forward away from a binge; it is the conclusion of a very bad thing, without the conclusion where does that leave me?

He uses words like 'just don't do it' to illustrate that even though he loves me more than anything he just doesn't understand what it's like. If it was as simple as 'just don't do it' then I wouldn't have a problem.

Which brings me back to my question: Now What?

Envy

I know eating disorders are a serious illness that people die from every day. I do not want to be sick! I don't want to have an eating disorder!

But if I have to have one can't I have a better one? I look at media images of women suffering from anorexia and although I don't want to be that thin or that sick, a small part of me envies them. If only I had the type of control that they did. If I'm going to be sick can't I be sick like that? If only my recovery could include eating.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) you can't pick your illnesses. But if I have to have this one then can't I at least be sick enough that I can get real help? If I could just be better at having an eating disorder then people would notice and I could get more help! I could put my life on hold and focus full time on my recovery. If I was sick enough then people would be more understanding when they found out the truth, I wouldn't need to defend my illness to them.

I look at the requirements to be medically labeled as bulimic; the thought of being that sick scares me and I my heart hurts for people who suffer like that but a small part of me envies them. They are successful at having an eating disorder and because of that success they can seek help.

I know logically that envying (even just a little bit) the girls that are sicker than me is part of my illness and will need to be one of the things I get rid of/change about myself as I recover.

Celebrate the Small Victories

One of the characteristics of my eating disorder is obsessive thoughts about food. I can only assume that these obsessive thoughts are similar to what an addict experiences. I hear this voice in my head about a specific food and it is so loud that it drowns out everything else. The rest of my entire life goes into auto pilot as this internal battle rages on in my head. The thoughts usually focus on a food that I have in the house (or candy or chocolate, which may or may not be in the house) and my entire focus is on eating it. The battle goes something like this:

You need to eat it! It tastes so good. It's right there just put it in your mouth. 

You can eat better tomorrow. You'll make up for eating this today tomorrow. 

But I've already eaten enough calories today. I don't need it!

I know that I'm not going to exercise it off tomorrow. 

I never 'make up for it tomorrow'.

Just eat it anyways. 

-persistent thoughts about the taste, texture and smell of the food- 

You're not going to stop thinking about it until you eat it.

You need to eat it!

I don't want to be fat. Think about all the hard work

I've done to get into this shape and I want to get smaller. 

Eating this will not help! Please don't eat it. PLEASE!

This thought pattern will continue for hours on end and is often accompanied by negative thoughts of what other people will think of me if they see me eat it. The voice to eat is so loud that I often lose. 

Do you know that satisfied feeling you get when you eat a tasty tasty treat, especially something that you've been craving for a while. You savour and enjoy it. Often the calories and fat are worth that enjoyment. That is NOTHING like when I lose the obsessive thought battle. When I finally give in and lose and eat it there is no joy or satisfaction. I often don't even really tasty what I'm eating. The positive feelings associated with treat eating are replaced with guilt and shame. Moreover, as I eat there is a stream of negative thoughts about how weak, fat and pathetic I am running through my head. To make the whole situation worse the voice in my head is never satisfied when I give in and instead I hear one of two things (1) "that was so good, eat more!" or (2) "what are you going to eat next?". 

BUT today I won! 

Lately my obsessive thoughts have been focusing on cheese whiz - an unhealthy product that I haven't eaten in years but is in the back of the fridge - particularly cheese whiz on rice cakes. I've lost the battle many times in the past week and to make it worse I am allergic to cheese. So when I lose, along with all the crappy negative thoughts, I get physical consequences too. I break out, get stomach aches, gas, constipation and an overall feeling of lethargy - like the dairy gets into my muscles and makes them tired. 

BUT today I won!

I tricked the stupid internal voice by eating (dairy-free) cream cheese on rice cakes. I took such pride in figuring out how to shut the stupid voice up that I tasted every bite. I enjoyed it and the calories were totally worth it!

Today I won! 

What living with an Eating Disorder looks like:

Life is like walking upstream through a river. There are parts of the river that are calm and the walking is easy, sometime even effortless. Then without warning I find myself in deep rapids and I get pulled under the water (a binge). The rapids are rough and I get tossed around, never being able to get a breath of fresh air, I’m drowning! I’m being tossed and turned, I don’t know which way is up or down and my head keeps getting smashed painfully on the rocks, making the confusion and disorientation all that much worse. I can’t breath! I need to breath. I have no idea when the rapids will be done with me, when I’ll be able to breath again. It’s so painful and scary, I have no control! and then I stick my head out the water and breath, a huge satisfying breath of fresh clean air (a purge). There is so much calmness in that first gasp of air that I can put my feet back under myself and regain my composure. I am okay now, the water is calm and I can start my journey on life’s path again.

There are times when I recognize that I shouldn’t purge. That it really is unhealthy and no matter how much I need to breath I force myself to stay under the dark scary water. At some point I loss consciousness from the lack of oxygen and smashing of my body against the rocks. When I eventually wake up battered and bruised on the shore there is no satisfaction to that first breath. I am standing alone emotionally and physically beat up with nothing to do but start walking back upstream.  

How did I not know?

Part of me must have known that I had a problem but the voice inside my head, the voice that I thought was my own, was so logical that I couldn't argue. It would say things like

You can't have a problem, you're not small enough or 

large enough or sick enough. No one will believe you. 

You don't want to be obese. Did you see what you just ate?

You deserve to be punished.

You're just an emotional eater. There is nothing 

wrong with you, lots of people are this way. 

I was fortunate that before I got sick enough to need medical intervention I happened to be in counseling for another reason and as that reason for counseling was coming to an end I mentioned how I feel about food and my fear of having an eating disorder and something purely amazing happened:

She believed me! 

Thinking about and typing that right now brought tears to my eyes. I really do have a problem, I am sick, I am getting help and I am going to recover.