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gotta say it now before I "forget" (chicken out)
Just watched a program about anorexia. It was fascinating, the new things they've learned. The connection between anorexia and OCD I pretty much figured out on my own but the serotonin link... that was interesting.
Something they didn't talk much about is the perceptions of the afflicted. As I was saying to the Lady, I see two issues primarily; the obsession with weight and the obsession with food. All anorexics have some combination of the two. The ones who go to the hospital, I believe lean more towards the obsession with weight, as that's what they talked about most. What they didn't talk about was the fearful relationship one can have with food itself.
By the time I was 17 and not quite fully engulfed (but close) by anorexia, I was afraid of food. Food was evil. Not because it made me fat (I could clearly see I never got fat) but because it was always loaded with "evil" ingrediants. I had a moral and/or health-driven reason for avoiding nearly every ingrediant listed on food labels. If I ate something that I didn't consider "safe" then I was slammed with guilt and anxiety. I was obsessed with being "healthy". I knew avoiding food was not healthy though and I had many many rationalizations around that as well.
As some of the ladies on the program said, it was frustrating and confusing to deal with. On the one hand, there was the enormous guilt and fear inherent in eating almost anything, on the other hand was the simple common sense that eating itself was supposed to be normal and good. I couldn't understand how my senses could get so skewed, especially since I KNEW they were skewed. Yet I was still essentially a slave to my flawed perceptions. I couldn't shake the incredible negativity that eating held no matter what.
I lived for nearly two years on Slimfast, cheerios and plain yogurt. I went to the bathroom to evacuate about once a week. My hair dried and broke off, sometimes falling out in large amounts. My nails cracked, split, and grew in crazy warped directions. My skin sloughed and peeled. My lips were constantly cracked and bleeding. Sometimes I walked into walls. Sometimes I forgot what I was thinking for long periods and "blanked out"
Yet everytime I went down to 80 pounds (I should have been about 105) I got compliments, I got attention, boys liked me, and I seemed to get along with people better. Life was easy, floating along sometimes. Other times I was confused and angry a lot, but more often I was depressed. I didn't sleep and I didn't eat and I didn't think very much. SUre I took drugs sometimes too but believe me, that wasn't the problem. If anything, the drugs made me feel better, gave me the energy I lacked from starving myself. Drugs helped me sleep - staying up for three nights then collapsing for two was better than sleeping two hours a night for a month. Drugs didn't appeal to me more than just a happy occasional diversion anyway... who needed to take a pill to be wacked out when all I had to do was stop eating?
But anyway... I still struggle with this... but it's not like it was. I still hear the same voices warning me against eating "evil" food but they're quieter and i can ignore them more now. I still feel guilty every time I eat a little something but i can put down a full meal with my family without any negativity. I still struggle but I know how to do it now. Tricks and cleverness really. What disturbs me now is that I know, without a doubt that I traded my anorexia for full-blown OCD behavor, barely kept in check. I am older and wiser but I still carry this damnable tendancy to run myself into the ground with ridiculous expectations. It is as if I was born with a huge ton of guilt on my person and all I ever get to do is relabel it now and then.
I hate my OCD more than I ever hated Anorexia. Anorexia was my friend at times, it gave me a feeling of power and security. I look back on anorexia as one looks back to childhood, with nostalgia because at the very least I can control my body in a way that other people simply cannot. But OCD is not my friend - it shows me how little control I really have.
But OCD is not dangerous, it will not kill me. This I know. So I will keep it instead of anorexia. But I don't have to like it.
Something they didn't talk much about is the perceptions of the afflicted. As I was saying to the Lady, I see two issues primarily; the obsession with weight and the obsession with food. All anorexics have some combination of the two. The ones who go to the hospital, I believe lean more towards the obsession with weight, as that's what they talked about most. What they didn't talk about was the fearful relationship one can have with food itself.
By the time I was 17 and not quite fully engulfed (but close) by anorexia, I was afraid of food. Food was evil. Not because it made me fat (I could clearly see I never got fat) but because it was always loaded with "evil" ingrediants. I had a moral and/or health-driven reason for avoiding nearly every ingrediant listed on food labels. If I ate something that I didn't consider "safe" then I was slammed with guilt and anxiety. I was obsessed with being "healthy". I knew avoiding food was not healthy though and I had many many rationalizations around that as well.
As some of the ladies on the program said, it was frustrating and confusing to deal with. On the one hand, there was the enormous guilt and fear inherent in eating almost anything, on the other hand was the simple common sense that eating itself was supposed to be normal and good. I couldn't understand how my senses could get so skewed, especially since I KNEW they were skewed. Yet I was still essentially a slave to my flawed perceptions. I couldn't shake the incredible negativity that eating held no matter what.
I lived for nearly two years on Slimfast, cheerios and plain yogurt. I went to the bathroom to evacuate about once a week. My hair dried and broke off, sometimes falling out in large amounts. My nails cracked, split, and grew in crazy warped directions. My skin sloughed and peeled. My lips were constantly cracked and bleeding. Sometimes I walked into walls. Sometimes I forgot what I was thinking for long periods and "blanked out"
Yet everytime I went down to 80 pounds (I should have been about 105) I got compliments, I got attention, boys liked me, and I seemed to get along with people better. Life was easy, floating along sometimes. Other times I was confused and angry a lot, but more often I was depressed. I didn't sleep and I didn't eat and I didn't think very much. SUre I took drugs sometimes too but believe me, that wasn't the problem. If anything, the drugs made me feel better, gave me the energy I lacked from starving myself. Drugs helped me sleep - staying up for three nights then collapsing for two was better than sleeping two hours a night for a month. Drugs didn't appeal to me more than just a happy occasional diversion anyway... who needed to take a pill to be wacked out when all I had to do was stop eating?
But anyway... I still struggle with this... but it's not like it was. I still hear the same voices warning me against eating "evil" food but they're quieter and i can ignore them more now. I still feel guilty every time I eat a little something but i can put down a full meal with my family without any negativity. I still struggle but I know how to do it now. Tricks and cleverness really. What disturbs me now is that I know, without a doubt that I traded my anorexia for full-blown OCD behavor, barely kept in check. I am older and wiser but I still carry this damnable tendancy to run myself into the ground with ridiculous expectations. It is as if I was born with a huge ton of guilt on my person and all I ever get to do is relabel it now and then.
I hate my OCD more than I ever hated Anorexia. Anorexia was my friend at times, it gave me a feeling of power and security. I look back on anorexia as one looks back to childhood, with nostalgia because at the very least I can control my body in a way that other people simply cannot. But OCD is not my friend - it shows me how little control I really have.
But OCD is not dangerous, it will not kill me. This I know. So I will keep it instead of anorexia. But I don't have to like it.
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Im curious
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