Eating disorders, and messed-up relationships with food

i don't chew ice but i sure as sugar start drinking lots of water once it gets really bad! i had a friend who chewed ice tho.

 

for some reason when I'm having a bad food day or week or whatever, I end up drinking a lot of coffee or beer.

....mostly I think because the act of chewing is gross to me, so clearly the answer is a liquid diet

but I'm also a beer snob, and I like playing with coffee, so it means I can start enjoying taste again.

....the problem with coffee, though, is that more than two cups trip me into what I call the coffee cycle: I drink coffee, I get twitchy and pissy, I can't go to sleep, the next day I'm paranoid, twitchy, And I get to see those weird dark darting corner of the eye figments, and then that night I pass out, finally get sleep, and wake up with a migraine.

very fun

 

*lies down in this thread*

why does all advice for stopping binge eating boil down to "here's a lists of things you can't do because you are depressed ;^) "

 

I'm not sure I have a great answer to that because that me, but "stuck in same hole" fistbump

 

"Instead of eating, try doing something else you enjoy!" is what really fucking got me. Yes, yes all of those things I enjoy, such as- *car blaring horn drives by* -and- *construction worker fires up jackhammer*. How come I never thought of that!!

(I am exaggerating a little as my depression is being treated and I'm getting better, so that is a little more feasible. But. Just. Augh.)

 

Spoiler: triggery??? sorry I'm venting and not in Good Recovery Headspace right now

I have been having Bad Food Days the past couple of days, which means days where I don't count all of my calories because I don't know the exact content of them. I'm really upset about that because previously getting out of my cold I was able to eat less than half the recommended energy intake for an average human, which in my mind is the Correct amount for someone like me who never moves from their chair to eat. And I'm stuck at my weight plateau again, I can't seem to lose any more weight, even though I'm sure I'm not eating a gain diet and I'm on metformin and everything. I'm probably not counting good enough. I just can't seem to lose any of this weight and it is really frustrating?? I know that falling back on old habits to try and lose weight is the Worst Idea but everyone is always harping on me to lose weight because I'm obese now and it's just... really hard okay. I can't shake the idea that the best way to do this is to just not eat food, even though I don't have a strong enough will to not eat food completely, because I've been Eating Food for so long that I forget how to live on diesel fumes. And I can't really have a problem with restriction because I am obese, it's just dieting, I am very careful to make sure that I still eat around half the recommended intake usually, sometimes I even go up to normal dieting amounts of restriction even though that makes me feel like a sick failure. I just want to get sick again because then my appetite would be suppressed and this wouldn't be hard. Failing that it would be nice if I could stop having Bad Food Days I guess.

 

Spoiler: ANGRY DOCTOR RANT

... when the first words out of your doctor's mouth is "you're looking good, I can tell your face is filling out, I can see you've put on weight" and everything in your head is screaming YES I KNOW I'VE GAINED WEIGHT FUCK YOU AND YOU KNOW WHAT COMES WITH GAINING WEIGHT? LACK OF SLEEP, TWITCHY JUMPY-NESS, RANDOM BURSTS OF USELESS ENERGY, NEVER-ENDING NAUSEA AND A NO-LONGER FLAT STOMACH AND AND BIGGER MORE PAINFUL BOOBS AND THE JOY OF RESTARTING A MENSTRUAL CYCLE WITH A THREE WEEK PMS AAAUUUGGGHHH, and all you say is "yes, yes I have. You can stop bothering me about eating now, please".

Then, she asks to see you again in FOUR DAYS to make sure that you can MAINTAIN THIS THING before going on an EPIC HIKING TRIP. I would like to LOOK GOOD, thanks, Dr. Doom. AND IF FUCKING SHARK WEEK HITS IN THE MIDDLE OF CAMPING BECAUSE OF THIS NEW WEIGHT I'VE PUT ON I WILL BE SO PISSED OFF.

AUGH.

 

i thought i was doing okay again and then i uh. realized it had been like 12 hours and i wasn't hungry and hadn't eaten and wasn't i terested in food. and so. yeah.

Spoiler: oops

this morning i was awake and felt hungry at 4am and i ate a frozen microwave pasta thing because i wanted to take advantage of that whole being hungry thing, but other than that i've been having issues.

the only things that feel edible right now are potato pancakes and frozen microwave pasta. and nothing else. a bit ago i ate nothing but ramen for probably like two weeks because besides the fact i rarely felt hungry the only thing i was ever hungry for was ramen. and like. i used to be able to eat two of those frozen microwave things and still feel hungry for more and now even when i want to eat and i feel hungry i can barely finish one. like i know i used to binge in a like really unhealthy way but still when i think about it the change is kind of. alarming.

 

I found this article again today, and I think she has really good points, and I thought it might be helpful for people :)

http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/feeling-safe-around-food-again/

I would check out the rest of the blog, but I really shouldn't as I have stuff to do today.

 

Spoiler: ed talk

okay, i think i've started to curb my vomiting thing by...calorie counting more? i've been letting myself digest 500 cal a day and obviously it's made me feel like shit. so i got this app that says that i can lose 2 lbs a week by eating 1200 cal a day and after a day of doing that instead things feel less awful? like, i'm still not even close to having actually eaten 1200 cal today but since i didn't, since i ate less than that, it feels 'safe' i guess? like i don't have to throw up. and tricking my brain into letting me have more calories isn't necessarily a bad thing i don't think. tentative yay?

edit: i had 811 cal 2day and i think that i can refrain from throwing any of that up 8)

 

Spoiler: numbers under cut

We were in town and my boyfriend wanted to stop in and have some cake so I did too and I looked it up now and that cheesecake was 470 calories which is like 2000 kilojoules and I'm going to cry because that's my one full meal for the day gone on a fucking slice of cake how do I always keep being an idiot and eating food I don't know the caloric content of???

 

Sorry to double post but I wanted to celebrate that I managed to order my groceries, finally, after putting it off for half a week by going 'but I don't really need food'. So. That's a success!!

 

that's awesome 8D

 

So, the good news is Shark Week hit before camping.
The bad news is my brain took that and said "GOOD, now you know you're still healthy and you haven't ruined your body, so drop a few of these nasty pounds off" then the other side of my brain said "Well, once you're done with the swords your uterus is intent on being rid of, you'll be down a few pounds anyway just in water weight and bloating" then the first side of brain said "OH NO YOUR DOCTOR IS GONNA KILL YOU" so I ate food. Proper supper. Okay, I'm okay. Blah.
#whentheEDbrainisactuallyrightforonce

 

Oh hey, I was actually thinking about making this thread earlier when I spotted this. Glad it's here.

I've come to recently accept that I do, without question, have an eating disorder. It's not diagnosed yet (next month... seems so far away), but this is not a case of 'well, your relationship with food needs work, but it's not quite disordered...'... there's no grey area here. And accepting that was ... not exactly hard, but a strange road. I minimised and rationalised it for years, even though if it were anyone else I would be alarmed. I mean, it didn't meet diagnostic criteria for anorexia or bulimia, so I was fine, right? And like... no. There's a reason OSFED/EDNOS is far and away the most commonly diagnosed eating disorder.

Also... it started a long time ago.

Spoiler: CW - Weight gain and loss, body image, mentally beating up on myself, compulsive eating, binging, purging, generally gross and upsetting content

When I was a kid, looking back at now, I obviously had some weird problems around food. I ate impulsively and compulsively - Not because I wanted something, but because it was there. I was obsessed with food. I stole food (not from stores, from the cabinets and stuff), and... honestly? Besides little kid nonsense like pocketing a quarter left on the dresser (... and putting it back later), only food. I was not a small klepto. I got up at night to get into sweets that were around the house, I ate my sister's candy from her stash, pretty much, if there was food, I was going to eat it. I stole food that I could have had if I asked for it, eating it in secret. I ate a bunch of my secondary caretaker's medication once, too - Fortunately, it was Tums. And I was old enough to know better - I think I was seven or so (and it wasn't the first time I'd gotten into medicine and eaten a bunch. The previous time was when I was three or four and involved Flintstones vitamins, though the story was brought up often. I had to go to the emergency room and have my stomach pumped. So I knew better).

I also frequently overate, eating too quickly, and vomited, as a result of those two factors. This was somewhat of a joke when I was a kid, oh, yo-yo stomach! No biggie. Basically, I had no ability to stop eating until I was overly full, at which point my body would freak out.

This was not an opportunity that presented itself often. My environment only encouraged my inability to regulate my food intake.

As I got older, I no longer frequently threw up after overeating, but I did still overeat. It was a horrible, uncomfortable feeling, physically and emotionally, and I can't remember the first time I thought... well, I know how I can make this go away... and stuck my fingers in my mouth, but I think I was fifteen or sixteen. Throw it all up, feel better, and feel like I undid the damage of overeating. Because I was starting to have body image issues, and around that age I gained a significant amount of weight over the course of a year (not significant overall - but significant in the time frame. I think I gained over twenty pounds in less than a year). This was exacerbated by a caregiver who was overly critical of whatever I ate for a very brief period - Comments about things having a lot of calories, 'you know', stuff like that (... but it was long enough to push my eating into hiding. It shouldn't have been that significant, but I already had problems. So it made them worse).

It wasn't habitual. Not really. It was in specific response to excessive overeating, and periodic. So I rationalised it away. This continued and went unnoticed. If I threw up, well, I'd always had the sensitive stomach, you know...

Then I started to get weighed in regularly as part of my profession. Because I overate regularly, I struggled to maintain weight standards. I tried restricting and diets and couldn't stick to them (and even if I did, which I did a few times by some miracle, the weight didn't seem to come off... which made me feel bad... which intensified the risk of breaking the diet... also, when I get hungry, I get hungry, like, there's no segue between 'not hungry' and 'I could eat the whole world', which made things harder too), so I started to throw up right before weigh-ins, to get that last hopeful pound off, and use laxatives the days before to make sure my weight met standard. I failed a weigh-in, but passed a body composition analysis. I was having other problems, like isolation and depression (and... some other stuff, wrong thread for it, though). Then some woman I knew told me I was 'big' as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, I was oblivious, and no one had clued me in, and my vague body image issues became specific. No further detail needed, really. This made me punish myself harder. I felt like throwing up was something I deserved to have happen, and it felt kinda good when I did it, like, hey, fresh start. Now, don't fuck it up. I pretended to be a lower weight than I actually was, and hid my compulsive snacking.

This was accompanied by any number of unhealthy food attitudes (food as a reward and emotional eating especially) that aren't even worth getting into because they're just so typical (and some of them are totally socially accepted).

Now... It's been a little while since I've made myself throw up on purpose. I'm trying to think when the last time was; it was some time in the last six months, but I don't remember specifically. Laxative use was some time in late spring. This is not healthy or good behaviour, and I know it. The overeating is a problem I have pretty regularly. I eat too much, and I know it (sometimes only after the fact, but not infrequently, while I'm in the process of it), and so does my painful stomach. And so it all feels like my fault ('just put down the fork' culture only reinforcing that feeling) and whatever happens next is a punishment I deserve. My body image, additionally, remains distorted - I look in the mirror and all I see is a fat stomach. This was really driven home when I lost a bit of weight thanks to my ADHD medication (which was rudely commented on by some random I work with... thanks for that) and didn't look any different to myself, despite the obvious physical evidence of looser-fitting pants. In reality, my weight is on one end of average... and I don't feel any antagonism towards other people who are overweight whatsoever (or much of anything besides being angry that people would torment them for it) - It's all directed internally; I'm the only person I would ever belittle on the basis of weight. Because what other people weigh isn't my concern, but I can't be heavy, because people will see me and think that it's my fault and think less of me, and I'll deserve it.* And a part of me agrees with that.

Which is really, really messed up.

*This is pretty much true of everything boiling around in my head. Empathy and understanding are only for other people, but you, Hatchback? Fuck you, you're terrible, try harder. Basically one set of expectations for others - which are, you know, generally based in reality and built from a place of trying to understand what they're going through - and one set for me, which aren't. Muffled yelling.

So... yeah. Not really sure where to go from here on this besides being as mindful as possible (which is hard sometimes when some other yet-unidentified disorder[...s, let's be real] pops up and goes

Spoiler: general disordered food-related attitude

'Heyyyy... I don't feel like doing shit. That's right... Lie here almost catatonic despite needing and wanting to go get stuff done. Ah, but if you get me sushi I'll actually think about moving, you know? Consider it.' Long story short, I definitely got myself sushi as a reward for actually getting up and getting my errands done and not sleeping for twelve hours. Which is irritating, because hey, you've got an eating disorder, stop with the unhealthy food attitudes, but also, I've actually got shit to do, so it's kind of like más loco's hierarchy of needs here.

So yeah.)

I definitely don't feel like I need inpatient treatment (also, can't afford it, fiscally or socially), but I do know I have a Significant Problem (as much as my brain keeps trying to go 'um, it's not that bad, stop being so dramatic' Stop that, brain), which, I think, is the important first step. I guess I'll... wait and see what the psychiatrist says. And lurk this thread heavily.

 

Spoiler: numbers

544 cal so far today and i feel way better, mentally. hopefully this change'll stick. i get that it's still bad probably but once i get things into the range of 'bad but socially permissible' i'll be good, i think? i'm not going to ask any more of myself rn, at least. still hoping i'll stay around 800 total for today but knowing that i can go up to 1200 makes the panicky feeling chill out a bit.

 

Spoiler: disordered mindset arghhh

So, like, I can not explicitly reward myself with food for doing stuff. That's a choice I can make consciously.

But, like... eating something tasty makes me happy whether I ate to make me happy or not. I ate a reasonable amount of food, didn't overeat, ate it because that's what I wanted to eat, and still felt distinctly happier having eaten it.

What the hell am I supposed to do? Live on soylent shakes? I want to work on this... and I also don't want to reduce eating to a miserable obligation.

[muffled yelling]

 

Spoiler: more numbers

soooooo it kind of helped? like, i'm letting myself have more calories, but i'm still puking up the excess. i'm at 516 today, will probably allow myself a cookie when my sis makes them, which is another 96, but i don't see myself going up higher than that. sigh.

 

Spoiler: disordered mindset!

I've been having more Bad Food Days but the treadmill being fixed helps, I can try to exercise some of it off. I know it's really important for me to keep the barriers up between me restricting too hard because I used to be incredibly bad at it, but functionally it just makes me feel like a Fake Disordered Eater. Like... I should be doing so much more, I'm just being lazy with this 'eating some food still' thing. Which is pretty fucked up, I know I should be proud of managing to eat some things still, I'm just... not actually proud of that!!

Honestly, I miss the lightheadedness. It told me I was doing something right. I know that's not actually true and is kind of a fucked up thing to miss, but... bluh.

 

I... also get into these braintraps. Hugs across the internet.

Spoiler: disordered mindset, related to binging/purging,

Sometimes I antagonise myself like, look at you. You don't binge nearly enough to be diagnosed with BED, or purge nearly enough to be diagnosed with BN. You're mediocre at disordered eating, too! It's like... no. This is exactly why I denied that I had an eating disorder in the first place, just morphed. It's not subclinical or 'almost'. It's different. It's also the most lethal, probably at least partially because of the 'it's not so bad...' idea.

Unrelated,

Spoiler: some personal rumination, self-blaming/self-harm, disordered mindset, binging/purging

I think for me it's more about punishment, and it's like a Möbius strip in that respect. Like, yeah, I do have body image issues, but that's kind of secondary and sometimes they're not really present; they come and go. Mostly, I overeat because I'm angry at myself (because anything bad or sad that happens is my fault), then I get get angry at myself for binging, so sometimes when everything is shitty enough, I purge as a punishment for overeating, as much as to relieve how uncomfortable it is (and it does feel good, which is disgusting, but purely chemical) - In a way, it's more like self-harm. And I get angry at myself for doing that, too.

I need to stop being so angry at myself.

Edit: Oh, yeah, and making yourself throw up makes it more likely you'll throw up without intentionally doing so. Like this morning, I was just coughing, and. Thanks for that unwanted endorphin rush.