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Permalink Reply by Nina on April 21, 2008 at 8:31pm

Hi everyone! I am so grateful that this group exists...so many women deal with eating disorders/body image issues everyday of their lives and I think creating a safe space for us to talk about it is a truly amazing thing. I'm happy to talk a bit about my own history with eating issues, as I'm sure many of you can relate. I hope we can all learn from each other's struggles and overcome all this nonsense!! So here goes...

For my whole life up until recently I always felt like I was the fat kid, even though I wasn't. Looking back at pictures from when I was a kid I look totally normal, but for some reason I took on the persona of being the "fat friend" for so many years. When I was 15, two of my friends went to Weight Watchers so I did it too. I weight 130 lbs, which meant nothing to me at the time, but on the program I learned to eat according to numbers instead of my own body's intuition. I lost 15 lbs and this is what sent me into the world of eating disorders. Suddenly I felt so confused about my body...was I fat before? I had no idea what I looked like. If I gained even half a pound I had a total melt down. One weekend at the beach with my friend I cried because I ate a donut. ONE DONUT!! You get the picture.
So this began my battle with body image and counting calories. I gained weight on and off for a while, but when I was 17 I seemed to get it together. I started to listen to my body and eat foods that I thought were healthy. At this point I was a vegetarian who didn't eat too much dairy, and I felt pretty good about my body. But the problem was that I felt good about my body because of how much I weighed, not because I loved myself. I'm still working on that one. :)
When I went to college all of my eating issues came back full force. For a number of reasons I had a very hard first year, and the way I dealt with it was to eat, eat, and eat. I gained 30 lbs and hated myself more than I ever knew I could. I didn't want to go out or even care that much about how I looked because I felt so uncomfortable and so ugly. And guys were COMPLETELY off limits. I was so disgusted by myself that I couldn't imagine that anyone else would ever find me attractive.
After I came home from school (I transferred and am MUCH happier now) I put all my energy into losing weight and reclaiming feeling good about myself. It took a really long time for me to feel good again, over a year. I've gone back and forth between vegan and vegetarian and neither for a while, but none of them really stuck.
I was in a relationship with a guy for about a year who was really unhealthy, in more ways than one, (smoker, fast food eater, addictive personality in general), and after we broke up it was very important to me to make health one of my top priorities. After seeing the movie Crazy Sexy Cancer and reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, I am on the path towards a completely raw diet. Actually I'm not sure that I'll ever be completely raw, but I want to be primarily raw.
The reason eating raw makes so much sense to me and is helping me to feel good about myself and my body is because when I learn/read about raw foods, I actually begin to UNDERSTAND what food does in our bodies. When I can understand the science of it, I actually want to eat raw. I want to feel good and healthy and know that I am taking care of my body. It feels great to know that I am taking care of myself. If only I could meet other people that felt the same way!!
I still struggle with weighing myself too often and with getting upset over a couple lb weight gain. But I'm trying to love myself NO MATTER WHAT.
This was really long so thanks for reading, and I'm excited to hear everyone else's stories!
Peace and love yourself!!!

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Permalink Reply by Breanna on May 1, 2008 at 1:03pm

Hey guys! I am really glad there is a place on here to talk about this stuff. Thank you everyone for sharing, it is realy helpful to learn other people's stories. My story is kinda similar to Nina's in a way. I was never over weight. In fact I was always EXTREMELy skinny as a child and once I was in about eighth grade I was a normal weight. However, normal was not acceptable to me, I had to be perfect. I trade to loose weight for about a year but in the end it just made me more obssesed about food. It was not until I spent a summer in spain that I really began to loose weight. While I was in Spain I became really home sick and some how that made it really easy for me to be stricter on my diet. Each day I would eat less and less until I only ate about two pieces of fruit a day. When I left for Spain I weighed 125 pounds. A month later when I came home I weighed 107. It only got worse from there.
Despite the pressure to eat from my parents and friends, I continued to deprive myself. Eventually my 5'6 frame weighed only 88 pounds. I went to a Dr. appt. and my heart rate was only 31 beats per minute and my body temp was way down. They immediatly admitted me into the hospital. I would like to say that when I got released everything was better, but it only brought on new problems. Make an extrememly long and complex story short, I soon got new weird eating habits like eating late at night and waking up during the night and eating. This made me gain weight fast and ruined my already weak digestive system. It sounds dumb but my bad digestive system destroyed many things in my life. This past year has been the worse. My disordered eating and digestive problems ruined my cross country season, many opportunities, many aspects of my social life and much more.
This past january I went to an eating disorder facility for a month and that helped put things into perspective. After that I realized that I may not ever eat completley normal but that I have to do something that will help make my system healthy again. I learned about raw food and for once everything about the importance of eating made sense. It's hard but I am on the road to being healthy again.

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 16, 2008 at 9:40am

stay strong breanna-stay on the road!

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Permalink Reply by Nina on April 22, 2008 at 8:13am

I read Eat to Live also! I read it during my first year of college where my head was in a whole other place with food and I didn't read the whole book, but I've been thinking I should maybe pick it up again.
Thanks for your post, I really enjoy knowing how other people with similar experiences as me are finding their way to raw food and this site.

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Permalink Reply by Fathom Panthere on April 23, 2008 at 7:43pm

Um... Sorry. I'm a little late to the topic.

I'm not sure where to go with this... I suffered from a breed of compulsive overeating disorder that was medicinally induced by a pharmaceutical, Depakote. I gained about 100 lbs. in six months at the age of 12, when I was on this drug. I was subsequently put on a series of successive (but not successful - diets never are) diets, including Weight Watchers, which I felt horribly uncomfortable with the meetings, and Atkins, in which I secretly binged on carbohydrate-packed food - or should I say - non-foods.

A long time passed... I had almost grown comfortable with my body... and then the end of a relationship hit me. Like, hard. I brooded, as I am wont to do; I looked back over the relationship and realised that she had only once told me I was beautiful - I tried to tell her every day. So I thought I wasn't thin enough to love - that's what everyone in my life had told me through body language and sometimes language, that I wasn't thin (and therefore good) enough to love.

Starving was relatively easy once I got through the two weeks of just not being able to eat after the breakup. I kept doing it... For what, one, one and a half years? Two years? I forget now. In any case, it was long enough that now still, whenever I weigh myself and I've lost weight, I get all funky and have to resist weighing myself every day, multiple times a day, which is a sure road into relapse for me.

I went raw... and within a week, the ED was GONE. I mean it - gone. I felt no more impulse to starve. None. It's only now, a while into it, that I have the urge to weigh myself that I start to panic over my weight. As such, I am extremely anti-weight loss, as I believe this mindset is inherently eating-disordered - yes, even the 'health' kind (which I do not believe there is - it's all oppression-based, as I see it).

That's a very abbreviated version. But there it is.

P.S. Oh, and today, three weeks into 100% raw? I looked into the mirror and thought, "Venus fucking de Milo, baby."

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 16, 2008 at 9:42am

your PS ROCKS!

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 16, 2008 at 9:35am

In bullet points:
Grew up in a food/weight/body obsessed family.
Started fearing dessert foods at age 4
Developed anorexia at age 12
Hospitalized the first time at age 20.
Which led to 5+ years of intensive treatment: inpatient, intensive outpatient, outpatient, support groups, pharmaceuticals, etc etc etc.

Stopped the madness (I was becoming a professional patient) in 2005.

Doing so much better...though currently too underweight.
And kind of nervous about it.

Working at loving myself every day.
Working at living every day.
Working at nourishing myself every day--on every level.

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Permalink Reply by Breanna on May 17, 2008 at 12:32am

I can relate to you a lot, except my anorexia turned int various other eating disordered habbits. I feel like I am a little bit of everything right now. The mindset is very powerful, controling, and dangerous.

If you don't mind me asking what are you currently eating everyday and what are you trying to incorporate into your daily meals in order to be healthier?

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 17, 2008 at 12:33pm

The food I eat is and has always been very healthy (even pre-raw, pre-ed). I grew up on a ranch so I guess you could say I never really did the SAD thing.
I eat very simple foods--I don't do the fancy-schmancy meals that are made to mimic food that 'normal' people eat. In my mind, a veggie is a veggie and it should taste like a veggie! I eat a lot of salads and soups and plates o' good produce.
For me, because the re-feeding process when I first entered recovery induced hypermetabolism, I eat 6 times a day (3 meals 3 snacks, though i had someone suggest calling them "eating experiences" which I happen to really like) Eating at regular intervals keeps me balanced and keeps my metabolism at a steady level rather than bottoming out when it has been too long.


this is just what is working for me though.

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 17, 2008 at 12:29pm

absolutely! I think you're on the right track. Be gentle with yourself on this journey.
One thing at a time rather than trying to change everything all at once.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Yochelson on May 17, 2008 at 9:32pm

hi,
i need help. i was diagnosed w/ anorexia at 13. i'm now 18 almost 19. 100% raw

i had a really bad relapse a couple months ago (discovered college wasn't for me) but somehow gained about 15 pounds in the period of a month . to make a long story short, i'm pretty healthy now--still underweight but i've always been--and working on my own business (www.lifesourceyounity.com). i love yoga (fyi: donna farhi's great--she had an eating disorder and her philosophy particularly resonates well with me--she really gets it) and raw food--i swear it's saved my life. i've joined a meetup and become much more social and enthusiastic. i live in dc now but have a dream of starting a holistic healing retreat center specialiizing in eating disorders. after all, raw food is not only for people who want to lose weight. it is also for people who want to nourish and heal themselves in the way that mother nature intended...

i still live with my mother. she is very thin and capitalizes on my issues as an excuse for her not to face her own issues (i'm not trying to deny that i have a problem--just i wish she'd acknowledge that she does too instead of ordering me to go in for more weigh-ins). i also feel like i have to take care of her (ie anorexic quality). when she didn't have a job or a life, i got her into spinning and yoga (and now the vitamix). lol

i think that my mother may not be aware of this but that part of her doesn't want to see me thriving w/o my eating disorder and on my own b/c then she'd have to face her own "disorder" and issues. also, she and my distant father, a yale graduate, would have to admit that i succeded in an unconvential way (sans college). still, part of me doesn't want to leave b/c i feel like i have to take care and i can't succeed w/o my parents concordance

right now i am at a crossroads.
1) i can settle for the status quo. wait for things to happen. build up business/relationships in dc.
2) i have enough money to move out and find a roommate. build up business/relationships in dc.
3) leave this life behind and go to a place like Tree of Life for a 10-week program and jump into a new adventure--with huge risks (the change is too good/scary --my role changes from caretaker to carmen san diego-- > relapse) and benefits (live food, cool people, yoga, nature, retreat adventure --maybe even meet a guy for the first time i don't know, etc.)
4)i know things don't have to be so black and white either (like I could do a one-week stay at Tree of Life or something) but that's still similar to status quo.

a little more info...perhaps the most important...
i am in psychoanalysis the process requires that i stay in dc for at least 1 more year to finish (i don' t trust that it will nec be over then though). this makes things complicated. as usual, i think the therapist has helped (i've learned a lot about looking in and made strides in understanding myself) and hurt me (she didn't say much when my weight got dangerous) and certainly isolated me and set me up for failure in college (i walked 2 mi to get there and then missed dinner...). i feel like the more raw food/yogi/spiritual i get, the less she understands me. still, she's helped me see a lot. i would be so scared to leave...it's like i've been made to feel that i must finish this therapy or else i will be an incomplete person...i feel like i can't trust myself without it. i can't believe i'm writing this...but the way i'm describing psychoanalysis sounds like it's a drug. b/c if i said i want to leave she'd twist it around into "laura, you have always had trouble building roots--you want to leave because you can't live/sit with your current feelings (ie you can't handle this painful reality)" and i'll begin to think that if i can't finish this i'll always be a person who can't finish shit and just relapse at tol b/c i'm nothing w/o fucking therapy.

sorry i'm angry!!! and so confused.

so my questions are...
any other people in or have done psychoanalysis? what would you do if you were in my shoes?
also, would you settle for the status quo, find a roommate, or do a program like ToL?
any suggestions for how to come to a decision?

please inspire me ;-) thank you so much for your help and advice.

--laura

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 18, 2008 at 6:10am

Oh Laura, I have SO much I want to say. And I feel like I can't possibly type it all out.......
But I'll give it a start. And probably say more later.

It sounds like your living situation is toxic. It sounds like you love your mom, yet realize that her lifestyle and her own issues are holding you back in recovery. I can imagine it might be hard to leave, because it might feel like giving up on or betraying your mom. It would also mean you'd have to grieve the loss of her ever being the caregiver you needed.

I'm glad you're thinking of your options, and that you see there might be a middle ground between staying and leaving in a big whirlwind of change.
that said, sometimes the BIG change is exactly what we need.
Speaking from my own experience, moving all the way across the country was a HUGE help in my growth. I had stopped treatment for a year before I moved, but I can't even begin to describe how much things shifted when I moved to NYC from California. Whole new world. Important to remember though: Our problems follow us. There is no running away. So any big moves have to be done with the recognition that our BAGGAGE is still amongst our suitcases!

That feeling of psychotherapy being a 'drug':
Yes, yes, I felt similarly at times. Like I was trapped as a patient forever. A good therapist shouldn't make you feel that way. You should always feel empowered in your therapy. Because it is for YOU not for the therapist. (As an art therapist, this is something I'm very passionate about) I believe wholeheartedly in the therapeutic process, but I believe people need to find their own ways with it. That might mean alternative modalities, that might mean trying a bunch of different styles, that might mean 10+ years of intensive psychoanalysis with the same therapist. It's different for everyone. I think it needs to be balanced with other healling, nourishing things. (ie yoga, fulfilling life-activities, friendship, love, nutrition etc).


I have so much more I'd love to say.
I think because I wish I had heard some of this when I was your age. Maybe it would have saved me some years of struggle? Or maybe not. Maybe I needed that struggle.

Namaste,
Erin

PS I love your idea for the retreat center--a friend who is studying accupuncture and I want to do something like that on the central coast of CA. We should all go in together on that!!

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