AboutJeanne Rust, PhD Expertise I can answer any questions in the field of eating disorders
Experience I have 20 years of experience in treating eating disorders of all kinds. I also do consultations for people who are starting treatment centers.
Education/Credentials Northwestern University -- BA
Masters in Counseling
Doctorate in Clinical Psychology -- Saybrook institute
Question This is going to be long in an attempt to describe my whole situation.
EDIT:I'm terribly sorry about writing such a long, sentimental and stupid letter. I was not even trying to be sensible or objective and instead just let myself write everything that was burdening my heart. There really isn't a question to answer, just a search for some advice. The advice is probably hard to give, because I'm trying very hard to be a know-it-all and that is why I'm apologizing.
I'm a 17-year-old girl who has been struggling with different kinds of eating disorders for the past 3 years.
I started out with developing anorexia. I got down to 101 lbs (I'm 5'8) but several months later I lost control and started binging until I reached my that-time highest weight of 128lbs. I was miserable. I would try different kinds of methods to lose weight, but I failed every single time. Then I came to the idea of eating nothing for a week and then binge on the 8th day. I did this thing for more than a month until I ended up having a very very bad seizure, which I know now, was caused by dehydration, and then I sort of jumped to a realization that I need to do something about my health and ''recover''.
So I started my own ''recovery program''. I didn't seek proffessional help, only read alot of books and became obsessed with researching every single thing about healthy eating, eating disorders, the way the body manages food and excersising. What I didn't realize though, was that my anorexia got worse as I was believing that I'm in recovery. I started exercising more to ''rebuild'' muscle and I started watching stricly every piece of food I put into my body, because it had to be as healthy as possible in order to ''revoer my body completely''. In a few months I was down to 108 lbs and was convinced I was overweight. Now, looking at the pictures, I was scaringly thin. I was skinnier than I was when I first lost weight and got down to 101 lbs (probably because now I was excersising up to 3 hours every day and had more muscle mass compared to the previous year)
Then I got into high school. During the first month I somehow gained a few pounds, which didn't come off in any way. I sort of started to accept my new weight of 111lbs, but yet again, soon after that I started to lose control. In october my father left me and mother to live with his girlfriend and his newborn son and after that the relationship with my violent mother got worse. She used to beat me once in 2 months but then I ended up being beaten up at least twice a week. She used to beat me only when she got drunk but by winter she would beat me while being sober only because she didn't like the way I was looking at her in order to identify wheter or not she's drunk again. I've had alot of concussions and bruises but fortunately never broken a bone.
So that is when my depression got worse. I started burning myself, skipped school, lied to everyone and basically refused to do anything but eat, sleep and occasionally exercise compulsively (that happened on those short periods of enthusiasm when I tried to take back control over my life again) Then I got assigned into a mental hospital. I weighed 132 lbs. I was in the hospital for two months, at first for depression and then went into the ED unit to be treated for bulimia. I overheard a doctor once whisper to her colleague about me not being eating disordered at all and just being an imposter or a teenager in distress.
Maybe I really wasn't eating disordered any more. Or not what this ''doctor'' would consider being eating disordered. I really think I was starting to develop a binge eating disorder in the hospital. I was properly nourished but I always wanted more and I tried to use every opportunity to go and buy myself some extra food and eat it secretly. So I gained even more.
After being released from the hospital I got my own apartment so I live alone now, away from my mother. For a while I tried to keep up with eating 2000 calories a day as the doctors told me to, but it was hard. I often ran out of my weekly money and then ate less and then thought that eating less for a few days was an excuse to binge when I got my new share of weekly money. Then I decided I need to start dieting again. I was never really motivated and I never had a proper plan but in an abnormally long time, which was 6 months, accompanied by yo-yo'ing, I got down to 114 lbs (I guess? because I'm quite sure that my scale is lying. it's cheap and acts reallly weird) but I never got slim again.Then I was involuntarily in a routine of restricting to about 1200-1300 calories a day and then eating up to 5000-6000 in the weekend. One would think that living alone is good for dieting because I can keep my house clean of the triggering foods but in my case it is worse because nothing stops me from going to the supermarket and buying myself a load of binge food every time I get tempted. At first I binged only on saturday and then on saturday-sunday and last week I started out on friday and.. well I've eaten 4000-6000 calories every day for the entire week. I've also beene excersising 4-4,5 hours every day, although yesterday when I binged on 6200 calories to be exact, I only managed to do 2 hours and then gave up. I think I'm back to 132 lbs right now, although I've got no courage to weight myself.
I'm so fat. I can't even recognize myself in the mirror. I don't know what to do, I'm literally miserable. I've hit the rock bottom and what's worse is that I can sink even deeper and probably WILL because I don't think I could come up with a plan brilliant enough to get me out of this trouble.
I have a full-blown binge eating disorder and I'm probably going to be like this for the rest of my life! My grandmother and my aunt are both over 400 lbs and when I look in the mirror I seriously look similar to my aunt. My father looks at me with disgust every time he sees me. I'm worthless and I know I'm nothing to him, just a mere trouble and a waste of money. A big fat waste of money. I usually confide in my siste. She is the only person I can rely on and I love her so much for that but I can't confide in her anymore because She just tells me not to worry because I'm skinny and pretty and then I'll end up going to the store and buying some more food to binge on.
I am so miserable! I don't know what to do to overcome this. I can't contact any of the doctors I've met so far. They'll just tell me that I'm normal weight and prescribe me some expensive medications which haven't made a difference at all so far. Or they'll give me the exercises in order to recognize the feelings that accompany my binging and the things that trigger me. And they'll tell me to find some new activities or hobbies to distract me. Thing is that I' so unconfident and clumsy that I can't play any sport games (I've been the weakest person in the class since nursery school) and I've already got a fair amount of hobbies: drawing, painting, photography, reading and writing. When I discover something new, then it'll distract me only for a while, but it doesn't help me get over the problem with my eating.
Quite possible that I binge because of underlying stress. A major cause of my stress is the fact that I'm fat and look just awful. It's not the need to fit in, since I go to a new school now, an art school, where different people are more accepted than in regular high school, it's just that I don't feel like myself any more. I look ridiculous in the clothes I used to be the prettiest in and I can't find new clothes to flatten my apprearance. I feel uncomfortable 90% of the time.
And the second thing is probably the relationship with my father or the need to be loved by my parents, which makes me sob even right now. Once when my father he was angry at me he told me that I'm like a parasite to him. Just an useless parasite. We usually meet once a week. I've told him that I want to spend time with him and have fun together sometimes but he tells me that he's got alot of work to do (although he goes on daytrips and parties with his new family very often) and when he sees me he criticizes the way I dress, he always makes sarcastic jokes about me wanting to become an artist and then he asks me about my eating and then shares his wisdom about me needing to drink more milk and eat more meat and eat more vegetables (as if I didn't know it already..) . I have to lie to his questions about my eating because if I tell him that I'm doing awful then he gets furious and tells me that I'm a lunatic needing to go back to hospital.
I can't go back to hospital because they don't take me seriously. They don't understand that I in fact need to slim down. I want to be fit and healthy, not puffy, wobbly and disgusting.
I want to stop obsessing about food, dreaming about food and thinking about food all the time. I want to break the addiction and to have control over my life. I want my life back, I WANT to live again. The way I used to live when I was thin and happy, although I'm not aiming to be severely underweight. I just don't want people to look at me and think that I could afford to lose a few pounds and find a better set of clothing.
what to do.. what to do.. what to do..
Answer Dear Elisabeth,
I am so glad that you wrote me --- and I feel so sad that you are so abused!! First physical abuse from your mother then emotional abuse from your father -- pretty severe!
First thing is that you're not fat -- you're probably a good weight for your height -- I know you don't want to hear that, but the voice that is telling you that you're ugly and fat is the eating disorder voice. The eating disorder voice is the one that is telling you that you're no good, etc.
I'm thrilled that you're in art school! Doing your passion -- you'll find that when you get into recovery, you'll be an even better, more creative artist.
Here's what I'd like you to do -- find a good psychologist or psychiatrist to see. Not just a regular doctor. There must be people who can help you emotionally begin to heal. Also do you have any other family members, aunts, grandmas, that are healthy?? Someone with whom you can have a normal healthy relationship? I would avoid seeing your father until you start to become more well -- he's a pretty bad influence and hurts you deeply.
I want to tell you the good news -- and that is, you can become completely well. You can have your life back and be thin and happy -- not anorexic and happy, but thin and happy without having to use an eating disorder to be that way.
Can you tell me the medications the doctors suggested for you? Some of those can actually work.
I'm happy to help as much as I can, Elisabeth. Please keep in touch and maybe we can figure out a place for you to start!!
