Expert: Reverend Abbott - 4/29/2007

Question
I am a 15 year old girl and I actually have quite a few questions to ask you.

Question number one involves my friends: Most of my friends, 4 I'm thinking of specifically, really don't eat much. Every once in a while the subject will come up, and they have said that none of them barely ever go over 500-800 calories per day. Is that normal? I’m pretty sure none of them are really very anorexic, and the 2 that have been diagnosed as anorexic previously have therapy and all that jazz. What bothers me though is that the government says we need to eat, like, 1500-1800 calories per day, and that’s just leading a non-active lifestyle. One of my previously anorexic friends does a lot of dancing so she would require even more calories and the other 3 do A LOT of walking. So, what is bothering me is why they aren’t anorexically thin, but are just generally thin. What also bothers me is why only 1 of them has nutrition deficiencies. So, my 2 questions here are 1) how are they maintaining their weight on an average of 500-800 calories a day? 2) Why does only one of them have nutrition deficiencies?

My mom has thought there is something wrong with me ever since I can remember. I’ve never really been able to communicate with her very well and she thinks I am depressed. So she is finally taking me for counseling. I was wondering if you could give me some heads up on whether you think they will diagnose me for certain disorders. I think I may have binge-eating disorder. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch, and get nervous when I have to eat in a restaurant, or with new people I don’t really know, or in front of guys, or extended family. Whenever I come home and binge if there is a person here who isn’t my mom or dad I won’t eat anything, until they leave. What bothers me is that my mother doesn’t care when I binge to the point of not being able to move, but cares so much whenever I go a few days without eating. Its not that I’m trying to get attention by binging, but I wish she would treat the two extremes equally. Take today for instance, she said, “I haven’t seen you eat today, except for drink that tea. You need to eat something.” But she didn’t care that I ate a whole thing of crackers and half a jar of peanut butter. I know what she tells me probably isn’t going to help me much, but if she can tell me to eat, then why can’t she try to help me get over this, and tell me not to eat as much? Especially when my problem isn't even not eating! I’ve asked her to do it many times, but she never has for long. Probably 3 times a month I will purge my food or abuse laxatives. And usually once every 6 weeks I will not eat for a few days and I will give myself self-colonics. That isn't much, but it is there.

I find this disorder quite silly really, but it actually is a disorder. It is called dermatrichomania (not even a real word on Microsoft Word), or The Picking Disease. What I do is pick the skin off of my fingers, generally my thumb, and also off my feet. I had actually stopped for almost a week about a few months ago after a teacher referred me to our school's Student Assistance Program for what looked like “burn marks”. I refused to go to the meetings and so haven’t gotten any help for this. It’s not anything life threatening or serious, but I guess it would be nice to have normal skin on my fingers and feet. They’ve been this way for the past 3 years, so I and everyone around me have become pretty accustomed to it.

I don’t really communicate well with my parents, which I think is the main reason my mom is taking me to counseling. I really do love my parents, but my father tends to make me angry with anything that comes out of his mouth. My mom just blabbers on about nothing, which is annoying, which is why I don’t like to talk to her. I know this would take more studying, but do you think I just really don’t like to talk to them or if it is something else? I kind of like to argue with them because every time I do I end up crying. And I like to cry because I can’t cry about anything else. I’m pretty sure this probably ties into the picking thing. I don’t ever really feel stressed out or any really intense emotions. I know for a long time I thought having very strong emotions was a weakness. Now I know that isn’t true, but the thought still runs through my mind.

What my mother says about me being depressed is true, but what I don’t understand is why I am depressed? I seriously have no reason to be depressed. My parents are together. I was never abused or raped. They loved me plenty when I was little. I didn’t really have friends until middle school, but I do have plenty now. Could I just be depressed from overeating and not getting enough exercise, and being overweight? That’s kind of sad if that is the case… Something kind of weird is that when I am depressed I start to get a sort of “floaty feeling” where I feel out of touch with everything and with my body. I don't know, maybe that's just a normal symptom of depression, and I've never been hit hard with depression.

I know the depression and picking aren’t what you are here to answer questions about, but I just think I need another person’s thoughts on things right now. Thanks, & sorry this is song long!

-Leah


Answer
Leah - you are SO normal that it's almost textbook! You're pretty smart too and insightful. Any possibility that you're interested in pursuing a career in medicine of some sort? You might want to think about it.

The counseling will only help if you want it to - if you're willing to listen as well as talk.  One 'trick' of listening is to pretend that the person offering the advice (even if it's your parent) is someone you don't know who is talking about someone other than you!  It's a sort of "distancing" and it allows you to hear things the way they're presented rather than take it as an attack or something personal.

When it comes to your friends and their diets or lack of nutritional knowledge and healthy eating, as difficult as it may be, live your OWN life. Lead rather than follow. Be the one who is envied for not counting each calorie and depriving yourself of the pleasures of food!
 It's just a matter of smart choices - and this means you can eat peanut butter and crackers - just measure out the amount and learn to stop.
 What happens when you eat the very last of something? When there is no more left?  You stop!
 So measure a serving out - put the rest away and tell yourself that when you're done, you're done. There's no more.  This really works!

 I know I'm not addressing everything, but when it comes to nutrition and doing the best for yourself, I do have an outline at my site (it's all free) www.GetTheReal.info and there's a description of eating disorders too.

When it comes to communicating, you seem to be very eloquent and intelligent. WRITE your parents a (nice) letter addressing a subject at a time and ask them to write back.  THEN sit down and talk about it. At least then you'll know where each other stands on the subject.
 The emotions bubbling up and out? THAT'S perfectly normal for 15 too!  I used to cry at commercials (still do sometimes).

 I know it may not seem like much, but I can promise you that none of this will last. It just seems like it will :(

 With your smarts and caring parents like that? You are one of the luckiest kids out there!  Yeah, I know, you don't feel so lucky sometimes huh?

 Hang in there.  You KNOW you'll be fine. You're a fighter. :)