Expert: Reverend Abbott - 10/21/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hello, my name's Emily, I'm 16. I don't really know where to start but I wanted to talk to someone about my eating:
I am FAT. Full stop. I think I am huge. I look in the mirror and see fat. I have always thought I was fat and have always been told I was fat. About a month ago, I ended up in hospital cause I took an overdose. I was in hospital for quite a while but when I 'woke up' I didn't eat. I told myself it was because I wasn't hungry, didn't like the food, still felt ill etc...but really every day that went by I was feeling so proud of myself for not eating and even though I was physically feeling tired, dizzy and faint I just felt so proud. I've not been eating much for about 4 months, and haven't had a period in that time which I'm a bit concerned about. Since hospital, 3 weeks ago, I've lost 20 lbs. I am so happy that I've lost that much, but then I know it's not healthy to lose that amount so quickly, and then again I'm not happy cause I always need to lose more. My weight's always been in the 'healthy BMI' but I'm just not, they must be wrong because I am full of fat. These last few weeks my clothes have got so baggy, the scales have gone down and so many people have told me I look skinny but I really don't. I don't understand it and it's really scaring me. I wish I did, more than anything...but I don't and probably won't. I have reached my fourth target at the weight I am now but still want to lose at least 2 stones more. I never eat more than 200 calories a day, I take diet pills and drink water excessively. If I am so starving I can't help but eat something I exercise for hours or make myself sick. I make myself sick about 3 times a week, that's all. I try not to cause I hate it but if I eat something I can't leave it all soaking into me. I weigh myself at least 20 times a day. In the last few months, a lot of things have been going on in my life and I am trying to think why suddenly did I decide not to eat but I can't find the answer. My dad killed himself about 4 months ago. I found my cousin hanging, dead about 1 month ago now. My grandma's in hospital and my step dad's been very violent towards me since I was 8. I genuinely hate my life. I have been cutting myself since I was 11 and recently been overdosing a lot. I guess I feel like if I don't eat I will gradually disappear, evaporate, dissolve and maybe die and be in peace. I like to feel my bones and I am so happy when I see I've lost some weight. In the last few weeks, things have been so bad. I have collapsed a few times, have always had terrible headaches, felt so faint and dizzy and always so cold!! It's a bit random but I tend to get sort of pins and needles a lot as well, in my feet and hands, none of my cuts are heeling and every little nock bruises me. I have had awful tooth pain and gum problems. I can't concentrate at school and I really don't want to fail. I would feel so terrible and let everyone down. I guess one of the things that I like about not having to eat..and cutting as well is that it's up to you. It's something you can control, unlike your family dying or being hit etc.. It's up to me. I don't feel like what I'm doing is wrong and I almost have a voice inside me urging me to carry on and do everything better. She tells me not to eat, what I can eat and why, and that I always must exercise. Whilst running she says run faster, harder, quicker. She tells me I'm fat and ugly and I need to be thin. I am happier when I lose weight but she tells me it's not enough. She is pretty, pure, light, innocent...she can float and she has got where she wanted. It's like she's my role model...but I don't want her to be. I am so confused and scared. I know what's healthy and what's not, what really is good nutritious food and what's too fatty but she tells me everything's fattening and it's her I can hear more all the time. I sort of want to eat normally again, but then I really don't want to lose her. She is like my friend and unlike other people that have been unreliable in my life, she is always here and always advises me. I find not eating so hard and being sick so disgusting and painful, but she helps me through it all. I want a real friend to try and lose weight together with, but at the same time I want someone to help me out. I know that if one of my friends or family was eating like I am I would be so worried about them and know it's wrong and advise them and help them against it, but it's sort of different with me. I really do need to lose weight. I almost feel like I'm not in myself, sort of like I am stood at a distance watching what someone else is doing to my body. Like I am a character in a play and me, as myself is analyzing the character, but it's ok, because it's only a play, much like my life feels like a blurred dream at the moment. I am always thinking about food...all the time...when am I next going to be offered some, what excuses will I use, what has everyone else ate, how many calories do they eat etc. When I see people eat I automatically count up the calories they're eating and feel pleased that they are eating food and I have the control not to eat it. I tell myself I don't need it, I can live without it, I am strong, I can not fail at this. When I am walking around I am so conscious of how I look, what expressions are on my face and I am so worried that people will somehow know about my eating-secret. I know there's no way they really could but I am just so paranoid. I look around to try and find really skinny people to feel less alone. I enjoy looking around supermarkets and food stalls, reading the calorie content of every food, even something I wouldn't even consider like chocolate or biscuits, just so I know and memorize it. I feel so vain and self-obsessed all the time. I am glad in a way that the pain of starving and the constant thoughts of food takes my mind off of what's really hurting, what's happened and what surrounds me.
I am sorry I have written a mini-essay, I really needed to try to express to someone what's going on in my entangled mind. I don't know if much of it makes sense, some of it I don't understand, but please reply...if you can. Do you think I have an eating disorder? What shall I do? I am so confused. So sad.
Thanks for reading.
Love Emily
xx


ANSWER: Emily, yes, just as you suspect, this is an eating disorder. Also, as you suspect, it's far from the only thing going on.
 I've been where you are. I've felt what you are feeling and I've survived. I won't tell you it's easy and there's nothing magic about how, but if you really want it, a different life will come.

Food isn't your issue, but it's your tool. This problem isn't about weight, calories, BMI or even what you look like - but it's what you focus on because it's there.
We can't wrap a tape measure around our spirit and we can't weigh our self-esteem now can we? So we use what we can.

Someone has broken your spirit and cut you to the core with admonishments, criticisms or even silence. Not being there for you and not encouraging you when you needed it most.  You've been left adrift in an ocean of feelings and thoughts that are unfamiliar, frightening and there's no anchor, no star to guide you and no land in sight.  
 You have only the media and unreliable voices. The goal you aim for is a lie. It's meaningless. It's a helium balloon that you need to let go of, watch it float out of sight and never reach for it to come back.

 The thing about e.d.'s is that we say we'll be happy "when.... (we get to a certain weight, size)", but I've been there.  I've gotten to that magic number and felt no better. Nothing changed. So certainly I must have been mistaken and a new number gets set. Then a new one. And this doesn't end until you die.
  Anorexia is the number ONE most fatal of all psychological disorders on earth.  #1

 If this is a play Emily, this is the one and only performance. It's not a dress rehearsal - it's the final curtain.  While you cannot go back to change a scene, you can go forward and change the rest.

Are you in counseling now?  If not, why not? Does anyone support you or worry about this?  Take a look around you and tell me what you see.  More importantly, who you see, other than yourself. What are they doing? What role do they play?


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thankyou so much for writing back so quickly. It helps to listen to someone else and their views and to think about what they say in comparrison to what she says. She doesn't like me talking to you like this, she says you're one of the people that are trying to make me fail. She is screaming and she is telling me her view on everything.

I'm sorry, I'm so thankful for you replying and I'm glad to talk to you and that's just what's in my head, and I can't help that.

No, I'm not in counseling...because it would be utterly terrifying and I think I'd sound really stupid. I want someone to talk to more than ever but I am just so pathetic and I'd just be wasting their time. I don't know.
Erm...no-one knows about this. I make sure they don't cause I know they'd try and stop me. A few of my friends at school are supportive of the recent deaths but no-one knows anything else. My family don't know about my eating. I am very careful in taking crisps to my room infront of them and bringing them back down in an empty packet, saying the were nice etc..putting food in napkins and into my pockets when they're not looking..I'm ill, I'm not hungry..I'm eating out today..they go on and on, but they don't know anything. They've noticed I've got a lot skinnier but I say it's just cause I've started this netball club at school and we train a lot - they don't think anything of it. But when people say I look slimmer, it makes me want to carry on more and get more people to notice me like that. Does that sound awful?

Around me now? I see no-one, I'm in the lounge. My brothers are out I suspect, my mum is upstairs crying, depressed again and my stepdad, thankgod, is out. My lovely cat is sat on my knee..and there's some fish in the corner. That's it.

What role do they play? I'm not really sure what you mean by this but, hmmm:

mum: depressed, greiving my dad, crying, but lovely and caring when she feels ok.

brothers: good to talk to (younger than me) but I get along well with them. Typical little kids, like playing but they are secretly upset about things..they're usually upset in the night when they can come and talk to me.

sdad: hmm, I don't really consider him as part of our family but more like a lodger. No-one likes him, not even my mum, he pays for nothing, doesn't work, is always around and not very nice...at all.



thankyou!

Answer
So, what you're seeing around you is very little support.  You feel alone in this. You can't make mom better and you can't change the rest of what might not be ideal, so you change what you can change.  You self-starve for 'control'.

 I also know what you mean about being fueled when people say you look thin. I know that when they say you look sick, it sort of feels good to hear.  When you start to recover and someone comments that you look 'healthy' - you want to slip back and be 'sick' again.

 Nothing you're doing is strange or unusual or anything that a whole bunch of us haven't already done, are doing or are fighting not to do again.

You really aren't alone - but you really DO need to get more help than online.  You have to find a support group in your area - a counselor - whatever you can.  

Don't you want something more of life in a future?  Don't you want to be defined by something other than a number?  

Write yourself your obituary as it would read in tomorrow's news.  Be honest about it (don't write it for anyone but you to see).

 Take a hard look at it.

Then read some real obits in the news and give it all some thought.  

Finally, write your own again, the way you would like it to read in many years.  

This is your guideline.  This is your plan for life.