Eating Disorders Today

How women with eating disorders surrender their power to exploiters

      

       Often women with eating disorders feel generous, powerful in

their relationship with a man and at the same time they feel weak,

exploited, bewildered and afraid they will be abandoned.

In general, and we can talk in more detail if I see that you are

interested, in this all too common situation. 
                                    

       Again, in general, women with eating disorders are harsh

in their self-criticism.  They also do not use their gifts such as

creativity, intelligence, endurance, determination, resourcefulness,

education, or talents in the service of their own hearts desire. 

They feel like failures because they are not living up to abilities they

sense are within them.


       Other people (who may not even know they have a tendency to

use others), perhaps a romantic interest or friend or family member,

will see the abilities an eating disordered woman is not using on her own behalf. They

will applaud the woman for having such talents and resources.

 

      They will also invite her to be involved in their projects.

She will be delighted.


       They then feed her compliments that are deserved about her talents.

She will feel relief and pleasure at being recognized as the valuable person she is.

What she cannot give to herself, she gives to them.


       Examples include these scenarios: She helps them start or run a business.

She designs and perhaps also creates promotional material for them. She

extends herself financially to shore up their poorly handled money situations.

She entertains their friends and associates magnificently.  She fields their

phone calls making excuses or apologizing or lying for them. She smooths

their difficulties in work and personal relationships.  She tends to their

personal well-being.


       She can do this for any person she wants to please and hopes to make love her.

A certain type of person is happy to take what she is not using.  A few compliments

and a sincere looking smile, an expression of yearning and need will evoke in her a

hopeful joy that she can meet the person s needs and find appreciation and love.


       Once she is giving and feeling vital to another person's life she will feel good

about being competent and productive.  She'll continually postpone the effort required

to nourish and make real her own dreams because she feels strong in what she

accomplishes for the other person.
 

       Eventually she will like a weak failure in terms of her own life. But she sill convince

herself that the other person's life is her life and that she should get satisfaction

from this.  The other person by design or through the routine of this unbalanced relationship, will expect

the system to continue, has become an exploiter and will  build up that belief in her.


       This belief can become so strong that she becomes arrogant.  She may feel a sense of

superiority created by her self defined noble self sacrifice or contributions to the other's successes.

This superior attitude can be off putting to others who are shocked by her obliviousness to her

acceptance of being willingly used.


       At some point she will feel tired and drained.  She may protest or request

relief. Too often she will her fatigue as a badge of honor, as proof that she is

giving her all and proving her love.


       If and when she tries to put some of her energy into her dreams the

exploiter will speak in a supportive way but will actually attempt to sabotage

her efforts or become actively abusive. The exploiter may also accuse her of

being selfish and too sensitive for wanting to withdraw or limit her services

in any way.


     She will be terribly hurt and bewildered by this reaction and won't

understand how someone who has been so reassuring and full of praise could

attack her when she wants something for herself.


       Unfortunately she often thinks the other person is right, that she is selfish

and too sensitive. Then she does even more for the exploiter in an attempt to get

what she thought was a loving person in her life to be loving again.


       It can take years before she understands that the person will say and do

anything to keep her supplying his or her needs and ignoring her own.  Too often

she never understands and becomes a tragic figure when she is discarded.



     Her grief or eventually, rage will plunge her more deeply into her eating disorder.

  For some people, this kind of intense flood of emotional pain will bring them

to psychotherapy, perhaps for the first time.  They come for relief. If they

stay they have a chance to do their real recovery work.

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA

bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery:  www.poppink.com

Mothers with eating disorders

       Women with eating disorders can be mothers.  Some come to my practice

because they want to heal for the sake of their children.  They do not want

their children to have eating disorders or suffer because their mother

is ill. 


       These often are women who could not rally themselves to put their own

well being first and get help earlier.  Maternal love pushes them to be stronger

and more courageous and determined than they dreamed possible. They

seek recovery for the sake of their children.


       At a garden party last week end where most of the guests were new parents

I heard one mother voice concerns I hadn't considered. I felt startled and humbled

by my own thinking deficit. She spoke to me about a situation I am not likely to

see in my practice.


       Her child is three years old. One of her child's best friends from school is being

raised by a mother with an obvious eating disorder. That three year old child is

concerned about carbohydrates and about getting fat.


       The mother I was speaking with didn't t want that influence on her three year old

daughter and was struggling with the idea of breaking up the friendship between these

children. She is probably going to put an end to play-dates with the child from the

eating disorder situation.


       I can appreciate the mother's concerns for her child.  Eating disorder thinking

and behaviors are beginning in children at increasingly younger ages. 


      My hunch is that the mother with the eating disorder would be horrified to learn

that her illness is apparent and already having a powerful effect on her young daughter's

emotions, thinking, behavior and social relationships.

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA

bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery:  www.poppink.com

Symptoms are not people

          People with eating disorders often don't know the difference between their

symptoms and who they authentically are.  Our culture doesn''t help.  Women and

men are often applauded  for some symptoms and criticized for others because our

culture doesn't recognize the difference between a symptom and a healthy human

being.



           Long before I became a psychotherapist I read the book, Captain Newman,

M.D.  The  book made a powerful impact on my developing sense of being human

with other human beings.  One scene in particular, stayed with me then and

remains a  vivid image today.



          Captain Newman, M.D. was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck, Angie

Dickinson and Bobbie Darrin. I wondered hopefully if my favorite scene would

make the editor's cut.  It did.



         Peck, in the title role, was a psychiatrist in the army in charge of a ward full

of PTSD soldiers.



          At one point Peck is with a seriously disturbed patient, played by Darrin. 

Darrin is wildly upset and Peck is shouting.



          Later the nurse, Dickinson, expresses her disappointment and horror with

Peck saying, "How could you shout at your patient like that?"    

       
        Peck responds, "I wasn't shouting at my patient.  I was shouting at his symptoms."      

             
            I can still remember the flood of new awareness and compassion that filled

me at that moment in the story.



            Author, Leo Calvin Rosten, gave me an early lesson in how to perceive as a

psychotherapist.  Symptoms are not people.



            This theme will come up often in my blogs.  A powerful and profound

aspect of eating disorder recovery occurs when a person with an eating disorder

discovers that she is a valuable human being with untapped riches that are blocked,

not by her character or basic nature, but by symptoms.



              When a person even gets a hint of this fact, she feels a surge of hope and

renewed dedication to  getting well.

            

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA

bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery:  www.poppink.com

Early Inspiration in Eating Disorder Recovery

     Eating Disorders define a person's life. An eating disorder requires

intelligence, strategy, commitment, endurance, strength, organization

and secrecy, money, acting skills, ability to influence, persuade and

manipulate others repeatedly. I'll go Into more requirements to sustain

an eating disorder in another post.


       An inspiring question that often helps an individual get on

her healing path is this:

     "If I used all the time, energy, skills, strategizing, intellectual and

emotional involvement I devote to my eating disorder to something else,

what could I do in life?"


      This is often a staggering question, and people are shocked by

the answer that occurs to them. Answers come in many forms, usually in a

low murmuring voice with a hand over the mouth where I can barely hear

and actually need to ask for repetition.


               "I could run five fortune 500 companies."

               "I could make a wonderful impact on the whole world."

               "I could go back to school and finish my PhD."
                or law degree, or medical degree etc.).

               "I could get out of this horrible relationship and
                support myself and my children."

               "I could write my book....make my film.....design
                my clothes.....start and run my business.....
                create a school....."

               "I could be free to find out what I really could do."


               You get the idea. Vast options suddenly open to a person

who has been living a limited life controlled by all that an eating

disorder involves.


       And maybe those possibilities are real. The point is that when a

person genuinely looks at everything she does, thinks, feels, says in

a day that involves her eating  disorder and then thinks about what she

could do what that energy and those skills if she were free she gets a

glimpse of a new world.


               She knows she could have useful and meaningful power in the

world if she were free. 


       She doesn't know what she would do or how, but she gets an

emotional and physical sensation of freedom, just for a moment. 

She gets a sense of what might be possible if all her resources could

be channeled toward something that would make her life worth living.


       Sometimes people ask that question of themselves, and the revelation

leads them to psychotherapy. Sometimes people need to be asked.


       When I bring that question to people with an eating disorder I see

faces change.  Eyes fill with tears. Voices quaver, so afraid to speak what

seems too good to be true  A feeling of bewilderment and hope permeates

the room.  This momentous shift in awareness and sense of possibility

always touches my heart.


       It's a long road between that moment and full recovery, but  that

moment of awakening can be the start of a deep and rich healing journey.



    

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA

bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery:  www.poppink.com

Professional Confidentiality and Blogging

               Blogging is public and psychotherapy is private.

Sharing my knowledge with you is a challenge. 


               My deep learning and knowing come not from books and lectures

but from intimate meetings with courageous and determined people who

have given me their trust.  The work takes place in what I consider sacred space.


               In fact, I think the work can only be successful if the time and space my

patients and I share is impenetrable to others and solid for us.


          So please understand, when I give examples I am describing people who are not

and never have been patients or I am creating a fictitious person who represents

what I have seen and heard over many years of being in the field of eating disorder

recovery.


               What I say in these blogs will be as true as I know truth to be. At the same time I

will be honoring the confidentiality of my patients - past and present. I hope you

understand and can appreciate this aspect of my blog.

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA

bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery:  www.poppink.com