Eating Disorders Today

Things to Do During National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (or Anytime!)

􀂐       Sign the National Eating Disorders Association’s Declaration of Independence from a Weight-    Obsessed World to free yourself from the three D’s: Dieting, Drive for Thinness, and Body Dissatisfaction.
 
􀂐       Celebrate Fearless Friday - A Day Without Dieting - and feel how empowering a diet-free day of self-acceptance can be!

􀂐       Attend a workshop, presentation, lecture, or meeting in your community that will help you feel better about yourself. See the National Eating Disorders Association’s website, your local newspaper or campus calendar for events.

􀂐       Use your voice to effect change: join the National Eating Disorders Association’s national media advocacy campaign to write letters of protest and praise to media, corporations and advertisers who promote negative or positive messages concerning body size, weight, dieting and eating disorders. Sign up via the web at www.NationalEatingDisorders.org.

􀂐       Consciously choose to avoid making comments about other people or yourself on the basis of body size or shape.

􀂐       Compliment someone else for a skill, talent, or characteristic they have that you appreciate. Remind yourself that a person’s value is not determined by their shape or size.

􀂐       Enjoy your favorite meal without feelings of guilt or anxiety over calories and fat grams.

􀂐       Donate your jeans and other old clothes that no longer fit your body comfortably to charity. Someone else will appreciate them, and you won’t have to worry about the way they fit anymore.

􀂐       Start each morning by looking in the mirror and saying something nice about yourself out loud.

􀂐       Put away or throw away your bathroom scale.

􀂐       Look through magazines and newspapers, ripping out advertisements, photos and articles that promote negative feelings about weight, body image and food. Talk back to the TV when you see or hear an ad that makes you feel dissatisfied with your body.

􀂐       Read a book that lifts your self-esteem, promotes positive body image, encourages healthy living or helps you overcome stereotypes about social standards of beauty.

􀂐       If you know someone who is struggling with an eating disorder, take the time to reassure them of your friendship and support for their recovery process.

􀂐       Throw out all of the diet products in your house.

􀂐       Remind yourself and others that It’s What’s Inside That Counts!

􀂐       Become a member of the National Eating Disorders Association and join the effort to create a world where self-esteem is not weighed in pounds on a scale. Visit www.NationalEatingDisorders.org or call (206) 382-3587 for more information.

       Challenge yourself to pick at least one of these easy-to-do tasks during each day of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week!

© 2004 National Eating Disorders Association. Permission is granted to copy and reprint materials for
educational purposes only. National Eating Disorders Association must be cited and web address listed.
www.NationalEatingDisorders.org 􀂎 Information and Referral Helpline: 800.931.2237

       By all means, share with us on this blog your experience when you do any of these activities.

       For me, and all of us in the eating disorder recovery professional community, every day is eating disorder awareness day.  I've been a member and supporter of NEDA since its inception. I support the recovery of others. I don't diet. I wear clothes that fit, and I have no diet products in the house. 

       Whoops. Last night I co-hosted a wonderful dinner party in my home for the UCLA program, Dinner with 12 Strangers. Undergraduates, graduate students and alumni (that's my category) met in my home for a terrific evening.  Somebody brought tall bottles of soda including a diet soda.  A left over half bottle full is in my kitchen but on its way out.

       These diet products do slip in, don't they?

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery, www.poppink.com

 

Boyfriend Wants to Help His Girlfriend Who Suffers from Anorexia

        A young man wrote asking how to help the woman he loves.  She is anorexic. They've been together for a little over a year. He says one good thing about the situation is that she is aware of her condition and has begun to talk with him about it.

        He is combing the Internet and bookstores reading hundreds of stories and medical write-ups about eating disorders and anorexia in particular. He says he feels that the more information he has the better he can behave toward his girl.

        I'm trying here to give you the message and the tone of his letter without giving you his exact words.  Those words belong to him.  But the message within his words applies to many young men (and not so young men) who are in a relationship with an anorexic woman.

        He says he and his girlfriend have begun to have wonderful conversations about her condition.  He feels these conversations are a good sign because she is not getting upset as they talk.  He wants to do the right thing, be supportive and help her get well. 

        He tells her that the two of them can get through this problem and that he will remain committed to her no matter what.  He says that he never has loved anyone as much as he loves her.

        He repeats throughout his letter in many ways that he feels good about her turning to him for help.  He wants to make sure he is doing everything possible for the woman he loves to help her get well. I am the only person he has spoken to about his girlfriend.  Her condition is private and he wants to honor that privacy as he helps her get well.

        My heart is touched by his plea for help. I only hope I can help you see what I see in his bittersweet request.

       At the end of this post is my answer to him.  I stand by what I said. What I didn't say is this:

       Anorexia is a profound illness that affects the mind and spirit as well as the body. A person who is anorexic denies herself in many ways.  She is often unreachable by any form of nourishment. 

       A person who is in the throes of anorexia is like a starving person standing before a feast, pleading for food.  Generous people offer her food,but the starving person pushes it away, throws it away, spills it, can't hold the plate, can't hold the fork, can't deal with the temperature or consistency, can't swallow properly, and on and on.

       The people at the feast, who do not understand her illness, will meet each problem as it comes with a solution.  They will hold the plate, change the temperature, provide more comfortable utensils, find
ways to help her throat function with massage or medicine or hospitalization, and on and on.

       Each attempted solution will have flaws that keep that starving person from taking any nourishment. She may cry, complain, suffer and plead for help.  But she cannot accept it.  Eventually she will be visibly angry and actively spurn attempts to help her or criticize the people trying to help her for being invasive, critical, bossy, controlling, selfish, and on and on.

       This is only part of the picture. I'll talk about more in future posts.  But this part of the picture is what concerns me regarding the young man's request for help.

       He sounds to me as if he feels that all his love, energy and intellectual prowess, if rallied properly, will save his beloved.

       He doesn't know that he can be drained while his efforts somehow continually fail to reach her in a healing, nourishing way.

       I hope you understand that I am describing the symptoms of an illness. This is not about the authentic woman living under the burden of the anorexia.  That authentic woman is barricaded within herself by the illness. The ardent boyfriend is confronted with more symptoms than he knows.

       I fear for both of them.

       Still, there is a way out.  Healing can happen if both people recognize that some of their feelings and behaviors are a direct consequence of the anorexia and must not be given power.

       Specific suggestions to the young man:

Dear Young Man,

1.      Encourage your girlfriend to work regularly with a mental health professional who has expertise in treating eating disorders.

2.      Go to Overeaters Anonymous meetings occasionally, and listen to people talk about their experience in suffering and recovering from eating disorders.

3.      Let your girlfriend know you are doing this and let her know you would go with her to an OA meeting or two to get her started if she were willing to go.

4.      Go to Al-anon meetings yourself and learn the basics about being in relationship with someone who has a disorder similar to addiction.

5.      Let your girlfriend know you are doing this because her being at risk from this illness causes you great concern, and you want to know how to help yourself deal with your own suffering as well as help her.

6.      Make sure you take care of yourself.  You might consider getting supportive counseling for yourself.  Getting too involved in her recovery can cause problems for you and your relationship.

       You need all the support, knowledge, patience, self respect and self-confidence you can rally and develop to see this relationship through. It takes skill and attention to boundaries and self care to learn how to be in relationship with the person you love and not be in relationship with the disorder.         

       Good luck!  You sound like you really care about her. She's fortunate to have you by her side.

Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery, www.poppink.com

Bulimia Help Without Treatment?

Again I am asked:  How can I help my bulimic friend without her going into treatment?

Example: (not real names) Miranda and Trudy are both in their late twenties, married and in their late twenties.  They've been close friends for 16 years.  Trudy recently revealed her 12 year struggle with bulimia to Miranda. Trudy only speaks to Miranda about the bulimia.  Miranda feels she is helping by being the confidante and pitching in to help Trudy with family, household and business responsibilities. She also keeps a careful watch on Trudy's behavior and emotional states.   After two months Miranda is happy that Trudy has six weeks of not throwing up and pleads for help in knowing how she can help Trudy continue to get better without her going into treatment.

Please note that in this example, Miranda asks for help not Trudy. 

When I hear this plea for help my heart aches for the suffering Miranda, Trudy and their family members experience. What is it that makes Miranda and Trudy desperate to avoid treatment for an illness? 

My open letter to all friends asking this question:

            Dear Miranda, 

You and Trudy are not alone in thinking that bulimia is a behavior that can be stopped through will power and love. Bulimia is a serious illness that only grows worse without treatment.  The acting out behavior involving food is only part of a long list of symptoms. Plus, as you understand from your knowledge of other illnesses, reducing or removing symptoms is not the same as healing.

When you say Trudy has made it for six weeks now! with an exclamation point, I feel an emotional aching because of the all too familiar false hope in your inferred sense of victory.

Trudy is doing her best to remove a defense, to stop a coping mechanism that helps her deal with unbearable feelings.  Without the healing work that occurs in treatment, she has no defense against inner issues that plague her. She probably doesn't even know what those issues are.  Bulimia blocks not only her pain but also will block awareness of the source of her pain.

Your valiant efforts in helping her cope with her daily life tasks ease some of her stress. Your attentive and well meaning actions allow her to live without some of her bulimic defenses because you are providing the support she previously received from the binge/purge cycle.   But you can't carry the responsibilities of her life and yours indefinitely.

You�ll get tired.  You�ll be under pressure to put your energy into your own needs or the needs of your family or your business.  You�ll remember how much of your energy is required to tend to your own life.

As Trudy grows dependent on your energy as a replacement for the numbing caretaking of bulimia her needs and expectations will increase.  Your energy and motivation will decline. You�ll want and finally, I hope, start putting more of your energy into your life and less into hers.

Gracefully or ungracefully, you will both will struggle with the effects your withdrawal.

And by withdrawal, I mean easing up. For example, you might do her laundry once a week rather than every day, or watch her children for two hours once a week rather than several hours four or five days a week. You might talk to her once a day rather than five times or even talk to her only once or twice a week.

When Trudy�s stresses - even normal everyday stresses - are present for her to deal with without your constant presence and without her eating disorder coping mechanism, she will go back to the binge/purge pattern to protect her psyche. 

When the binge/purge cycle returns she will feel guilt, shame, humiliation, sorrow - and even despair.  She might also feel angry with you for letting her down or feel bewildered and grief that you abandoned her. Those feelings can be unbearable and will only increase her need to binge and purge.

She will feel like a failure.  But she hasn't failed.  She just tried to let go of a lifeline without developing muscle and ability to learn how to swim.  Anybody who is drowning will reach for a lifeline.

And your being the lifeline doesn�t teach her how to swim or help her understand why and how she came to be so over her head in the first place.

So please, if you can, please, please help me understand why the way to get solid recovery, i.e. treatment, is something you both so actively avoid?

I would so appreciate hearing what you have to share about this vital question.  So many people suffering from bulimia get well because of treatment.

Thank you.

Joanna

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

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