If you used to have an eating disorder, how did you stop it?

[maebenot]

Just that really - therapy? Self control? Something else?

I recognise a lot of what others have said here. I had an ED throughout my early 20s and realised after 5+ years that I was going in the wrong direction in life.I also had therapy that took me backwards - I saw a counsellor at a specialist eating disorders unit but in all honesty I don't think she was very good and it made my ED worse.

I had bulimia and just made a hard rule that I would stop. It was very difficult at first and I gained some weight but then my body hit its natural set point and stopped. Once I had reached that weight the ED honestly pretty much fell away for me and I stopped thinking about it. I have genuinely been completely recovered for 15 years and don't even think about it anymore, sometimes I find it hard to remember who that version of myself was. Clearly my body needed to be a higher weight that I was forcing it to be.

I know this is only one experience but I guess the helpful things I would offer are intuitive eating (try Susie Orbach's book 'on eating' for this, it's excellent), allowing yourself to be a healthy weight and avoiding environments that put you under pressure (I did ballet, acting and some modelling when young, all areas that put me under pressure to have a body that didn't look like mine) and trusting your own instincts. It does take time but it's more than worth it.

I do agree that it's selfish in that it makes you very self-absorbed. I felt a lot of guilt for that reason. I am much, much happier now that I engage with the world, look after myself and give more to others.

Please take the advice here in the round OP, but take heart that you can get better

For me it was related to how I dealt with a suboptimal home environment - I had a difficult relationship with my mother and stepdad. Looking back, I’m not sure how I wasn’t hospitalised, I was very unwell. I had a BMI of 13 when I was 17 years. I was cold and tired all the time.

Once I was at medical school I realised that I couldn’t not eat and still have the energy to study and have a social life and a boyfriend so I just eased back on my restrictions and gained some (much needed) weight and nothing bad happened.

It didn’t come back and I have a pretty healthy relationship towards food now.

I was desperately unhappy in an unhappy controlling, toxic environment where I felt unable to be myself. When I left that (to go to university) I recovered, with a few ups and downs(family Xmas etc) but really quite quickly. And stayed well for 20 years.

Good luck. It's a horrible illness but I believe it's an inward expression of frustration, lack of control, anger and sadness, turned inwards (men turn emotions outward and women/girls turn self destructive) You need to understand via therapy or reflection what's causing this.

And love yourself. What's your self talk like? Talk kindly to you. You deserve love, kindness and gentleness. You'd never starve or subject someone you loved to punishing exercise regimes, so treat yourself like a close friend and nurture yourself.

Good luck. I believe you can do it and be happier for it. My ED years were the unhappiest of my life.

I have many parallels with nolongersurprised

@maebenot I suffered from Anorexia for 11 years and I had 2 kind of turning points.
I had years of various therapies , eventually had impatient treatment and altho I put the weight on I was still very controlling and aware of every calorie, having strict limits and time restrictions about when I could/ couldn't eat. About a year after coming out of hospital I went to a talk by someone who had written a book about her recovery from Anorexia. I really related to her and I thought if she can do it maybe I can.

I started by saying to myself I'm just going to try and eat more today ...if it feels unbearable I'll restrict more tomorrow. But it was manageable so I tried it for another day, and then the next day until this was my new way . I was still aware of every calorie but allowing myself more healthy amounts.
The true freedom came when I had a job opportunity which would involve staying in hotels for weeks at a time. It was an exciting opportunity but the one thing that scared me was the complete loss of control of my food intake it would have and I worried if I would fit in my regular exercise routines. But I knew if I turned it down I would be asked why and admitting my reason would be so embarrassing. So I took the risk and it changed my life .
It was so liberating not knowing how many calories there were in things so not be constantly calculating. I fitted in my usual exercise and despite eating out for every meal of the day for a couple of months I didn't put on weight. That was 8 years ago now and I've never looked back

OP, I am so sorry to hear about your troubles.

Forgive me but are you sure that you are “eating normally” and that your weight is low due to training? It is very easy to delude yourself about what you are eating.

For me what worked was to deal with my emotional problems, focus on what I wanted to achieve with my life and realise that my weight and my struggles to control my weight held me back from everything I wanted to achieve.

It sounds like you do need professional help. In the absence of that, what worked for me.

1. Looking at pictures of what normal meals looked like (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks) and force myself to eat them. Eating together with friends, partner, other to get support and take my mind off things.

2. restricting training and choosing a training where strength was everything and looks nothing. I cancelled my gym membership and did kickboxing 3-4 times a week. I also played squash with friends. Here it was about still exercising but to do it in a controlled and a maximum of times a week. This will mean reducing the total amount of training you do. You will still exercise more than an hour a day (depending on kickboxing/ martial art class, usually 90min) with is more than most people do - and you know this.

3. seek support for your grief about not having children. And any other unresolved issues.

4. maintain a razor like focus on what you want to achieve with yourself - and keep telling yourself how that is the most important thing.

5. You need to tell your husband. He will need to be there for you when you are eating breakfast and dinner. Not as a “guard” but as a cheerful supporter who can talk about unrelated things and take your mind off food.

I need to go but I have some experience of how eating disorders are treated at an outpatient clinic. This is what I did but I also had 10 weeks / one day a week at the clinic. PM me if you want more details.

LordoftheDanceSaidHe

I look back and see how unwell I was but I feel that it was really a response to a pretty shit home life. I was lucky in that I was still inherently sufficiently academic to get the school grades to leave and enter a whole new environment, which to me, was a positive one.

I still remember an afternoon of study in the lead up to one lot of final exams and taking a break to buy and eat a small bar of chocolate and being so engrossed in biochemistry that I didn’t have the time or inclination to feel upset that I’d eaten chocolate, the study/exams were more important. Nearly 30 years on I still remember that so it must have been important!

My oldest daughter has (or had) a low grade eating disorder last year though, at 14. She’s a high-achieving, perfectionist, naturally thin girl and it started over lock down. I asked a child psychiatrist for advice and initially he said it sounded more like perfectionism and anxiety but changed his mind when I said I’d had an ED as a teen. I have never modelled any restrictive eating, or commented on body shapes or anything with my daughters but he maintained that there’s an emerging appreciation of how heritable eating disorders are. When I said I genuinely felt it was all in response to my difficult teenage years he pointed out that it’s significant that I responded to stress with a anorexia, not self-harm, or depression or something else. Which seemed fair

My daughter saw an ED specialised psychologist and is fine now, though I watch her like a hawk. She still sees her but they work through normal teenage stuff like her academic load, and how to reject a boy she doesn’t like in “that way” and friendship dramas. There’s a good rapport and I’m happy to keep paying for her if it helps my daughter have an easier time of it than I did.

OP that sounds like a v poor response from the health services, but sadly not surprising. NHS services have very high barriers to access: they are not adequately resourced to meet ‘demand’ (needs!).

That doesn’t actually mean you are ‘low risk’ to yourself, just that they are not offering you any services.

It does sound like you’re still very much in the grip of a problem.

‘Self help’ might work for some people, but not many others.

I have a longstanding binge eating problem and am currently a ‘normal’ weight. Assume not eligible for NHS help. Have tried a range of self help with mixed results and am saving to pay for private help.

Underweight BMI, exercising 2 hours a day / 20 000 steps a day and - importantly - feeling stressed if you do less, are signs of an active ED.

Thank you all for posting.

I’ve been writing this in my note pad, I hope it copies across okay.

I have been feeling so sick and small since yesterday. I am a fully-grown privileged highly-educated adult, living a life of self-indulgent luxury without anyone relying on me, while people starve and die in desperation across the world. It IS selfish and I am trying to make this my “fuck it” reason to snap out of it. After posting this I’m going to make myself get a bigger breakfast.

I find it very difficult to see what therapy could do, but I am gathering that I should try again as it seems to have helped many of you. I was diagnosed with autism and adhd as an adult, and I appreciate that these probably have an impact.

I had a very difficult upbringing. We were a small intensely religious family with no friends or connection to the real world; I never had an appetite and was always small and underweight. The house was always full of tension.

My dad confidentially told me some time ago that he'd struggled his whole life with being gay - which perhaps explains my parents' messed-up relationship and how unhappy we were. (I think he’s autistic too though not diagnosed.)

My mum has health anxiety, being tested and semi-hospitalised as long as I can remember with constant cancer and deadly disease scares (but also always seemed fine). I don't want to be like that, but here I am.

All this was awful but then I met DH. My world turned around and I escaped. I felt like I "healed" and become a grown up. After a decade we both suddenly wanted kids. I researched the hell out of conception, parenting and child development and communication (it’s why I joined mumsnet).

Now though, life is just pointless really, apart from the intense pride I feel when I see the scales going down. I thought this morning, I can’t make a baby, but I can make my body do this.

Anyway, I’m going to try and eat something. Thank you again for talking to me, and I’m so sorry to the parent pp out there dealing with this on the other side.

You seem to have been through quite a lot in life.

Mental health problems, including eating disorders, aren’t ‘selfish’, they’re just health problems.

The ‘it’s selfish’, ‘I have a GREAT life, what’s wrong with me?’ negative ‘self talk’ is often part of the MH problem IME!

As regards ‘talking therapy’, think a key thing is the skills of the therapist. If you do go private, Suggest checking qualifications carefully, eg BACP. And of course what you think about their approach and get on with them.

I am a fully-grown privileged highly-educated adult, living a life of self-indulgent luxury without anyone relying on me, while people starve and die in desperation across the world

I am a highly-educated professional, pragmatic woman who has little time for self-indulgent naval-gazing.

A few years ago, at work, I admitted a teen girl to hospital for ng feeding for anorexia. She needed it yet was still less thin/unwell than I had been. There was nothing unusual about this and it’s something I’ve done many times before.

Later that weekend DH and I went out for dinner and after 1/2 bottle of wine I sobbed (I rarely cry) about how no one had ever cared enough to get help for me as a teenager.

I had no fucking idea where that shit came from, 25 years later!

Eating disorders and the reasons for them run deep, there’s no shame in getting help.

Size 14 isn’t fat

@CurryLover55

Size 14 isn’t fat

It is for some

In any event, doesn’t matter if the op is or isnt

It’s a mental health condition

It sounds you are an incredibly strong and resilient person to come through such a traumatic upbringing. I think therapy may help you but you will know best.

From what you've written maybe you feel you lack some purpose? Perhaps some volunteer work or study, just a small amount doing something you believe in. What do you care about?

Be gentle with yourself. What's your self talk like?

It is about control and it is also about habit for me.

I’d binge eaten so much that I’d formed a really bad habit, my brain had wired itself so that I felt like I needed vast amounts of food in a very short amount of time like “normal” people need water.
It was so very hard, fight of my life I’d say and even now I’d say I was in remission rather than cured because the urge and habit has been around for years.
I read a brilliant book called “brain over binge” by Cathryn Hansen who is a recovered bulimic and that helped me to reframe my eating disorder and gave me a strategy to get better.
I hear what you’re saying about having a family and the way you feel about your body, could you think - I’ve got DH to live for and my friends and family so I need to eat and be well for them?

nolongersurprised I'm concerned about one of my DC. He is hyper aware of his body size and shape.

Your reaction is very interesting. I sought therapy for something different and ended up sobbing that no-one has asked if I was ok when I was basically starving myself to death. No parents, aunts, teachers. They all knew I'd been through trauma. They just shouted at me to eat. No kindness, no concern.

I've expressed that badly. I was basically a child who was suddenly withdrawn, stopped eating and failed exams because she was so hungry. No-one asked with kindness whether I was ok.

I sought therapy for something different and ended up sobbing that no-one has asked if I was ok when I was basically starving myself to death

It’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, now I consider myself very resilient mentally. Yet for me there’s obviously still the same visceral response as you. Why didn’t anyone give a fuck about how you could see my skeleton through my skin, count my ribs?

With regard to children, my daughter’s psychologist said the earlier the better, really. She still doesn’t think my DD had established anorexia, but enough red flags to treat her as if she did and a year later she is still careful around foods she doesn’t think are healthy, but will eat to appetite for everything else. We stopped all social media until things were going well, so she didn’t get a chance to start calorie counting or find an online community.

I also fell pregnant which put an end to (2 decades) it. At first I was SO sure it would magnify my body image issues. But strangely knowing gaining weight now was completely out with my control....was sort of freeing.

I have the opposite problem as I over eat. People are less sympathetic to over eaters and think it’s just having willpower that’s the problem.

You wouldn’t have cocaine in your house in the cupboard if a cocaine addict lived there, then expect them to leave it alone.

Yet people expect me to be able to leave sweet stuff alone that’s in the house. I can’t! Its all I think about if it’s there.

I go into the petrol station and it’s so hard not to pick up chocolate etc.

@ChampagneWorries

I have the opposite problem as I over eat. People are less sympathetic to over eaters and think it’s just having willpower that’s the problem.

You wouldn’t have cocaine in your house in the cupboard if a cocaine addict lived there, then expect them to leave it alone.

Yet people expect me to be able to leave sweet stuff alone that’s in the house. I can’t! Its all I think about if it’s there.

I go into the petrol station and it’s so hard not to pick up chocolate etc.

When I was watching my weight all the time as a ballet dancer I never had sweet things around. It was sheer willpower. Even now after having two children I still watch my weight. I never want to be overweight. I am probably a little underweight but I eat healthily. If I’m honest, I like feeling my ribs and hips. Maybe you never really get over an eating disorder.

Mine changed when I took back control in other areas of my life, which coincided with meeting DH. It changed again when I started running and I stopped thinking about food as something I should do, and thinking of it as fuelling my running. I wanted to be a good and strong runner, and I knew that couldn’t happen if I was restricting food intake.

It still bites me in the backside every now and again though, usually at times when I’m really stressed and not in control of a problem or situation.

Sorry you’re struggling. I didn’t have a fuck it moment, just a gradual relaxing of the ED rules in my head.

Binge Eating Disordered here. Decades ago.

I went to Overeaters Anon for 2 years & then left OA because my best path was outside of OA. OA programme speaks for itself & I recommend it as starting point. That said...

What I did that was outside the then OA dogma was... I gave myself permission to eat whatever whenever. BUT with a requirement" " If I only wanted to eat because I'm upset about something, what might that something be and what could I do to try fix it instead?" I had to identify & try one thing about the likely real problem, after which I had self-permission to do whatever I liked about food.

Initially was pure guesswork to figure out what was really bothering me -- but I got better at it. It seems like that strategy gave me better soft skills & confidence & less anxiety, better ability to connect to my own feelings & thoughts, and basically the compulsions subsided. Trying to constructively fix problems became my default mode instead, avoiding an anxious spiral that probably was my subconscious default before. It's like that strategy took most of the secret power out of the compulsive behaviour.

I'm sure there are many paths away from ED.  Adult DD lost a lot of weight recently.  I am nervously hoping that doesn't mean anything.

I havnt gotten over mine, Im still working through it, but I am getting better. I've been having therapy since January.

I joined the eating disorder service with a BMI of 18.5, just on the verge of being underweight. My BMI was 16.6 a few weeks ago & is at 17.4 now.

The biggest thing that has helped me - and I'll never ever forget this. Is that you dont have to believe everything your brain tells you, your thoughts are just that, thoughts, their not facts.

And an eating disorder thoughts are so disordered. I look at mine like a separate person now and I wouldn't be friends with someone like that so why am I listening to the nasty things their telling me?

I weighed myself everyday, calorie counted, measured myself. I dont do any of that anymore. The underlying fear of being overweight is still there but everyday I tell it to shut up and push thr thoughts away. Some days are better than others

Unfortunately, things partly started because I had multiple miscarriages over many years and we ended up not having children

I have had several losses so understand some of your pain. When I say you I'm in this next paragraph I'm talking about myself. That lack of control can lead towards an eating disorder, having an eating disorder is so controlled and rigid and its somthing you control yourself, it's not somthing that's happened to you like a miscarrige or a loss. And that control is addictive, then seeing the numbers down becomes addictive. Its fucked up what your brain can do to yourself

Honestly I really do think counselling would help you, it can honestly change the way you think and feel about yourself

Whenever my intrusive thoughts kick in I have to speak to myself and talk myself down because it gets so overwhelming