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

[maebenot]

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

Not over it but under control for many years with relapses when under stress (like now a bit actually)

Therapy was very helpful.
It was definitely originally a response to trauma and it is a maladaptive coping mechanism for me when I feel out of control (and unsafe really) in other aspects of my life.
Therapy helped me to see that link and therefore to see that 'being fat' is a distraction and not the actual problem.
Addressing the actual problem is still often something I don't want to do and harder than the ED behaviour.

I can often only pull myself out of it for other people. Right now I am horrified to realise that my teen DD might be affected by my behaviour (which is mainly avoidance of high calorie foods and slavish devotion to exercise that I largely pass off as 'just being healthy') I try to conceal the worse aspects from her. I am pretty sure she doesn't know about my obsessive monitoring of my body and addiction to weight loss shows/ blogs etc but really I need to stop doing it before it does start to affect her.

I want both my son and daughter to have a healthy relationship with food. I only started becoming obsessed with my weight when I became a border at a ballet school. Before then, I ate everything and was always a slim child as I was very active. When I hit puberty I didn’t want my breasts to get big. This is when I really became obsessed with my weight and figure.

I'm so sorry to hear you're struggling OP. I was very unwell as a teen with anorexia. It was all about control for me and I think I was basically addicted to the feeling of achievement I got when I stepped on the scales to find I had lost more weight. It completely consumed me.
I was sent to a wonderful therapist who helped me to find control in other parts of my life, and to realise my own strength to overcome negative impulses around food. Realising the impact of my illness on those who loved me was also a big catalyst in my recovery.
It can feel impossible but with the right therapy I really think it's possible to recover and learn so much about yourself in the process.

I talked to dh who seems to think I'm being silly - he says yes I'm a bit thin but he's not really worried, especially as I have a huge dinner every evening (salmon or chicken and a massive, massive plate or two of veg with some cheese, usually around 600 calories). I do enjoy the exercise and it's made me happier and healthier overall I think, it's just perhaps my nature to be obsessive.

He knows me very well and I trust his judgement, so I wonder if this is just me being like my mum really, and worrying over nothing while unconsciously attention seeking (that selfish thing again).

If it isn't, then the only person who can truly turn this round is me anyway, so I'm just going to have to try harder. I have resolved from this thread to try to volunteer somewhere, and buy some of those books. I start a new job soon which might help too.

Thank you so much to people who've posted, I appreciate it.

@Maebenot - please please don't let your DHs response invalidate your feelings

If you think its a problem then it probably is - I don't really have any real advice as I've not even sought help for my own issues but could you reach out to a GP or a dietician or even a private therapist?

I'm sure your DH thinks he's being supportive but he's not as its not a productive line of thinking that because you eat a lot of vegetables for one meal at night time that you're "being silly"

I agree with LyraVega. Also, someone who hasn't experienced an ED like your DH has no idea what goes on in your head when you are trying to manage one.

OP you are clearly an incredibly strong, independent and resilient person. You have also had a huge wealth of stress and trauma in your past, more than most people. I think that no matter how strong and resilient you are, it might be too much to expect that you should be able to get past all that on your own. Getting the books etc is really great and I would strongly encourage you to also try professional assistance, eg a good psychotherapist or similar. It doesn't make you any less strong to ask for help

The whole rest of the world could be starving and you would still be valid in your own feelings of self-hatred and seeing yourself as small. We have developed a strange mentality of somehow seeing what we go through as 'lesser than' if we can find someone else who we decide has it worse. But no one else is living this life but you. I don't think you can fight you way out of this, I believe therapy may help as it might bring some softer self talk into your life alongside quite a lot of hard black and white talk that you have displayed here. I hope you can find the help you need.

Please don't let your DH reaction stop you getting help. He isn't in your head.

My long term partner at uni when I had very disordered eating and obsessive exercise patterns was dismissive when I tried to talk to him about it. He basically told me that other people have it worse and it's not a clinical concern as I was low end of normal BMI and still menstruating (he worked in healthcare). He made me feel I was attention seeking so I never dared tell anyone else about it again for many years and just carried on obsessively weighing myself, counting calories and fat grams and feeling panicky if I didn't get daily exercise.

In hindsight it's true it was below a clinical threshold for an ED service but it wasn't a total non problem. It was a sign of quite significant distress and I would have greatly benefited from the therapy that I finally accessed many years later at that point.
I am sad that I have wasted so much mental energy and effort on it over the years when I could have channelled it so much more productively.

If you are able to afford private therapy I would very much recommend you make that investment in yourself and your well-being rather than struggle on clearly unhappy and using ED behaviours to cope when it doesn't need to be that way.

It can take a long time to feel better - and even longer not to automatically calculate calories with every bite. Keep at it - CBT helped me a lot, although it wasn't cheap, I had to pay after a certain point (I think 12 sessions).

I actually found some online resources worked well - CBT is something you have to work on yourself.

It's hard, but the payoffs are SO worth it. Invest in yourself.

N.B. the thing that helped me most was a therapist telling me I could either take responsibility for my actions as an adult, or refuse to even try helping myself. You have to own it, and commit to helping yourself.

Having my child without a doubt was my saving grace. Extreme measure but it worked! Solved 20+ years of hell.

So sorry I hadn't rtft, didn't mean to be insensitive. Catching up on it now and will hopefully have something more valuable to add soon!

As some previous posters have said, it was becoming a mum that changed my mindset. I struggled with bullemia off and on over a period of 8/9 years. But when I read that I could actually trigger a heart attack by making myself sick intentionally and could leave my children without a mum, that was it for me. I’ve literally never, ever done it since because I just got it into my head that I would be putting my desire to look a certain way above my children. Hasn’t always been easy and still have the occasional thought but it’s been under control for 13 years now. Best of luck to you.

I read “overcoming binge eating” and worked through the steps. Took about 4 months but I am no longer bulimic, after 30 years of disordered eating.

@AnyFucker

I got pregnant and realised what I was doing to my body had more far reaching consequences than just my own health

Exactly the same here.

I was only eating every other day and only eating 500 cals on the days i ate. This is with 2 jobs and 2 young DCs.

I was looking for ways to reduce my eating further and loving the weird high of being so empty. I'd started to get comments about looking drawn and 'lollipop heady'' and was thrilled.

Then i discovered i was preg with DD3 and it all stopped overnight. I didn't put on much weight through pregnancy and DD3 was a healthy baby 7lb 15 oz :)

Just take it one day at a time OP feed yourself healthy tasty food. Your body deserves it

I had anorexia at 13 which I managed to get 'better' from on my own after having the worse counselling ever and just wanting to be better and not obsessed with weighing and exercising and calorie counting continuously all day long. However I went on to have issues with binge eating and starving.
my diet was so fucked up eating normal was impossible. However I fell pregnant and after I had them something reset in me and I've being pretty ok since. Eat when I'm hungry and binge eating stopped. I still suffer body dysmorphia and still think I'm fat or other people think I'm fat or oddly shaped but it's not an overwhelming obsession, it is now just background noise.

I also hd a stern word with myself that I was damaging my health and that my ED was consuming far too much energy and headspace. I realised I used it as a form of stress control and that I needed to use something else. I agree that I just sort of outgrew it (was mid 30s though).. I learned other ways of coping.
I also started allowing myself foods like crisps and chocolate but learned to stop at one. I had to kept taking to myself until all of this just became second nature

I got treatment for my underlying mental health problems. I think this was the main thing that helped.

OP, please don’t listen to others saying you are stuck with and Ed for the rest of your life. I’m living proof that you can FULLY recover (in the sense that I eat what I want, when I want, in the quantities that I want. I don’t have any issues with compulsive movement, and I genuinely love my body). But to get here I had to shun standard treatment (meal plans - which are restrictive in nature, nhs treatment etc.). I gave myself a year and said if I don’t like where I am, I can always go back to being thin. So i completely honoured all hunger, mental and physical (which for the first 2 months of so was extreme, wanting to eat whole boxes of cereal etc - this is NOT bingeing, this is hunger and you cannot restrict at all - I promise it settles down!) , and stopped all movement (I would obsessively clean, walk etc. So had to stop even walking my daughter to nursery for 6 months to completely re wire my brain). I threw the scale away and every day looked in the mirror naked and said positive comments eg. Holding my stomach and saying how much I loved it. Sounds absolutely crazy, and it was, but it worked. I pretty quickly returned to my pre-ED size (don’t weigh so no idea if I’m the same) but my body and hunger just naturally settled at where it’s happy. I have every faith that you can make the changes necessary to overcome it!