Adult eating disorders support

[thesootherfairy]

Hi
Was inspired by the teen thread. Looks really supportive and was wondering if anyone else would like an adult support thread?

I'm 47. Have young pre-teen DC, a DH and a family cat. I work full time self employed. But I've had anorexia since I was 12. Had no help (not well known about back then so no help offered). Recently been diagnosed with anorexia.

Now face a 2 year wait for treatment.

And you?

@Millie2008 I don't really know what set point theory is, and I have meant to buy Tabitha Farrar's book that you are reading, and currently i haven't. However, I did listen to a podcast with her talking, on Spotify. She absolutely convinced me, back in February on a dog walk, to try eating intuitively. I have tried with success. I do sometimes skip breakfast (I'm a teacher so start early) but I have been eating at break, lunch, snack and dinner. If I want chocolate I have it. Etc etc. So I think I am at my set point weight now because I feel great, and sated. I think I experience disturbances because if hormones. Two weeks before my period I can give or take eating, the week before I am ravenous. Without sounding like an idiot, I try to honour these feelings. So if I'm not hungry I'll still eat a plum. My colleague always offers me a chocolate rice cake, knowing I mustn't skip a meal or snack. But the week before my period I eat toast and peanut butter when i come home from work, after a whole day of food. Maybe I'll have a friend egg on a potato waffle at breakfast. Because I need it.

I haven't got all the answers. I feel a bit distressed deep down because I can't see my hip bones and ribs. And I'm convinced my thighs touch, right at the very top. And i think my boobs are bigger, not enough to go up a size but I feel they are. But I also know deep down that this is me at 44. And I know others would call me slim, even petite, and i keep on intuitively eating through it all and think that, because my judgement is skewed at best and wrong at worst, I am probably doing OK.

I have to say, I can't wait to try intermittent fasting when I get back in a routine after the bank holiday. Maybe to lose a few pounds. And then I think, why? My clothes fit me and I've thrown the scales out. Why do I need to do that? I won't become obese or fat or even with a higher BMI. My body is, right now, where it should be.

It was a good podcast. She was the visiting speaker and it starts with how she first became anorexic before university.

Obviously my eggs aren't friends. Fried 🙄🍳

@CousinLucy - I'll def give that podcast a listen, thanks.
It sounds like you're doing really well by pushing on through despite the negative thoughts and feelings. If I'm understanding correctly this is exactly what Tabitha suggests doing. She goes one step further and suggests that if you stick with this approach, eventually, due to "neural rewiring" the thoughts and feelings will shift too. Do you feel that this is within reach? I'm sort of a bit annoyed with myself as maybe, if when I was at my heaviest post pregnancy, I hadn't been sucked into "losing a few pounds" maybe I would have reached this set-point and overcome the thoughts/feelings/compulsions. But I guess I didn't have that perspective then. I genuinely thought I was over the eating disorder and that this would be a perfectly healthy thing to do. Grrr
Do you talk to anyone IRL about all this?- in particular your partner?

@Millie2008 it's really interesting what you say about not wanting food to be in your relationship. It is in mine. I don't think I wish it wasn't; it's fine. It's how I seem to live right now. But no, I don't talk to him a lot. We went out for lunch on Saturday, in the sunshine in our local city and I had a brownie, ice cream and an espresso afterwards. He observed now lovely it was to see me eat without restriction. It made me happy.

If I'm honest, I don't know how long I'll stay in this place. I suppose it could be forever - but I think this stint is due to lockdown anxieties plus anxiety about what the menopause could do to me. My mum used to say that one day I'd be 'fat like me'. But growing up, being pregnant and post pregnancy I never have been. So now I await to see if I will get 'fat like me' because of hormones. But I am not menopausal yet. I don't think. But surely I can't be 65, 70 and 80 with food issues?!!! And not all old ladies are obese, are they?

I'm trying to enjoy eating and not think about it too deeply. Since your first post there's been some great discussion. It's been healthy too. Reminding me of good tactics. Thank you. X

I do speak to a few friends. Sometimes I wonder how bored they get with it so I don't talk a lot. I think they are all nice women; I don't want to disappoint them by being too honest! There is a person at work i can go to. Sometimes I know my ED thoughts get offended if people don't notice me getting thinner when I'm in 'crisis' but I am quite thin and small anyway so I honestly don't think anyone notices because I just am what I am. I do find that I am kinder to myself the higher weight I am. I think much younger anorexics might call this an ED voice, but at my age it just seems to be me. I think I might've been told as a teenager it was all my own doing and I was a silly girl. Sometimes I do think I am a pointless waste of time, but I try to realise that other people don't think that of me.

@CousinLucy I can't tell you how immensely helpful I have found this discussion, thank you so much. I wish I had people like you in real life to talk and hold each other accountable!
Im so sorry to hear you still have negative thoughts about being worthless :-( I really hope these ease with time. I'm also sorry to hear you had a negative reaction from your mum when you were struggling as a teen. It's confusing as I thought a lot of my ED stemmed from having emotionally abusive parents who themselves had very odd/disordered thoughts around food- and absolutely projected these messages onto me. I remember my mum really shaming me for enjoying food. But then Tabitha says that ED's are entirely biological and should be treated as such. But then I'm only a couple of chapters in so this might be expanded on and explained more.
And I know what you mean about being 80 with disordered eating! I have the same thought. When I'm honest with myself I already feel like I've wasted so much time on worries to do with food and weight. But then my other brain kicks in and tells me they're not disordered thoughts, they're really healthy ones which mean I'll live a long and happy life 🙈😂

I would say I've been solidly recovered for the past six years. I no longer follow a very strict meal plan the way I had to in the early stages of recovery, but I do adhere to the basic principles: three meals, three snacks, with a good balance of protein, carbs, fats, etc. that corresponds to the Eat Well plate. I don't measure my portions now, because I can trust myself to take the right amount without skimping. I'm maintaining at a BMI of 21, which seems to be my body's natural set point.

I'm like you in that as soon as something very stressful happens, I start reaching for excuses to restrict - "Oh, I'm not very hungry today, I won't have any rice or Quorn pieces with my stir-fry. I'll just have the veg, but I'll use the whole bag, so that will be fine. I can always get a yoghurt later if I'm hungry." I know it's not fine, I need the rice, I need the Quorn, and eating a whole pack of stir-fry is just a way to kid myself that I've eaten a full meal when in reality this does not meet my energy/nutritional needs. The key thing is to notice when the temptation pops up and to shut it down immediately. Once you start indulging these thoughts they get stronger. You can't prevent yourself from being influenced by all the stresses in your life indefinitely, but you can stop them from creeping in at this one meal. Take it one meal at a time until you're back on track, and remember that restriction triggers restriction - you might have to put up with shouty AN thoughts for a week or two while your blood sugars etc. stabilise again, but after that, the thoughts will be a lot quieter. Giving into them is like turning the volume up.

P.S. I'd be cautious about the idea that EDs are entirely biological. In the past parents were often blamed unfairly for their child's illness, and clinicians would reach for really cringey superficial explanations that they tried to apply to all sufferers, such as "she's afraid of sex and doesn't want to grow up". I think the insistence that EDs are 100% biological sprang up in resistance to that sort of thinking, and I understand it, but they've taken it too far the other way. Most research that I've seen suggests that while you do need to have a biological predisposition to AN there will be psychological and social factors that exacerbate and trigger it. If this weren't true there would be no need for psychologists and therapists in eating disorder services. Speaking purely for myself, all I can say is that it became a lot easier for me to eat once I'd learnt how to assert myself and use the word "no" instead of caving to what other people wanted all the time.

Thanks for the useful discussion. It's been helpful to read and to realise I'm not alone.
@ugifletzet I think you are right about being aware of ED thoughts when they creep in during times of stress and difficulty. It's like a voice that whispers in to your ear and it's so enticing, it says 'just restrict for a few weeks, colleague x at work is doing intermittent fasting and she's thin and healthy so if she's doing it then I don't see what's so bad about it.'
For me, I had 5 or 6 really solid, stable years after my son was born and I had to cope with baby years etc,
It gave me a real focus away from myself and I just didn't worry too much about food.
I think the last few years have been really hard for various reasons and I've fallen in to the trap of listening to the ED voice and using restriction as a coping mechanism to make me
feel kind of okay about myself, as I was feeling very not okay with myself. As @Millie2008 says, being in control of my eating gives me something. But I also know it's not sustainable. I also know that it's a lie that it's ever enough and we will always be chasing the next 1lb off to keep on feeling good and in control. I have fallen in to the trap of very disordered thinking and I may need some help to climb back out again!

Set point theory says - as far as I understand - that your body has a weight at which it functions best and your body will always fight to get back to its set point, so if you go below your set point, your body will find ways to save energy to try to maintain your weight. Then, when you start refeeding, you may experiment 'overshoot' bit your body will lose the 'excess' weight to return you to your set point.

3+3 is 3 meals and 3 snacks, but what I eat is not prescriptive. Nothing is off limits, but I I'm being encouraged to eat more to meet my energy demands. At the start of recovery I found keeping food diaries really hard, and didn't want to admit when I had eaten cake/chocolate/crisps etc without purging, because I thought my ED team would think that I didn't have an eating disorder.

I disagree with the idea that EDs are completely biological. I am arguably weight restored, and if I continue to follow my meal plan I think my body will repair a lot of the damage I have done to it in the next few months, but, the ED voice is still strong. I am fighting it all the time. I am working hard but right now I feel as though full recovery is not going to be possible for me.

Well done @Rustnot it sounds as though you are working hard, even
though it still feels like a battle and the ED voice is still there. The fight is real and it's tough.
Can I ask you and others who are in recovery- do you experience gastrointestinal issues/
Stomach problems? That's what I remember from my previous time of starting to eat more normally again after my last eating disorder and it's another reason I sometimes give myself to put off going back to a more normal way of eating.

@BettyCake i find that when I eat well and enough my gastrointestinal issues are much improved after a stint of bloating and constipation. Which is awful but it does come to an end if I just keep eating. When I restrict i am often in discomfort, plus I am often anaemic when I restrict and 600mg daily of ferrous sulphate is enough to give anyone extra gastrointestinal issues! I do struggle at times to drink enough water. I struggle with seeming like I am just eating and drinking the whole time, like there's no rest from it. So if I forget to drink I do have what seems like terrible digestion. My stomach hurts if I try to 'catch up' every evening, as a teacher sometimes eating time is limited at work because of duties, detentions and meetings.

My first proper go at recovery I suffered with horrible bloating, tummy ache and sometimes constipation.

I have had a bit of a lapse recently and was purging daily for about two weeks. After getting back on my meal plan I was really bloated again. It still hasn't subsided. I'm trying to make sure I drink enough and I have kefir or a prebiotic drink every day. No idea if that actually helps but I'm doing it anyway!

@ugifletzet thank you so much for sharing all of that. I'm finding your thoughts and advice really helpful. This is where I went wrong I think- I let myself be led by my thoughts and then as you've said, watched and read things that affirmed then. I guess (or I'm hoping) that during each attempt and subsequent failure at recovery you learn more and increase your chances of genuine long term success. I'm thinking I just haven't maybe managed to stick with a higher bmi long enough for the new ways of thinking and behaving to really stick. I need to remember to always take a step back before starting the process of kidding myself that I'm about to embark on an entirely healthy lifestyle (and that it's not just old disordered thinking creeping back in). I mentioned in another post that it feels unfair that because I have a history of ED's I have to therefore live a less healthy lifestyle now if that makes sense. Because even just having the thought "I haven't been eating enough fruit and veg and feel a bit physically crappy as a result- I'm going to try and eat more of that"- seemingly leads me down a slippery path 🙈

@BettyCake everything in your last post resonates. Sorry you're struggling atm. But on a positive note- at least you're recognising you might need some support? That's how I'm viewing it for myself- in the past I would have continued kissing myself until things got a lot worse than they are now. So that's progress at least!

Thanks @Rustnot that makes sense. Although of course I'm scared to trust it! I think I've probably never lasted long enough at a higher weight to truly put that theory to the test. So I guess that could be my next challenge if I'm to really beat this thing.
In this book I'm reading, she suggests it's not only about weight restoration but also rewiring the neural pathways- which as I understand it, is the (long hard) process of teaching your brain new ways of thinking about and behaving around food. So maybe there is still hope...

I hope it's OK to ask this - I've been reading through this thread with a view to learing more and helping my Mum as I still feel at a loss as to how to help her.

She has been very thin all her life and never eaten much but seems worse now and she's only eating eggs and tiny bits of chocolate. She does sometimes have some nutritional drinks. She hides food from her plate etc and puts a lot of the food she buys with the carers in the bin. Her carers weigh her every 2 weeks because they are worried about her and last year she lost so much weight she was only able to lie on the sofa most of the time. She goes between 5 and 6 stone, and is losing again at the moment.

I've not been able to get her any mental health support or support of any kind for eating disorder. Her GP checks her health and says there's nothing of note and nothing her can do. It seems wrong that there is nothing to help with such a big and difficult thing that is affecting her helath and well-being so much. I wonder about trying to find her some private mental health support and I'm wondering if any of you have any advice about this - Mum never wants to talk about anything with us but think she could benefit from building a relationship with someone to talk to so she could talk about things if she wants to. Do you think this would be helpful and does anyone have any idea where I would go about finding somone? Thanks very much for your help

How old is your Mum? Support for eating disorders is patchy, worse for adults and I think fairly non existent for older adults. I don't know much about private services but proper eating disorder specialists are few and far between. If you want someone to address the ED then I would say you need to look very carefully. If you are looking to find her someone she can talk to in general it might be easier to find someone.

I would expect your GP to do better- her weight is very low. I would try and encourage her to keep drinking the drinks just to get some calories and nutrition into her.

@windowdrawing I am sorry to hear about your mum, for all concerned. Has she had low weight with an eating disorder or is there another reason for her weight? Is she depressed/poor appetite or restricting food for other reasons? Sorry to ask and you may not know. I know that I would always want to shield my daughter from the details of my anorexia. If she is post-65, specific mental healthcare is scarce but absolutely deserved.

Hi Rustnot and Nutmegx thanks for replying - I typed a reply earlier but I think it's diappeared! The lack of support for adults is so wrong and I feel very angry for everybody. My Mum is 87 and otherwise pretty fit and well - this seems to be a long-standing thing. We've noticed it more in the last few years having been around her more and in the last 2 years she seems to be eating even less, hiding food more and losing even more weight. It was helping that her carers who pop in every day for company mostly,, would eat with her - she would only eat at bit eg half of half of a sandwich, or half of half of a scone if they went out for coffee, but the carers are saying this is even less now and she'll say something is lovely but then hide it so she doesn't heave to finish it.

It does seem to go up and down a bit and we were relaxing a bit recently (over a period of about a month or 2) as she seemed a bit better and put on a few pounds. She was getting towards 6 stone. But now it's a phase of barely eating and losing weight quite fast - a couple of pound in a week when she doesn't have much to lose.

She doesn't seem to be depressed but it is a possibility. She doesn't seem to share her feelings with anyone altough she has a lovely close friend. I'm thinking if she could build a trusting realtionship with a counsellor she would a at least have the chance to talk about things if she wanted to and hopefully imporove well-being - although I do think she'd resist it. But I don't feel right just leaving things as there is definitely a long-term significant problem there, and i'd like her to have the opportunity to feel better. I think she would hate and not engage with anything focusing on eating. She does like the nutritional drinks which is really good and we'll keep encouraging those. Maybe it's a case of trying to find a private therapist who would be open to gentle chats and relationship building without anything structured that would place demands like CBT.

Nutritional drinks are excellent, balanced with everything your mum needs if she is eating so little. If she was trying to lose weight she'd definitely avoid them imo! Fibre is all she'll lack. My Nanny started to eat less and less and a colleague's mum would hide food so as not to upset her or the carer who had made it. Depression is often masked and ever so common in older people. Talking about feelings isn't something that was so acceptable for their generation either.

Good to know about the nutritional drinks nutmegx - Mum does seem to like them but unfortunately is still losing weight at the moment. Agree that talking about feelings not being acceptable in that generation - very hard for them and for those around them too

Hi everyone - after disordered eating since aged 14/15 involving restricting, binging, making myself sick, excessive exercise and finally now I think a form of orthorexia I'm finding help

I've never been hospitalised and ATM am a healthy weight so I feel a fraud if I'm honest but I know that what goes on in my head is not normal.

So much of what I've read on this thread resonates - especially using current healthy eating ' trends' to justify the control I think I need. IF and very low carb at the moment - but huge binges (on those foods) and also a 'day off' yesterday triggered another carb and sugar fuelled binge.

I've decided to try to find some therapy - will call BUPA tomorrow to see if they will cover it.

I'm so scared of letting my rules go as I really think I will lose all control and genuinely this all started due to massive digestive issues with bloating / pain which are massively improved eating this way.

So I don't want that to come back either. But ultimately I know I need to get rid of my rules then try to find out more sensibly about which are trigger foods for the digestive stuff instead of blocking out all carbs.

Any advice on finding the right kind of therapy? Beat have 2 counsellors listed in my area I guess that's a strong place to start?

@FusionChefGeoff - hi there,
Just wanted to say that we sound very similar , so I'm not in anyway a guru! But, as a result of this thread I started reading a book by Tabitha Farrar called "Rehabilitate, recover, rewire". The book has resonated with me, and I like her no bulshit approach. She has done lots of podcasts and YouTube vids. I would predict she might be a bit marmite- but I personally love her! Her book has inspired me to give recovery a really honest good go. Tabitha's approach is pretty all or nothing though, so not for everyone. I'm on day 4 of trying to eat in a completely unrestricted way. It's fucking hard. But I've had enough. Something has to change. Would highly recommend her book, even if you don't agree with everything it's certainly good for thought!

*food for thought!!