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?

Hello everyone, I am 32 and have an Eating Disorder which I believe to be Anorexia Nervosa. I will be seeing my Doctor about this week. I am really scared to be telling my GP. I don’t know what will happen at all. I have spoken to Beat who were lovely and understanding. I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to go about talking about it? I am really needing confidence.
Thank you for replies xx

Hi @UsernameChangeES , I am sorry you are struggling with this awful illness. I am also 32 although I have had anorexia for 17 years but am currently in the best place I have ever been. I would advise you to be as honest as possible with the GP about your thoughts and fears around food and the accompanying rules, your weight and exercise if applicable. They may give you advice that you do not want to follow but it will be in your best interests - no one wants you to get fat or become unhealthy. It would be good to request a referral to the Community Eating Disorders Team as you will then be able to be treated by specialists - GPs' knowledge is often very limited. Good luck and let us know how you get on x

Provision for adult EDs is often poor. I would advise explaining the negative impact Anorexia is having on your relationships, work or study and ability to enjoy life. Don't underplay your struggles. If you know what kind of support you think you need, don't be afraid to say. Remember you don't need to be a particular weight or other markers to be in a very bad state of mental health. Your rate of decline is also significant-how quickly are you getting worse? Sorry you are experiencing this illness. I have had restrictive AN for 26 years, am 41.

@frugalnecessity I am glad you’re in the best place you have been. Yes, I will be as honest as I can. I don’t want to leave anything out at all. I will request a referral. I have some information from Beat to give my GP so hopefully that helps. I will say how it goes.

@nutmegx I definitely won’t underplay anything. I’m not sure what sort of support I need. I am restricting more and more each day. I get so hungry but just ignore it. I don’t feel I have any choice except to ignore the feeling. My mind is always telling me to suppress my hunger and not eat. I think about eating and calories 24/7. I can’t get away from it.

I have Diabetes and Epilepsy too. Those factors make me so anxious about what she will say.

I had my appointment earlier and now have another appointment for blood tests. I am also being referred to an Eating Disorder clinic. There are a few things I wish I had said to my Doctor but I hope this will help.

Well done. That was a big step. ED services will hopefully see you soon for an initial assessment, and tbh they are better placed than your GP to support you.

@UsernameChangeES
How are things?

@TheOrigRights
My blood tests are being done on Thursday. Then I will be referred to an Eating Disorder Clinic after they are received. I am also struggling with over exercising now. Otherwise I’m pleased that everything is going quite quickly, but nervous as well.

I would like to join this thread. My situation is a little complex. I had an eating disorder many years ago (last hospitalised 35 years ago), and spent a long time building up my life. Now my son (21) has a mixed eating disorder (anorexia and bulimia). My son is wating for an appointment with an ED specialist.

I am receiving coaching as a carer from BEAT, but after an assessment, they say my son's needs are too complex for their service.

@ijphoo I am sorry to hear your son is unwell. Is he living at home? How are you? Does your ED still impact your life? I hope you are able to guide your son to find and use support to live beyond the restrictions of his illness.

Hello,

Yes, my son lives with me (separated from husband). I really need to get him some help quickly. I don't think I can wait for the appointment to come through.

@ijphoo I'd like to suggest you have a look at the teen thread on this board.
I know your son is older but it sounds like you are advocating for him and they may be able to give you some suggestions.

I didn't understand what you mean by BEAT saying they couldn't offer help. Do you mean they guided you to clinical support?
So you have a date for his assessment?

I wish you both all the best.

@ijphoo does your son want to be helped? As an adult (albeit young and poorly) he will have to agree to treatment unless sectioned. Of course you know this but wondering how he views his ED. It sounds a very difficult time.

I was on early upthread under a different name.

Things going pretty well here in terms of
Much more relaxed about exercise and my eating is much much better (possibly a little on the orthorexia side but… the difference in my energy, motivation, hair etc is quite remarkable. For the better!)

what I am a little cross about is the fact that my mind wastes far too many thoughts on what I am eating or will eat. And I hate that. Seems such a bloody waste of time but I just can’t break it.

@TheOrigRights you seem to have made incredible progress. How’s things your end and any hints re my issue with the brain waste on thinking about food!

Hi all. Been a while since I first posted. I have been working hard and making overall good progress with my recovery, but it's full of setbacks and each time I fall down I feel like I've gone back to square one. I can tell overall things are improving though. I'm in the mental health service again now but to be honest it's not helped that much so far as the therapy hasn't really got going yet. They've diagnosed me anorexic (even though I binge and purge as well as restrict, but I think I probably restrict higher than most anorexics and I don't exercise). My old diagnosis was bulimia a few years ago so I wonder if they've misdiagnosed me but I suppose it doesn't really matter, though I'm worried that the therapy will be ineffective if it's targeted at wrong mindset.

I'm making a real effort to eat more and to stop purging and calorie counting (easier said than done). I start to panic when I eat over a certain amount though. And I find that the more I eat the more I want to eat and then I lose control. But I know if I keep purging it will never end, so when I start binging now I'm trying my best to let myself eat it and keep it down, and I find the binges are nowhere near as big as they would be with a binge purge. It's still so much food though.

I can't say I've fully stopped restricting yet outside of that (but then where do you draw the line between restriction and normal intake? I'm short and lazy, there is no way I need 1,800-2,000 calories a day to maintain even a healthy weight). And it balances out with the binging so I am gaining weight now. I have gone from BMI 15 to over 16 in the last month which feels so fast. I'll be a healthy weight in no time but I can't see the binging ending then and so I'm very worried about becoming overweight. I just can't stop thinking about food, and before I just used to obsess over meal planning for the family but now I tell myself I'm allowed to eat a lot more food I find I don't know when to stop. I never feel full or satisfied, but I don't really feel physically hungry either, so it's so hard to know what to do and when or how much to eat. It's all well and good to say eat regular meals and snacks, which I'm trying to do, but then if I greedily devour extra food between those times then I need to compensate for that surely and it just throws everything out of whack.

Does anyone have any tips for managing compulsive eating in recovery?

I thought about going 'all in' after seeing lots of recovering anorexics posting about it on social media. However, I binge and purge like you and it meant I was just compulsively eating and still purging.

I was told my hunger cues weren't working properly which is another problem with going all in. I think the only way to get past the compulsive eating is to plan and stick to your meals and snacks. Which is far easier said than done. It's become a real sticking point in my recovery, as well as not being able to move past my food rules. I am stuck in a pretty vicious cycle at the moment, but what does help is going back to the plan as soon after the binge as possible. So if I binge and purge before dinner, I will try to eat dinner and snack as normal. It's very very hard.

My therapist always tells me the meal plan is the protection against the compulsive eating. Sometimes I get hungry after I eat and I'm told to just remember that I'll be eating again in 3 hours or so, but it's not easy to do.

This is a bit of a ramble, but my point is that I don't think there is really any other way to recover other than eating enough food, so your body doesn't feel the need to eat all the time. And it is really, really hard.

Hiya can I jump in on this thread, I've literally read it from the beginning & I feel like I've finally found a place where I'm understood.
I'm 39 & had problems around food for as long as I can remember (I remember my parents shouting at me coz I didn't want to eat chips @ around age 5/6 coz they were 'fattening') I managed to maintain a healthy weight until my teens when my bmi hit around 14-15. I saw a counsellor but that was about it. I managed to pull myself back & maintained for most my 20s at around bmi 22. I lost alot of weight in my late 20s due to stress, anxiety & depression. I attempted suicide 3 times & was referred to the cmht but ended up being given meds & fobbed off, their words to my gp was 'they didn't know what to do with me.' I had my daughter when I was 30 & ballooned to bmi 35.i hated it but couldn't seem to pull myself out of the rut, I was so depressed. I started to lose weight in 2020 after my dad died but did it 'healthily' the 2021 I had a alot of stress & it triggered the binge purge cycle again, my teeth literally fell out in my hand & my dentist advised me to go to the docs, which I did. He sent me for bloods & left it at that when they were normal. In new yr 2022 I ended up moving in with my mother for a few months while I looked for a new place to live & the restriction & self harm started again. She insisted I get help & I've got a new gp & he's brilliant. I was referred to the cmht for eating & self harm & I've finally started cbt-e in Jan this yr. My therapist is lovely but my bmi is a 'healthy' 23 atm & I hate it. I've had an asd/adhd screening & it seems I have indicators of both so she's going through official diagnosis with me for that. She's decided to extend our sessions as she believes that with a proper diagnosis she'll be better able to help me, when we've tried 'experiments' I've list the plot & doubled my laxitive use (I currently take 40-50 a day). I only eat eggs every morning so I have energy to run after the school run & if I ate anything else I would make myself sick as well as take more laxitives. I'm driving myself mad, I think about food/how much weight I can lose I how much time/how far I can run/how many laxitives I can take & what time etc. Its never ending. I want to get better but I also don't really know what that even looks like coz when I'm 'well' the thoughts never go away, who am I without an Ed? I'm so obsessed with dropping this weight atm I'm not even sure how I'm gonna make therapy work for me, I really do want to give it my all but there's a panic in me even writing this that the Ed is like 'nope, that's not gonna happen' I want to be healthy for my daughter & enjoy things around food like a normal person would.
Anyway sorry its all a bit long winded, this is the first time I've ever found anywhere where people actually 'get it'

@UsernameChangeES How are you doing? I hope your referral to ED services has gone through and that you live in an area where there are resources to support you.
I have been very fortunate for both my referrals, I was in the system very, very quickly.

@TheOrigRights Thank you, I have an appointment with my local Eating Disorder Clinic on Monday 13th March. I am very nervous about it, but glad that it has come around quite quickly. I am glad that I have had this referral and that it has happened. How are you?

Are you now out the other side?
recovered?

Hey guys, having a panic on atm. I've put on 2lb (I've established it's the muscle relaxants that I was put on for a neck injury so they have gone as of today) . It's put me up to bmi 23.9 & I'm losing my shit. My doc has asked me to stay where I am weight wise & was less than impressed when I came down 1.5 bmi points between weigh ins (he knows how low I was before & is trying to stop the downward trend before it gets serious again). I want to stay well physically for my daughter but mentally I'm spiralling. I HAVE to lose at least 5lb by Friday so that's 1lb a day, I've been up since 3:30am & literally panicking all morning. I see my therapist on Friday but she doesn't seem to interested in my weight (thank god) she's more about getting some kind of action plan that I'll stick to. I'm restricting even from today as a result of the scales (only eating my eggs, mon/wed/Fri fasting the rest of the time). I know it's unhealthy but right now it's the only thing that's giving me a tiny bit of calm, everything seems to be stressing me out, the thought of recovery makes me happy but the panic & guilt I'm having at the same time is so much stronger.
I dunno anymore 😭

@UsernameChangeES how did your appointment go?
@Sickofthisshit84 how are you getting on now?

@rustnot Well it's 6 of one half a dozen of the other tbh. On one hand I feel better but it's mainly because my heads calm & I'm not eating, I've got to be weighed again tomorrow & my bmi is now down to 22.3 from 23.9 last time. As much as I like it I know it's not going in the right direction & my gp is not going to be happy. He asked me to keep it where I was when I was 24. Something, he's trying to keep me stable as he knows how low I was yrs ago. I'm bleeding everytime I go to the toilet with all the laxitives I'm taking & my therapist emailed him to tell him on Friday so I'm gonna have grief for that as well. She's going through all kinds of things with trauma/asd/adhd as well, so she's dealing with a fair bit & trying to get me referred to people that are better equipped to help me with certain things plus she's got an extension to keep me with her longer as well. I feel absolutely fine though & tbh quite smug that I'm losing. I know that's Ed talking though, I think Ed is so much stronger than me atm coz rational Kim doesn't seem to make many appearances these days, I know what I'm doing is wrong but I just don't care anymore. My daughter is the only thing that's giving me any kind of motivation to stay well tbh.
How is everyone else doing anyway? Better than me I hope 🤞

@Sickofthisshit84 How did you get on yesterday? I hope your GP was able to offer some help.

This is a strange one.

I have been asked to accompany someone for a carer's support assessment. Nominally this is absolutely fine. I am glad they feel I am able to support them.

The problem is that it will be where I went for some of my ED & psychiatrist appointments. I don't often drive that way as it is, but the few times I have it sparks very difficult feelings for me. Just thinking about going into the building really unsettles me, and what if I see the ED nurse?

I could easily have said I wasn't able to go with him (I work full time so it would not have looked like I was making excuses), but I want to go 1) because I want to support him and 2) I want and need to be able to get on with my life.

I am living that in between life of getting on with my life, enjoying activities and friends and being physically OK, but every single moment is consumed with ED thoughts. I don't think I will tip back into it because I have the skills to not let that happen but I can't let it go entirely.