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?

Hi, I'm 21, anorexic since age 12 and bulimic from 16. I'm exhausted

@thesootherfairy I don't blame them really, I understand how it looks if I can intentionally gain ten pounds when I decide that it matters. I stopped as soon as I got my period back and I don't feel any motivation to get to a healthy weight though. Just don't want to end up back where I was. Well I half don't at least.

Could I join
I'm 40 and anorexic with a large addiction to laxatives.
I'm under ED Team and have weekly calls from my nurse and am waiting for CBT therapy to start.
I've been under their care for a year

I want to get better but I feel so safe and calm which is ridiculous when I'm restricting
My head is a constant argument

@DuckingMel you're lucky you've been able to access treatment. I'm sorry to hear it hasn't worked yet.

Mine has been 37 years and despite now wanting treatment, it's not available as I'm too old to qualify for the rapid interventions so best case 2 year wait. And this assumes their funding isn't cut and they change their criteria for treatment and bin me off their waiting list.

@kowari I'm not sure I understand. Surely this is exactly why you need treatment?

@rainatnightlove welcome. Sorry you're struggling.

Hi @Sodamncaughtinthemiddle
Welcome.
Sorry to hear it's bad. Glad they're looking after you though. That's really good.

@thesootherfairy I guess it's that, for me, by the time I am ready to engage with any help, then I am able to help myself. If I could have accessed services quicker then it would have been helpful, but I'm not going to maintain a BMI of 16 until I get to to top of the waiting list if I am ready to sort it myself. Then, barely underweight and with no other risk factors, understandably I don't qualify for help. I don't know what I'm supposed to do really.

Well I have been shocked senseless! I made the decision on Sunday that I was done I've had enough. Dh bless him removed the scales and I've started slowly eating more. It's hard doing but because I don't know what the scales say I'm finding it easier.

Had blood test done at gps Monday to get a referral going. Gp called Wednesday am very low Vit D but worse my potassium levels are in the tank. Need repeat bloods next week. Got a phone call today from the eating disorder clinic. I'm a step away from hospital 😮😮 is contacting gp with a list of other vitamins I urgently need to be on. Being assessed on line next week but need to get potassium under control.

So obviously I'm scared rotten. If this is a wake up call, I've got it and maybe hopefully inspire others the same xx

@Luckoftheirish that sounds like a real shock for you. I hope this is the start of some good support for you xx

@Luckoftheirish Hope you're feeling ok now and do take care of yourself.

I've not had any shocks and am weirdly healthy, including my weight (upper BMI limits), teeth and potassium. So, little incentive to try recover, apart from my wallet. Today have flushed 7 pounds down the toilet. This is what happens many times a week, if not every day, so it really dents my finances.

Hi ,
I have suffered with an eating disorder more years than I been alive, it started when my dad died , I was 10 I discovered over eating helped , But as I grew I realised being overweight was distasteful , I ate an apple a day lost weight I was for ever in a battle of losing , gaining , in my second pregnancy I developed bulimia , this lasted for 4 years and another pregnancy where I went back to restrictive eating I was then diagnosed with anorexia ... I managed to control this , settled my self( or thought I did ) I was then pregnant again where I was full of panic and bulimia purging and laxatives snuck in, sadly I lost my baby at 20 weeks ( my own fault I feel) . So I am now currently stuck in a cycle of binge eating I tried cat therapy, cbt , hypnosis and now I am lost ..
x

Sorry everyone is struggling. It’s so hard. I think it’s harder now, almost 20 years later, having been through at least 1 full recovery cycle. I (and I suspect lots of us) know how to get better... I feel like (probably wrongly) the reality is that this way of living provides something, some sort of prop (likely control) and it’s therefore a genuinely hard choice to decide to give that up. Unlike, perhaps, our younger selves / younger sufferers who were very, very ill and the disorder became a huge negative thing that itself is uncontrolled, for me at least, this way of thinking is sort of woven into an otherwise successful life and therefore it’s harder than before to contemplate not thinking this way... this mini (I hope / don’t hope - that’s the problem, isn’t it!!) relapse has really made me think that treatment for older people is a much more complex thing!!

Personally, I feel like it’s totally self inflicted that I’ve relapsed because I was very slightly overweight, so not unreasonably dieted (I did Keto), but I really, really should have spotted that cutting out all carbs and dropping the amount of weight I have would be a trigger, let alone in the midst of all this crazy pandemic. I’m pretty cross with myself

I hope those getting treatment feel it’s the right treatment.

If you’ve had treatment before, have you found there’s a different approach now, as someone whose done it all before?

Take care everyone.

@Sodamncaughtinthemiddle Sorry to hear about the laxatives. I had a major lax addiction during the depths of my issues in my very early 20s and it really was hell. I’d be running to some toilet somewhere, literally pooing myself, in terrible pain, and think “this is what it is to be mad”. Do take care. I really know how horrible / addictive they are xxx

Also (sorry for rambling!!) does anyone else who has been unwell, then recovered (which for some might mean getting to a very normal size - it did for me, but obviously not for everyone given many terrible eating disorders can be without weight loss in the first place), then been unwell again as an older person (in 20s/30s/40s/whatever) find that this time round no one actually worries or notices or cares?!

I have found this.

I’m not back to my weight at my worst, but in the scheme of things, not far off (one whole bmi number (and a bit) above my worst, but that’s 7 bmi numbers down from where I was in December 2019). I think for adults, because eating disorders are less understood / not linked to “proper gown up living” and also because soo many women are always on diets etc, disordered eating is barely seen. That’s a very sad thing!

@paranoiamumma I missed your post - I was probably typing when you posted.

Sorry you feel lost. Xxx

Losing your baby was not your fault. Xxx

@legallyblonde thank you. Laxatives are just the worst. I've come down from 100 a day and now I'm hovering around the 60 mark. I hate myself for taking them but the fear If I dont is awful. And I suppose a little like an addict the feeling of calm and order I get from them is addictive. I do spend a lot of nights just hating myself as I spend a lot of time sleeping on the bathroom floor.

I find it quite therapeutic writing it all but dont want to be a trigger to anyone so if it's too much tell me as I dont want to upset anyone.

I think it's so very hard having an eating disorder being older. Its harder to access help and harder to be taken seriously I think
I am so very lucky with the help I'm getting

I just struggle with the battle of wanting to be well and wanting to be invisible and feeling small and safe which makes no sense at all

@legallyblond and @Sodamncaughtinthemiddle

Exactly. Being older and with complete full lives means no one notices. In my case no one ever noticed and even when things were really bad and it was very noticeable, no one seemed to think it was a problem. So no help.

I'm actually pissed off. All I see on media and NHS websites and Beat is: ask for help and you'll get xyz therapy etc etc.

Erm. No there is fuck all available. And what is available is designed for bloody children. They don't even have adult furniture (it matters when you're 5:10 with a dodgy hip) and their "self help" material is all about tiktok and Snapchat (what even is that?). And the lady who is supposed "foster engagement" so I'm happy to continue to be sick and fobbed off with waiting another 2 years, keeps talk about school. I'm fucking 47 not 17.

So bollocks to the beat web site and all their trite crap about asking for help. There isn't fucking any. Not any that the NHS I support with my tax money can be arsed to offer me.
I could continue to rant but what's the damn point.

My family all noticed, but then of course it is rude and usually unhelpful to comment negatively on someone's weight so not much is said about it. My mother complemented me and was promptly death stared by my sister. There have been worried looks, not much else. My family didn't get involved when I was a teen either though.

@legallyblond Yes, it's quite different for me to as an adult to when I was a teen. When I was a teen I thought about it constantly. Now it's just like a computer program running in the background, it just feels instinctual. I don't count calories. Not much of the ED questionnaire I was given a year ago really applied to me, though it resonated with my teenage self.

It is really just so sad that so many of us are going through this. It's like we are all locked in our own little worlds. I see many of us are mothers, professionals with the just get on with it attitudes whilst inside our bodies and minds are in turmoil.

I take laxatives too and am too embarrassed to tell anyone. I've tried to wean off them but the rebound instant weight gain is just too much to bear. I've cut down on what I am taking and whilst it's quite liberating not thinking I need be close to the toilet internally I'm thinking if I just upped it a little I'd feel so much better.

I'm not great at remembering names but my heart goes out to each and every one of you. It feels nice to have a safe place to rant, scream and shout with no recrimination just support so thank you all xx

Nobody really cared a when I was a teen, either, as I had EDNOS.

Now they just sigh and are annoyed when food goes missing... Also, I have learned not to talk about how gross I feel, as the response is another sigh. But I do feel greedy, out of control, awful and huge. Every day. I'm worried I will raid my son's Lindt advent calendars. I hope I can continue to resist (only had one).

Cross post with @Luckoftheirish

I take laxatives, as well.

Hope those who want help, can get it, although Covid will stall things a bit...

41 divorced two children

Diagnosed anorexia.

I look terrible. Just under 7 stone and I’m 5’7. I’m so gaunt. My arms and legs are like sticks but I often have a very bloated stomach.

Does anyone relate to the following:-

I actually eat a very high volume of food and i rarely feel hungry because I do eat. But what I’m eating is virtually fat free. So HUGE undressed salads (lettuce, onion, tomatoes, cucumber, sweet corn, red pepper) with grilled chicken and fat free cottage cheese or tuna steak for lunch. And then eye wateringly massive bowls of steamed veg (think entire crown of broccoli AND two dozen asparagus AND half a dozen large carrots AND two large courgettes And a big handful of sprouts AND a low fat vegetarian ready meal).
Plus loads of fruit (4 apples, 1 kiwi fruit, punnet of blueberries and 3 oranges every day)

(On the upside - my vowels work like a dream and my skin and hair stops me from looking like a corpse)

That’s every day.

So I don’t feel hungry. I do have energy. I love the food I eat. I enjoy it. But it doesn’t have the calorie composition for me to put on weight.

And here’s where it gets sinister.
The control aspect. I can’t deviate from the above. Every. Single. Day. I can mix up the veg. I can mix up the ready meal (but always low fat and low cal), I can mix up the variety of fruit. I can mix up whether chicken or tuna or prawns for lunch BUT other than that - no change.

So, in practise this means... I avoid eating out with friends at all cost. Ok during lockdown but pre lockdown I distanced myself from a wonderful group of girlfriends I had known for many years because all their socialising involved evening drinks (I don’t like to be out in the evening as I go to bed early and I don’t like feeling remotely hungover because it will spoil my morning run or Pilates. Another control thing) or dinner. If dinner was planned I would stress about it for days beforehand. I would promise myself I wouldn’t cancel but then I’d sabotage on the day. I’d have a huge bowl of muesli (I LOVE muesli and if I’m ever going to treat myself it’s this with almond milk), and then another, and then another. So then I’d Have to cancel because my day was buggered up).

Anyway my point is - is anyone else very very structured and controlled?. Not just with food but it stretches beyond to life. I plan plan plan plan. It’s not healthy.

Oh I had 12 weeks of NHs treatment at an eating disorder clinic

Yes I know I should eat avocado and more fat etc.
I know I shouldn’t run.

I’m not 12. I’m 41.
In many respects it was irrelevant to me BUT it did open my mind up to how serious this is. And I did make small changes eg I didn’t used to have a veg ready meal for dinner. It was just more steamed veg!, but now I have a ready meal every night. I made that commitment in treatment. So it was good in some respects

I'm 40 and can really relate to the eating huge volumes of chaff aspect. I do that when I'm in control. Huuuge salads. Like the size of a washing up bowl. However, my bowels aren't working due to my medication, so I have to take laxatives once a week. Sorry if TMI!

@legallyblond thank you , I guess it's something I will never really no the answer too,
What I find interesting and sad when I was diagnosed anorexic I was 30 they chucked support workers at me , therapy etc , I'm 41 now and have been diagnosed with a binge eating and disordered eating disorder , I get told to try to control what I eat ( I was 9st be fore I got ill and I am now 18 st ) that's my help nothing else .

I managed to wean my laxative abuse down, I don't do daily any more but I do still use when I am over whelmed .
My real issue at the moment is I don't eat all day for days then I consume huge amount of calories in matter of hours , if I manage to eat "normally" it's oranges with pepper , fat free yogurt , coffee coffee and more coffee .

I often think today , this is the right day to beat all this rubbish , but it seems it never is the right day .

Are eating disorders genetic do you think ?

@paranoiamumma

The propensity is in the genes, but environment also matters:

www.webmd.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/anorexia-nervosa/features/anorexia-bulimia-genetic-code