to throw up after dinner to save on calories?

[wildswans]

I am not bulimic, I weigh around 10 stone which for my height of 5' 2" is slightly tubby, but i am ok with that. However, I quite often deliberately make myself sick after a rich meal just to get rid of the calories. I consider it a 'win, win' situation - I have a lovely meal but don't need to worry about the effects on the waist line. I have just been out to a lovely Thai meal with my DH and DC and the contents have been flushed away!

AIBU or do lots of you actually do the same?

wildswans - the very fact this thread is being moved should be a clue to the fact that what you are doing, and seeing as "normal" behaviour that hoards of women do but just dont admit to should be a wake up call - because it isnt, and it is a mental health issue - even if you cant see it yet.

you have very distorted thinking around this issue if you think what you are doing is harmless and normal.

i think MH is the exact right place for it. You are in denial.

Yes indeed. Some people are trying very hard to remove the stigma around MH issues. I do my own bit by talking openly about my MH issues, here and in RL. The more of us who do so, the more 'normal' it all is. OP, please see how many people here have talked about their own struggles. MH issues are illnesses, just like any other illnesses. They are nothing to be ashamed of and no reflection on you as a person. I hope you do come back.

Other than suggesting wildswans see her Doctor I don't see why people think it is ok to diagnose mental health issues on the internet . Even offering advice, other than the most general suggestions, is dubious.

I have said this on other threads but it takes five years at medical school, two years Foundation and a further 6 years specialist training_ before you can call yourself a PSYCHIATRIST and even then you wouldn't be capable of diagnosing an eating disorder on the Internet. It's ridiculous and very wrong that people think its an ok thing to do.

theres no need to underline everything. We can all read and understand intonation in text you know

Glad you read it . I hope everyone does.

I didn't attempt to diagnose I don't think. I said she has disordered eating - which she clearly does. But anyway it's immaterial what it is called.

Hope wildswans does come back

Probably not. i do not consider that it was wise of me to reveal highly personal information on a public forum. Please see my post in AIBU.

However, I do appreciate the warmth and support of a lot of posters here.

Inky, I don't think I attempted to diagnose (although I was unhelpful, apparently). But even suggesting a poster go and see their doctor does require some justification of why you think that, even if it is just saying: this is an abnormal relationship with food, you need to go and see your doctor. I think people do need a really good reason to motivate them to make that huge step to going to their (often quite callous) GP ie. perhaps there is a lot more to this than I think.

Reading this thread has made me realise something. I thought I had been lucky, as my teeth are great - no decay or anything. However, I have extreme sensitivity at the back of my mouth when I eat something cold. I asked the dentist and he couldn't see anything wrong.

I am now wondering if I have lost some of the enamel on that tooth and if I need to tell my dentist about my past. I don't think I could. I am too ashamed.

Never be ashamed. it's what you do with your future that counts, mistakes are what we learn from.

I read it inkybinky, and I disagree with your point about eating disorders. I think others who have gone through it themselves are often well placed to see it in others

noqontrol. I completely understand that people who have had eating disorders can recognise similar traits in others, I just think they shouldn't be actually diagnosing it and giving specific advise based on a couple of paragraphs written by the OP. I think it could be damaging and wrong.
The OP wrote what she thought was a fairly innocuous thread and has now been told that she definitly has bulimia. That is something that can not and should not be done on the Internet.

I am glad wildswans appreciates everyone's concerns and I hope she has got some useful info from this thread.

(...oh better underline something before I go)

The only advice wildswans has been given is to go to her GP. I can't imagine a situation where that would be dangerous advice.

Being advised to go and see your GP if you are are concerned about something is excellent advice, which is why many of the helpful posters on this thread (including myself ) gave it.

stick around wildswans - we all admit things on here that we wouldnt in RL.....( at least i have but i name change now!)

its ok. i hope you get something from the replies on this thread. people are just worried about you.

I know how you feel, it is awful to find yourself exposed in this way when you did not realise how strongly your thread would be taken on here.

I've had the same thing happen, probably more than once and I am very circumspect now about what I reveal. You learn to kind of judge what response you might get and if you know it's likely to be unfavourable, you have to just not post it as it can make you feel worse than you did already.

Sadly I only know this from bitter experience. I really feel for you - but please try to keep in mind that you have nothing to be ashamed of, and that nearly everyone on this thread really cares about you and what is happening to you.

We only post because we want you to be OK, and many of us are not OK either, we've all got things going on that we are not brave enough to admit to.

Sorry you feel so bad xx

It is also worth saying, however, that the kind of response you got here was not unkind - people are worried about you - and hopefully should give you a different and, dare I say it, more 'normal' perspective on the question that you asked.

Please don't leave. MN is an incredibly supportive and knowledgeable place, and lots of other MNetters evidently have similar experiences which means that they can offer you help and advice if you want/need it.

Yes - I didn't mean people meant to be unkind. Just that a sudden realisation of the way others might perceive your behaviour can be really upsetting.

I don't think anyone had anything other than good intentions.

I think some of the responses are unhelpful, actually.

There's a lot of chastising taking place, and using scare tactics. I don't know about other people and their ED, but being told off or called stupid certainly wouldn't have helped me.

It is a mental health issue, and people can't just snap out of it. A few 'home truths' won't make a difference, in my own experience.

what is most helpful, juniper? Genuine qu. . I want to be helpful!

Well when I was in the grip of mine, I do remember that the more someone looked concerned, or said I ought to eat, or be fatter, the more I clamped down on my eating. Not to spite them but because it genuinely hurt to have someone try and wrestle with my inner demons on my behalf.

I could not allow it. If someone else said anything that I perceived as trying to take control - or make me do something - especially the manipulative stuff - it only served to make me feel I had to up the ante and take back that control however much it cost me. I didn't want not to eat at all but when people went on about it, that was the only thing I felt I could do - so their mentioning it made me very upset and thus angry with them for wrecking the progress I might have been making myself.

iyswim

Not sure if this is relevant or helps anyone btw

I mean it was like if someone said, here. how about one of these biscuits I have made - they are very nice. I would think 'No! stop it. I need to decide EVERY thing I put in my mouth, for myself. If you try and encourage me or sidestep this process, or trick me into eating without my having thought through every angle first, I will have lost control, and I can't do that, I'm too scared.'
So I would not eat it, and furthermore I would probably not eat for several hours after that incident as my senses of control and fear would have been threatened and I needed to process all the feelings around that as well, before I could trust myself to eat anything without it being influenced by my emotions.

Everything had to be very logical, (though in hindsight it was far from it) or I would just panic.

So I think if people come onto a thread like this and say anything designed to make the person stop their behaviour, it will probably not have the desired effect. And basically that means that there's nothing any of us can do or say.

Thanks Ed. That is helpful.

I was similar to Ed. I had a big thing about controlling what I ate and hated other people making references to my food. I hated eating if other people weren't as I'd feel they were watching what I was doing.

If people told me I was stupid, I'd either get very defensive and angry (part of being in denial) or I'd feel self pitying, therefore ashamed of myself, and would starve/ purge to punish myself.

To be honest, I'm not sure there is much anyone can do to help until the person is ready for it. Obviously, if someone is on death's doorstep, then people need to step in, but I think there are so many people with 'undiagnosed' ED who function, and recover in their own time and at their own speed.

I have had some level of ED since I was 10 or 11. It took me until I was 22 to even acknowledge there was a problem, and many many years until I was ready to tell anyone.