Anxiety and trauma are bringing back disordered eating, need support

[OceanCoffeeLover]

I feel like I need some support & it’s a week until I’ll be seeing my therapist again. Sorry this is long.

I am 35 years old & mum of 3. Overall from the outside my life is happy & I have no real ‘problems’ to speak of apart from the usual financial pressure, parenting stress, young kids , marriage strain and so on. I started seeing a therapist a few weeks ago as I was struggling to communicate with my partner and we were arguing a lot and I was starting to feel anxious and panicky. I have some trauma from an assault when I was 21 and I find when things get hard it pops back up and I start having night terrors about it.

Anyway when I first met my partner 10 years ago we didn’t get off to a great start and at the time I was a bit of a mess , trying (& failing) to recover from the assault without professional support. I was drinking a lot, smoking weed and when we moved in together we had a volatile relationship where we would have huge fights and I was not coping in general. I lost a lot of weight and loved how everyone around me was telling me how ‘great I looked’ . I’d always felt I was too chubby so ‘inspired ‘ by this I started to make myself sick after eating. This continued for about a year on and off before my partner caught me and made me promise to stop. I never considered it as an eating disorder but I did get to a low weight (for me) but not dangerous.

Over the next few years he and I both made huge changes to our lives and cleaned up our acts . Things have been genuinely good and we’ve both had success in our careers and have 3 beautiful DC. We don’t have big fights any more and both worked hard on our emotional regulation and developed healthy communication strategies.

However, lately my anxiety is up and the nightmares are back. I feel awful all the time and we are snapping at each other and not communicating well. I am tired and strung out by parenting . I am not happy in my current role at work. Cost of living is making money tight and on top of all this I’ve not lost approximately 1.5 stone since I had my last baby who is almost 3 and I feel shit about myself. In every photo all I see is that I look big. I’ve been doing well, dieting and fasting and cutting out the crap for a few days at a time and seeing results and then I binge on crap. Yesterday I did so well all I ate apart from a coffee was a banana and a bit of toast and marmite until 4pm and then I binged half a pack of breadsticks and hummus , so so quickly. I just felt like a pig and suddenly the urge to make myself sick was so strong I’m ashamed to say I did it with my two pre schoolers watching tv in the next room. I feel ashamed of myself and I cried straight after. I don’t want to go down this road again.

Does anyone have any advice? Or just kind words of encouragement.

I should add I’m seeing a therapist and have had 4 sessions for anxiety and trauma so far. This disordered eating hasn’t even come up yet. I feel like a failure.

You are not a failure. Your mind is trying to cope, not only with the trauma from the assault but with all the current pressures in your life; and food is the one thing in your life which brings comfort and doesn't let you down. Please don't be embarrassed to tell your therapist, it's all part of the picture so without that key information it make's it harder for them to help you.

Agree you should mention this right at the top of your next therapy session. And if you’re like me the eating restriction starts when feeling out of control
in life. So keep going with the therapy to work on the root cause as once you feel calmer and more accepting of life rather than wanting to control it you should find it much easier to eat more
instinctively.

This is going to sound odd but I had a lot of success using ChatGPT to talk through strategies to improve my eating.

The main one, and the one I can see very much in your post, is that you shouldn’t restrict so much in the day as it just sets you up for a binge.

So I used ChatGPT to help me plan 3 small healthy meals with healthy snacks every day and I haven’t binged or made myself sick for months and months.

Thank you. That’s very kind. I’m not embarrassed exactly I just have so many many issues to discuss I haven’t even mentioned this particular part yet. But I certainly will now after this latest episode. The urge to do it was so strong I feel really anxious now.

I will try that thank you. I find it’s just the same old story with me, I try my best but I’m so tired and pushed for time and resources to cook proper meals (3 kids and working full time) I just fall back to back habits. The habits are either heavily restricting or binging. And now it seems to be the making myself sick has made a come back.

It sounds like everything has built up, and it's understandable that old coping habits have resurfaced.
Please tell your therapist about the bingeing and making yourself sick at your next session, or sooner if you can. Try not to be too hard on yourself either, eating very little all day can make a binge much more likely. You're already taking the right step by getting support.

You can't stop bingeing unless you feel satiated by your meals. Starving yourself on nothing but 200 calories all day will lead to a binge.

Try and eat small, protein and veg rich meals several times a day. That should kerb the desperate hunger that can lead to binges. And don't rule out any foods, just everything in moderation.

Find out how many calories you need to lose around a pound a week. If you actually do need to lose weight. Don't rush it or try and starve or you will get too strong a craving.

I hope things improve for you x

Part of my meal plan is making it really boring and easy so I’ve got no excuses!! ‘We’ agreed one breakfast, one lunch, 3 types of snacks and then family dinner. It’s all focussed on nourishing my body.

Takes all the ‘food noise’ away really as I just follow the plan as if I have no say in the matter.

Its been so helpful.

Ive also focussed on my daughter - she’s 11 and just entering puberty etc so is prime age for starting to be aware of food / dieting / body image. I want more than anything for her to grow up free of this. So Im enthusiastically enjoying food around her and seeing the extra few pounds as setting a good role model that women can take up space and an imperfect, wobbly body is still worth loving and being proud of. I’m also strength training so am
genuinely proud of what my body is doing even if I’m way bigger than when I was in the depths of disordered eating.

I also realised that being sick is very very extreme behaviour and is the thing that needs to stop at all
costs. You can very easily become very unwell if your electrolytes are out of balance even if you’re not underweight it puts a huge strain on your body.

Plus it’s horrendously secretive and you end up very selfish and resentful of your family if they get in the way of the narrow window when you ‘need’ to be sick.

If I don’t binge I don’t make myself sick.

If I eat a structured plan in the day, I don’t binge.

Therefore the plan wins!