Advice on anorexia - any help/comments appreciated

[LudwigvanBeethoven]

Hi, I am new to Mumsnet and I'm only sorry I'm posting on this subject as my first posting.

I'll be as brief as poss - I'm in my mid 40s and have two daughters aged 6 and 3 - I was anorexic, not too badly so, in my early 20s but it has now returned. I am concerned at the distress it causes my husband, who is the light of my life, and my two beautiful girls - I fear that at some point soon they're going to pick up on it, but I really cannot force myself to do the evening meal thing any more - it is causing me so much distress and panic. In my view I am pretty overweight - all this BMI stuff is only a guideline, as is the weight to height ratio - I am 5ft 8ins and weigh two pounds under 8 stone in the morning and 8 stone 2 in the evening. Seriously, if you saw me you would say that I am not underweight and really I am overweight - I carry too much weight that really is not necessary.

Yet, my views on my weight are at odds with my family and it's this distress that concerns me. At the moment I feel that I am condemned to a life of being fat just so that I don't cause any problems. Needless to say this is doing my head in. I am booked to see a specialist counsellor next week but I have to say that my dealings with counselling in the past has not been great, so I have warned the counsellor I'm seeing of that.

It was the visit to my GP that gave me a bit of a shock. I went to him recently and said that another issue I had was related to the fact that I carried too much weight. now, a while back he had asked me if I had always "been that slight" and I had told him about the anorexia of 25 years ago. So, on this recent visit he got incredibly upset and said "what are we going to do? are we going back to the anorexia again?" I wasn't really able to give a coherent reply other than that it might help to get a psychiatric assesment rather than "prescribe something to lift you out of this" which is what he offered also.

I'm in a bit of quandery here - so any advice or comments would be so much appreciated. This is unbelievably selfish, but all I want to do is to be thin and all I can see is how fat and pathetic I am as person and frankly a really rubbish mother if being thin is more important than their well being.

'So, the task was to have breakfast and very small lunch in the last two weeks but I just have not been able to achieve this - the best I have managed to eat is the crusts from the children's toast in the morning and some fruit at lunch, with a big cup of coffee and water in between. It always seems easier to eat a bit of someone else's food rather than my own. She is not that happy about it but she says to keep trying. As you say, she can't eat it or prepare it for me, so it's up to me to do so and so far I have failed.'

With the greatest respect to your counsellor who clearly means very well, this ain't going to work anyway. You can't be expected to overcome something as overwhelming as your fear in this way. There's no reason for you to do it. It would only become worth doing for you once the fear of the alternative takes over in sheer scale.

For me the fear of dying was pretty hefty, dying from something crap that I had never wanted in the first place - but that wasn't my main motivation. Though it was powerful I suppose. I had to reach rock bottom, well for me that was when I got down to 6 stone (I am 5'7) and stopped weighing myself out of absolute terror...I was told by everyone that I was quite likely to die. The point was I couldn't stop losing weight. I was out of control.

I needed to find a way to reverse it before it was too late.
However scared I was to eat, it was worse to think of gradually dying and my body packing up entirely while I just floundered...I knew if I tried really, really hard I might be able to make myself eat just enough to stay alive and get a little bit better. I HAD to find a trick to do this. Several things worked in combination in the end, won't go into it all now as it's different to your pattern I think so prob won't be that relevant.

I think the motive was always to get everyone to leave me the feck alone. And once I got that thin, the doctors wouldn't do anything else, I asked to be a inpatient at the unit where I had had counselling, but they said no. (too full? Can't remember now) and even my mother was pissed off with me.

So it was only me left, and that was what I needed, just to be trusted to get on with it. No one flapping around me or saying manipulative things to frighten me. The whole thing was about becoming absent, paying them back, making them shut up. It sounds so callous but it was the only way I had of showing how much I hated them and how angry I was.

not sure if any of this helps but good luck with next session. I will think of you

My God, that is powerful stuff Gloria and to be honest, thank you for saying the counsellor's strategy probably isn't going to work on the eating thing. I really get what you mean about wanting to be left alone - I think there is only so much the counsellors can do in terms of talking things through and then it's going to be up to me. She's pretty clear about that, but maybe she's trying to accelerate things before they get too bad. I have indicated to her that I feel that I should get worse before I get better and she could be conscious of that.
I can't believe that you were refused at an inpatient unit - even if they were full that is really bad of them. Thank God you were a smart enough person to recover by your own efforts. I guess there must be some sense of achievement from that. Absolutely fair play to you.

Sorry if I'm way off here. I understand what has been said about alcoholics, drug addicts etc being able to go cold turkey and not have any of what they are addicted to, but anorexics being unable to do that with food. Is the nearest equivalent for an anorexic to stop weighing him/herself?

Thanks for the responses. I'm trying my hardest not to bargain with SiL because it doesn't sit right with me, but all I really want to do is say that she's loved and we want to see her well again. She keeps saying she needs help with planning meals but then she's so adamant about not eating certain things; it's like she's constantly switching between wanting help and needing to do it alone. Maybe she's worrying about trying to keep us involved, but at the same time the decision really needs to come from her, and we can't help. But the last thing I want is for her to feel abandoned.

[I also want to find the man who drugged her up and abused her for two years and beat the living daylights out of the fucker, but that's another story]

Well Ludwig you won't do it for them/her/anyone else. I consider in hindsight that it's similar to alcoholism in that way - the more friendsfamily/counsellors try and coax the person into stopping, the harder they refuse because it's like they put their anger on to that person instead...'You want me to stop? well stuff you, I'll try even harder to fail'.

The anger gets shifted, it's called transference I think and yes it is mostly about anger I think in most cases (alcohol or anorexia) but don't quote me on that

I certainly would never have got better for my mother or my counsellor or anyone else. The more they tried the more I got angry with them. Only when I was by myself could I stop turning the anger inwards.

does this make any sense or is it just waffle? hope it doesn't sound daft.

Also for me it was about being wanted enough, being loved enough (my mother didn't love me till I was at least 19, she told me, and even now it's hard to gauge anything much) and I had the sort of family where I just, for whatever reason, never ever felt wanted.

Each person had to try and prove to me I was wanted enough to stay alive. I never told them this but it was going on in my head. mum could never convince me she wanted me enough, dad was pretty quiet, my sister told me off as usual, the counsellor was nice but she obviously wasn't going to love me...I was just a patient.

No one DID love me enough. I realised that and then it was up to me, did I love my own self/life enough to cling to the side and not go under. Still not convinced I do tbh but I was a coward anyway

and the man I met pretended to love me at least...and I loved him enough to want to live...but that happened a while after I'd turned the corner. It was live or die, all my own choice in the end. Was it wise? I dunno...I dunno. Think so sometimes

hello, me again... just wanted to give my take on 'sobriety' in eating as a few people have asked.

IME the 'drug' of anorexia is the feeling of being in control of what I weigh/eat/look like. So sobriety in eating, is letting go of that control. Yeah, in the first instance that meant that I let my DH cook for both of us and food shop for us - but I had to be willing to eat it, no matter what, and not to direct him what was 'allowed'. If he cooked with oil, I ate it. If he cooked red meat, I ate it. If I didn't like it, I ate it. For a while anyway, about 18 months actually, until I was a healthy weight, and I'd done with counselling and I didn't have a compulsive need to control food anymore.

I didn't weigh myself, and I didn't lie about food to anyone. If I struggled to eat something I just had to tell the person I was with and accept that the fear wouldn't kill me as quick as the starving myself would. Like Gloria says... I had to love myself first, and quit waiting for everyone else to do the job for me.

After that first 18mo I was ready to start being much more responsible. I figured out ways that work for my family to be responsible for myself, like getting organic veg and meat boxes (no supermarkets or calorie labels), and planning a week at a time what I would make. I didn't go mad headlong back into places that made me stressed about food, like giant supermarkets or restaurants - I split the cooking about 50.50 with DH now. It's not realistic to say you'll never be a normal eater, and you'll always struggle on a daily basis. Actually if that were true I'd have given up years ago!! What actually happens is that once your body heals, you have the emotional energy to deal with your problems and move on. The food just isn't powerful anymore, because all the motivation to 'use' food/weight etc has gone.

4years on, I genuinely am not ill any more. I eat whatever I like, and I am a healthy normal weight, with a menstrual cycle etc. I don't need antidepressants or antianxiety meds to get through - I just deal with life, a day at a time. I'm not perfect, and I have better days sometimes than others. But I KNOW anorexia is not an answer, it's just white noise that blocks out the real problem I had to focus on and deal with. All it does is postpone the pain, it doesn't fix it. Ultimately, if you chose to postpone the pain for long enough, it catches up with you and you're just in pain all the time. The anorexia hurts too. In the end you have to choose life, walk through the dark place, and get back to where you belong. Or you die.

I hope you choose life. Keep talking because those of us who made it through to the other side again will hold your hand if you let us x

Hi Overcameana - thanks for this lovely message - sorry for late reply. Had a bad day couple of days - discovered I had put on some weight which had coincided with me making a promise to my husband to eat breakfast - Yes, I know, it should be because I want to, but I really did want to make an effort for him. Unfortunately I weighed myself this morning and to my horror discover I have gained almost a kilo. Sent me a little into panic but am feeling a bit better now. Jesus, it all sounds so pathetic when I write it donw....
It's really interesting to read how you figured out a way to take responsibility for yourself, I guess that's what it's all about as well as making those choices.

Gloria - really sorry you have had that issue with your mother - people say that anorexia is tied in with mother/daughter relationship in many cases. I do think you made the right choice - really brave. Brave anyone really, who has learned to deal with this illness.

I guess I'm wondering if it's different for everyone in that some consider themselves having got over it and some who find a way of living with it that doesn't harm them. I'm just a bit worried about always having to fight this for the rest of my life. Sometimes I think I might as well give in to it.

Anyway - I just wanted to say thank you again - really, everyone's thoughts and advice is so helpful. I'm rather dreading this next session on Friday....Im inclined to see how the counsellor starts the session, maybe leave the ball in her court to start with...

An update - today's session went much better than I expected. I guess I wasn't in a great state when I arrived and I spent much of it in tears but my counsellor was just great - I think she just reacts to what is put in front of her and let's the client do the leading. She said that I have done great work since I last saw her and that to feel the despair that I was trying to articulate through the blubbing was quite normal and part of the process. I have to say I felt a whole lot better afterwards. Most importantly of all for me was that she held my hand - that really profoundly affected me.
Without a doubt it would not have been as good a session if it had not been for all of you helping me along the way - thank you so, so much.
This is going to be such a hard process - I had no idea how hard - even having two children was easier....
I now have more thinking to do, particularly about uncovering the emotion of fear to see if there is any anger there. So, lots of work ahead. I guess this is all part and parcel of it?

Oh well done Ludwig. I'm sorry that today's session was hard, but it also sounds like a very positive session. I'm so glad that you felt more of a connection with your counsellor. Do you think you will carry on seeing her now?

The crying is great, it is actual progress. You can rationalise till the cows come home but unless you let some of the emotions out (which have been in there for years) then you won't get far.

So well done.
I'm just wondering, when your dad was behaving so porly toward you, where was your mother? Did she just forgive and forget and call him a silly old thing, or did she stick up for you? This could be relevant but please don't feel you have to share anything with me, or us, it's just something which might make sense to think about for yourself.

Btw about the counselling...it is long haul stuff. I had therapy (counselling but far more depth and less about fixing than untangling iyswim) for over two years altogether and during it, I actually got worse. But later I got better.

Stick with it as long as you can. It will be worth it and you will look back and be amazed at how far you have come without even noticing.

I also had nearly 2 years of counselling, in two separate blocks. It was the hardest, but most worthwhile thing I've ever done.

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement! I am so tired now but feel less choked up. I realise and accept now how hard this is going to be and like yourself Littlefish and Gloria, I suspect it will be a long haul too and I am really daunted by that but if I get a glimpse of some kind of pathway to follow that would be great. As you say, making the situation an academic exercise is all very well but it's only meaningful if you have some kind of emotional connection to the real self, no matter how painful and believe you me, it was painful..

Gloria - at the time of the incident with my father, my mother was not someone I could really talk to. she was suffering from clinical depression at the time and I found her not very approachable. there was also a bit of a jealousy issue going on and my parents didn't get on either, so I felt that any problems I had were adding to their own. I realise this compounded things rather, but I don't feel she was totally to blame, she was and still is very wrapped up in herself with all her various illnesses. Not her fault really.

p.s. Littlefish - yes I feel OK about seeing the counsellor again.

Well I think that says a lot, you basically had no one at all and that would make me really angry if it were me.

You were still a child, yes your adult self can rationalise it and say they are only human beings. That's a process we all go through when we stop blaming our folks for how fucked up we feel.

Trouble is though we need to have been angry already, to get there. You skipped past the whole uncomfortable (agonisingly painful) anger thing and went straight to forgiveness. That's not wholesome and it's not healthy, which is perhaps why you've ended up with nowhere to put the anger but throw it into your own body.

Very hard working out what to do with anger and also how to contain it. I contained mine and I still contain it but I have cried a lot of it out over the years and this is what you will have to do also. I cried enough to survive, I didn't cry enough to become fully well...I still am 'close' to my mother though I actually dislike her and find her infuriating and upsetting...I keep it in even now so as to still be able to need her.

It's still killing me very slowly in a controlled manner. I hate to say that. I would rather be totally away from her in every respect but Ik now it would hurt her and I'm scared I can't cope without her.

So I compromise and eat very badly.
It's not a good thing...perhaps it's as far as I will ever get. You will get as far as you can cope with. We all have our limits.

Thanks Gloria - yes - I did skip over the anger thing and it has not been good - lots of unresolved anger in our family. It sounds like you have had a really tough time with your own situation and I wish I could be as articulate as you in terms of giving advice and support. It's a tough one, the mother-daughter relationship, which is why I'm so conscious of it with my own daughters. Let it never be said that life is boring - and your right, we all have our limits - I just would like to feel less defeated. I'm not one to shy away from work, but I really am so scared of feeling like I have given in to my weakness of eating. I have just eaten two handfuls of sugar/gluten free muesli and feel guilty. Little steps, I guess...

You're obviously doing something right, you've a husband and children who love you.

Eating isn't generally considered a weakness

Take care of yourself poppet. I'm really glad if any of my rambling has helped a bit. No point getting through something as (ultimately) pointless as AN and not being able to do something with what you learned.

It does serve a purpose though, actually, which is displacement of the stuff you really, really can't deal with (or think you can't)

Good luck
much love

Ludwig - I am reading your brave posts where you laying bare your struggle and am glad you are getting help and I am a little nervous of posting something that might harm. I hope this isn't too clumsy as an explanation for the power our habits and minds have over us.

When I read your words that you are in need of losing weight yet already underweight and with no periods and that eating is a weakness, it is the very opposite of me due to events that shaped me (literally :-) ). As a child, I had a bowel obstruction at one point and could not eat, I was hospitalised, I was very ill and very underweight. For me, eating became related to strength, to health, and, whenever I can't eat, perhaps due to a tummy bug, it scares me, it takes me back to the fear of death that I and my family felt. BMI wise, I've most often been just into the overweight category as an adult, however as all bloods etc. show no problems and I have low blood pressure, no one is telling me seriously to lose weight. If HCPs ever do mention BMI, I have a problem with it because part of my brain is trained to think eating = living. My attitudes are compounded by family members who lived through starvation in the 2nd world war and always told us some extra pounds were a necessary thing to have to keep you going if food was to become scarce for a while (I have no idea if this theory actually holds water!).

Thus what I am trying to say I suppose is our body and brains set up strategies to get us through difficulties but what worked in one situation doesn't work anymore yet it is so hard to shift the pattern. If I see my upper ribs sticking through, as I did after a big weight loss after swine flu, I feel scared and disgusted by thin-ness, as you seem to feel when you look at any fat on your thighs and tummy.

As I age (am near to 50), more weight is staying put and at some point I am going to have to retrain my brain if I want a healthy fulfiling older age as I'm getting arthirtis and weight is clearly going to exacerbate that condition. So I will have to start to try to shift my ingrained beliefs that eating is always a good thing. I feel like you are on the other side of my coin, trying to shift the belief that not eating is always a good thing. I'd like to believe that we both have the power to "retrain" our brains.

My hope for you at the moment would be perhaps, every time you find yourself saying to yourself, I'm in need of losing weight, you could perhaps counter it with, no, I am not in need of that, I am in need of something and I'm on the way to finding out what that need is.

I am luckier because the link between my attitude to food and events in my life are clear. For you, there is this painful and long process to make the links. Am really admiring you for sticking with it.

now that is what I call an articulate and beautiful post.

Hear, hear - thank you Eurostar for this incredibly interesting and thought-provoking post. I had never thought of it in that way. It would seem that the brain is a very powerful thing and how wonderful to read about eating in such a positive way, that it basically equates with good health.

I wish I could believe that I am not fat, but at the moment I just can't. To me, it's not that I think/believe I am fat, I actually am fat - you really would not think I was thin if you saw me.

I shall re-read your post many times.

Gloria - you are not a bit rambling - far from it! Keep the faith - you are many, many steps ahead of me.

Thank you Ludwig and Gloria.

If I met you, and you are the weight and height that you posted earlier, I am certain I would not think you were fat. Of course, what I think matters not at all, it is what you think that matters. What you see won't change based on what I say.

Did you ever see a documentary on TV called "too ugly for love"? (It's on youtube) It's about BDD, not anorexia. It's about people who are convinced they are ugly or hideous when, watching them on TV, it is impossible to see what they see. I watched it and couldn't understand how the people filmed saw things so differently from how others see them but clearly we must accept that they do.

Brilliant post Eurostar - one which I identified with completely.

I have always used food (overeating) as a coping mechanism, and am now, following counselling, and a lot of work on myself, beginning to recognise when I use my food strategy, and what I could do instead. Thank you for articulating things so beautifully.

My motivation was wanting to be alive long enough to see my dd get married, and to be a wonderful granny to my dd's children. Dd is only 6, so it's a long way off. However, I knew that if I continued as I was, my life would be shortened and my dd would lose her mother prematurely, and therefore, her children's grandmother.

Hi Gloria and Overcameana
Just checking in to see how you are? It's been rather busy since the start of new school term and getting children settled.

Another session with counsellor coming up on Wednesday - hopefully it will be OK. I find that 12 days is about the longest I can go without seeing her at the moment. Does that stretch out a bit over time?
Anyway - hoping all posters are OK!