OK. Talk to me about possible eating disorder

[BrahmsThirdRacket]

I've posted on here before about weight etc (have namechanged since then), about my low BMI and whether it was 'normal' etc. I was very resentful of people talking about eating disorders, but am starting to try and look at that possibility more realistically now. Also, was on a thread last night that made me think.

My BMI is 17.6, making me about half a stone underweight. I'm 5 ft 4. My DP was the first to point it out, but more people are saying the same thing now. I went to the GP after I was advised to on here. He said I was about half a stone underweight, but he wasn't really worried about my health - my periods are fine and I have no health issues or anything weird going on with my body.

Sometimes I think I am just a slim person, and it's normal etc. I know I'm underweight, and have a strong desire to remain looking like this which shouldn't be right. But I don't go to crazy lengths to stay this way - I don't make myself puke, I don't starve myself, live on coffee etc. I will eat something if I really want it, even if it is the most calorific thing in the world. But I realise now that I have lost perspective on what a reasonable weight/amount of food to eat is. When I'm thinking about what to eat it panics me a bit, because I don't want to eat too much. I'm constantly working out what I've eaten that day and whether I can 'afford' to eat more.

Before Christmas I decided the best way to deal with it would be to do more exercise, to stimulate my appetite, and eat more. But what's actually happened is I'm not eating that much more, and am burning calories I probably can't afford. I don't think I have lost anymore weight though.

I was watching some diet programme on the telly and there was a girl on there who I thought was about my weight. But she was actually 2 st heavier. And she was the same height as me. This makes me think that I'm really not seeing what other people are seeing, which is a bit scary.

Basically, I know I'm not really going to damage myself. I can't imagine I will ever be one of those poor women who have heart failure or whatever. I do eat quite a lot really, frequently will eat sweets, some chocolate etc. So it can't really be a problems can it, if I do that? If you think I'm just overreacting, please say, it will make me feel better!

I just think he would think it was a bit heavy, and might make him feel like he's got to keep an eye on what I eat/don't eat, and worry about it. It's not very sexy. I am one of those uptight women who never fart in front of their DPs, always have smooth legs/underarms, pretend they don't poo etc. More ishoos, perhaps.

brahms - not read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been mentioned but you could contact the Eating Disorders Association - they have a website and offer phone support, self-help stuff and online help - may be a good starting point (I think it's free).

Good luck - I think your threads are an indication that you do think there's something amiss, it's just the next step that's difficult

Well, if your own mother can't give you the total, unquestioning love and affection you deserve, you're not going to find it easy to believe you'll ever find it in anyone unrelated to you.

It's always been a colossal source of comfort to me to know that I am loved unconditionally by my parents, despite their knowledge of all my deepest flaws. It was a desire to recreate that sense of security in someone else that drove me to want children, and to believe that I would one day find someone who would love me unconditionally enough to want to have children with me and put up with my faults and insecurities. Until I found that person, I had a few people interested in me who, I felt, put me rather too much on a pedestal, which made it very difficult for me to show them what I was really like, for fear of the look of disappointment in their eyes... This also made me feel for a while a little bit like a Snow Queen who always held her emotions in check, and doubtful as to whether I would ever be able to thaw! Not a good recipe for a healthy relationship, and when I met the right person, I realised it was because the others were actually wrong for me, not because I was incapable of letting myself fall in love with anyone, that I had felt that way (although even the right person wasn't the right person until we'd been friends for several years!!! He never gave up on me, though...). Are you afraid your DP is putting you on a pedestal, or treating you too much like a slightly dippy girl, rather than an emotionally insecure adult? And is that fair on him? From what you say, he sounds quite supportive.

Oh Brahms the way you describe yourself is so hard to live up to. Don't you get exhausted maintaining perfection?

I missed it the first time around, but I'm beginning to think that the biggest problem here is that you only really believe there might be a problem because your DP says he prefers you a little bit bigger

Brahms, your homework is to fart in front of your DP some time over the next few days. Not being facetious here. Just do it.

Ew, math, no way! I wouldn't be hugely pleased if he guffed in front of me (only heard him do it once in two years, but he was asleep, bless).

lou - I'm not really perfect! There's loads of things I don't bother with trying to be good at, e.g. cooking (natch). But I am very good at noticing my own flaws - my whole career is based on it (intellectual flaws, not physical). I don't see the point in ignoring the fact that life is competitive.

rabbit - I don't believe in unconditional love! (bet you're not surprised). My parents' 'love' for me is pretty damn conditional. I just don't know how it works.

No really, Brahms, do it.

I don't think I physically can

I mean, I can fart obviously - just not in front of him. Sometimes we have sex when I'm on my period, does that count?

Is that something you feel comfortable with, Brahms, or do you feel that you should always be available?

It's not really about being available - I want to have sex with him as much as he wants to with me, I think. But it does inhibit things which is annoying.

God, how did we get here?

I think we're trying to figure out how much at home you are in your own life, how comfortable you are in your own skin.

Against my better judgement, I am back too, OP.

I don't think that many of the other posters here remember or followed your other thread about your relationship.

What that said, was that you had been offered a new job, you were going to take it, and it would mean that you and your DP ( who is a dr?) would split.

You accepted that this was the likely scenario as neither of you regarded this relationship as permanent- and he was adising you to take the job.

There is nothing "wrong" in any of that- BUT I wonder if you have consciously or sub consciously allowed yourself to get into a ( nother) relationship, which gives you control, and allows you to move on to perhaps avoid being the one to be hurt?

Another example of you having to be in control?

They say that all relationships fall into 3 types-
parent/child
sister/brother
child/child.

Nothing wrong with any of them, but as part of the bigger picture in your life, perhaps chossing a father figure, who doesn't want any more children, is allowing you to maintain your inner child- which was not allowed to develop when you were younger? This inner child is desperately seeking control, and at the same time, frightened to leave behind the child's world and grow- up; ie accepting her womanly body as another load of emotions will then have to be learned.

I urge you to seek therapy as you do seem to be "stuck" emotionally. Without wanting to be unkind, although you are very bright, it does seem that you are also quite naiive in your views of therapy. How on earth can anyone brain wash you? Therapy is about asking questions and you finding the answers- the therapist does not give opinions, or try to change you in any way.

I know that £40 a week is a lot of money- and forgive me if this is not so- but if your OP is a DR you cannot be short of money as a couple. Is your mental and physical health not worth say, the cost of a holiday?
And as for not wanting to tell him- that seens to say volumes about the state of your relationship- if you cannot confide in him and be open, what does that tell you?

You're a fairly standard example of a perfectionist, self-critical, middle-class, intellectually high achieving female. Hard enough to live with (for yourself and others...) at the best of times, and downright dysfunctional given the wrong parenting. You're just like me, except for the parenting. Sometimes you can intellectualise things too much. You have very poor ways of coping with stress and need help to get your head out of your own arse... or you can choose to lead a less than ideal life and end up lonely.

Why not take advantage of your intellectual abilities and properly research what options there are available to you in terms of seeking help to change the way you think? At the very least you could read a book on cognitive behavioural therapy (eg "Mind Over Mood").

I'm back too! . I have continued to follow the thread, hoping you (Brahms) would start to see that you can ask for help, and become happy. I am so pleased that you seem to be starting to think about things a little more deeply - parenting, your inner happiness, relationship etc.

A therapist can guide you through it all gently, that's what I am doing atm, and it's ok. It's a journey. And I am looking forward to being on the "other side", you know go from being unhappy and stressed and ed, to being sunny and accepting of myself and happy. I can't wait!

Just a thought - if you think £40 a week is too much to pay, I bet you would pay £40 a week on something else, eg petrol, a wedding present, save for a holiday...whatever it is. But by far the most important thing to spend money on is YOU. Perhaps you could think of it as an investment, and penny pinch somewhere else? I thought it was a lot of money when I thought about therapy, but each week I write the cheque and think, I am doing this for me, I'm worth it!

Honestly you really can afford therapy if you're working and not earning minimum wage.

Actually look at it another way - can you afford not to go? This is an investment in you - what could possibly be more important?

Maybe it's a question of thinking you don't deserve to spend forty quid or so on yourself, Brahms?

purplepeony, your analysis of the relationship is probably pretty close. At the moment, re the job we aren't saying that we are going to split up, but the unspoken reality is there's a pretty high chance we will. We're going to see what happens. I can imagine the pattern repeating in future relationships, except hopefully not to the same extent.

Re the £40 a week, DP could easily afford it but we don't share finances at all. I cover all my own personal costs. If we do go on holiday somewhere expensive, it's always his choice so he does pay for that. But I could never ask him to pay that much every week for something that, if I have it, I should be able to pay for myself. On top of which, I don't want him to know about it. I don't spend a regular £40 a week on any one thing except rent (which is obv more than that). I am on a low-level academic salary and don't own my own place or anything. I don't think I can justify it. I'm thinking about it though, and looking at other options.

"You're a fairly standard example of a perfectionist, self-critical, middle-class, intellectually high achieving female. Hard enough to live with (for yourself and others...) at the best of times, and downright dysfunctional given the wrong parenting."

True, except I'm actually quite easy to live with. I don't hold other people to anywhere near the same standards as myself, and I don't much rely on or expect anything from them. So I am quite low-maintenance for others (possibly as a result of childhood etc). I don't want to stop being perfectionist or self-critical but I want to have them in a 'healthy' way. I need those personality traits to some extent for my job. But I do annoy myself in that I can only enjoy an achievement for about a day before I start nitpicking. E.g. when I got into Oxford for my masters, I was elated for about a day, until I started thinking 'Well, they don't have a limit on numbers for masters so it's not a proper competition. Now if I had got an AHRC scholarship, that would have been a real achievement.' [head-desk emoticon]

Brahms, you seem so completely detached from your relationship. You may well break up, then again maybe you won't; there's no passion, no committment, you're friends with benefits, you both have biological needs.

Your vision of future relationships is similarly unengaged and lacking in any warmth or any expectations. You are low maintenance because you are afraid of being rejected if you express your needs. You are very blase about relationships in general because you don't see how you could possibly get anything out of one except perhaps hurt, which you guard yourself fiercely against.

I agree with MA.

I don't really understand how you can live with him (I am assuming you do) and not share finances or at least some finances. Maybe I have misunderstood and you live on your own.

I know that £40 is a lot, but many counsellors offer a sliding scale, and TBH if you want for 12 weeks which equals jus under £500, would that not help you more than a holiday, car, clothes? Sometimes i think people get their priorities mixed up when it comes to emotional health.

Please, for goodness' sake- get some professional help.

Being low maintenance doesn't necessarily make you easy to live with, but it does make you easy to live without. If you don't look for commitment in anyone, you don't get any commitment.

You won't lose your personality traits by seeking professional help - you're stuck with them. At the moment, though, you're wasting your energy on trivia and failing utterly to focus on what is important. It will damage your academic career in the long run just as much as your personal life.

Sorry... I really do think you need someone to talk your issues through with, though, or a clearly attractive, intelligent person will sell herself short. There are too many people like you out there who don't seem to understand their real worth or how to use it to create a happy life for themselves.

Really, Brahms, I'm taking this quite personally, because you sound a lot like me, except that when my self-critical thoughts get too much for me, or I feel excessively stressed, I have husband,friends and family to turn to to let them out on and be told how wonderful and worthwhile I am, really, and to stop worrying. It always gets me back on an even keel and able to think in a more healthy way about my life and issues. You really, really do need to learn to trust in someone's love in you enough to know that you can do that from time to time, rather than trying to show how independent and un-needy you are all the time. Talking on a forum like this to strangers is not enough - you need to talk to a very close friend at the least, or get help from some form of reputable counsellor/therapist to enable you to do that and to enable you to be a bit more kind to yourself.

I think, Brahms, that people are beginning to get annoyed wtih your dismissal of yourself. It is that time when you need to take yourself seriously and seek professional help. If you keep on ignoring what people are saying, they will start ignoring you. You are cutting yourself away. Rabbitstew is right about being easy to live with.

I guess you could decide whether your intellect is enough, and just forget about having a personal life. Nobody has everything right.

Being low maintenance may well be your comfort zone, Brahms, but there are men out there who would love to fulfill the needs of a nice woman and feel needed themselves too in so doing. Your DP might love to feel reciprocated passion, potential partners might love the prospect of knowing someone was willing to embark on a relationship that involved open farting () and real, deep emotional involvement among other things. When you're living with someone who doesn't seem to have any needs, you don't actually feel very needed.