Sunday, June 16, 2013

Much Needed Help for ME!!!

I've signed up for a retreat weekend at an eating disorder center as I've been struggling with Anorexia Nervosa since I was 19. I've been hospitalized countless times but just to get my weight back up to a healthy weight. I never had to deal with the emotional baggage that came with it. People think that eating disorders are all in our heads but that are only people who don't understand them. People with eating disorders use it as a way to cope.

"Anorexia is not about weight or food

Believe it or not, anorexia isn't really about food and weight—at least not at its core. Eating disorders are much more complicated than that. The food and weight-related issues are symptoms of something deeper: things like depression, loneliness, insecurity, pressure to be perfect, or feeling out of control. Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure.
©Helpguide.org. All rights reserved. This site is for information only and NOT a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment."
I first developed Anorexia when I moved away from home to go to college. I would walk the bus route first but after i got to know the city better I found shorter routes to school but I carried my most heaviest books so that I had more weight in my backpack and was sweating by the time I got back to my apartment as I knew that would help me lose weight. Then I cut back on my food intake and exercised more then I joined a hip hop dance class. During one class,after I had lost about 35 pounds, I fainted. This was some where near the beginning of November. I woke up in the hospital with an I.V tube connected to me 2 days later. There was a doctor there to explain to me what had happened and a dietitian to go over meal plans while I was in the hospital. It took me 6 weeks to get back up to a healthy weight. I was 125 pounds when I started losing weight. I had to be 110 pounds before they would let me leave the hospital. I got weighed every Tuesday and Thursday back on from the scale which is called a BLIND WEIGHT.
Signs of Anorexia
  • Dramatic weight loss – Rapid, drastic weight loss with no medical cause.
  • Feeling fat, despite being underweight – You may feel overweight in general or just “too fat” in certain places such as the stomach, hips, or thighs.
  • Fixation on body image – Obsessed with weight, body shape, or clothing size. Frequent weigh-ins and concern over tiny fluctuations in weight.
  • Harshly critical of appearance – Spending a lot of time in front of the mirror checking for flaws. There’s always something to criticize. You’re never thin enough.
  • Denial that you’re too thin – You may deny that your low body weight is a problem, while trying to conceal it (drinking a lot of water before being weighed, wearing baggy or oversized clothes).
©Helpguide.org. All rights reserved. This site is for information only and NOT a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.
I've been struggling with it again recently. I have been seeing a Psychiatric Nurse for almost a year now and I've been seeing a dietitian for over a year. I have had a Psychiatrist since I moved to Saskatchewan with my son when I was 26 and he was 3. Wow, how time flies! He's so almost grown now! I don't think teenagers these days realize how serious eating disorders are but I'm speaking from experience. I've been fighting with mine for over a decade and I don't want my son to end up with one so I'm going for help to break the cycle. I'm going for help before he develops one. This is NOT something to mess with, this is LIFE AND DEATH and I'M CHOOSING LIFE!
I hope whoever decides to read this gets the message that eating disorders kill. I'm just getting out before mine kills me. Life is worth living and I want to be there to see my son graduate from High School. I want to see him get married and I want to be able to hold my grandkids and watch them grow. SO I'm CHOOSING TO LIVE AND THAT MEANS I HAVE TO CHANGE MY EATING HABITS AND MY THINKING. It all starts in 4 weeks.