I have been dealing with eating disorders since I was 10 years old and i'm now 27, so 17 years of pure hell....i have been the anorexic, the obsessive exerciser, the laxative abuser and now with all that (somewhat)behind me the biggest problem is binge eating, i did this with laxative abuse but now that im 10 months free of laxative abuse this binge eating is my last habit i have been wanting help with. I havent binged in a week which is huge for me! But whenever i do its so outta control and the second im done i feel abslotuley horrible....i eat to the point where im in unbearable pain so much as i cant even move off the couch the stomach pain is just that bad, its just a vicious cycle is anyone dealing with this right now and working to get better? I seen a therpist today for the first time in my 17 year eating disorder battle so im hoping this will be the recovery i need, i already plan to spend months maybe even years in therpay but it'd be nice to have some support and advice from and to others battling this.......thanks to you all out there...if u need to chat about anything i'm here......and i've pretty much done everything in the book of eating disorders so neve feel bad about opening up to me, good luck to you all out there.
j..welcome to the support site, and congratulations on reaching out for help with the eating disorder. It truly is a vicious cycle, and it requires the help of professionals to beat it, but you CAN!!
This is a very supportive site, and totally pro-recovery!
I hope you will continue to share and reach out here. wishing you well with recovery! Jan ♥
Thanks for your support! After 17 years i’ve finally begun to over up about this, i jsut got married in May too and my husband has been my biggest supporter, but he is in the military and deployed now and I feel like I’m barely hanging on without him, but im taking it day by day…I just want to have a healthier life with him and theres no way I’d have kids without getting better, the pregnancy would be a disaster and I’d never want to pass on my poor body image to my kids.
Welcome to support groups, J.
With your bingeing, are you finding yourself restricting sduring the day and bingeing at night? Or is it more emotionaly driven?
Its def emotionally triggered…its if im sad, happy, stressed, bored, just about anything…i can be so good and so happy for a week or two and then i just shut down and close out everyone in my life, put on pjs and just eat and stay in the house and hope that tomorrows a better day and if its now and i binge again i pretty much set myself up for disater for days then once im sick of it i go back to majorly healthy eating till it strike again…im a decent weight though but no one would know that i can eat so much…so much that i lay down in pain after it and still eat in pain, i just dont get it, something as simple as food can take control of ur life and control you
welcome to support groups!
it seems as you have all the EDs ( as i also had) the thing is you need to know WHY this is happeneing and what is fueling these feelings inside of you...
you need to get help, a therapist, someone...
love
maureen
Thanks for your comment…yea its so weird how one eating disorder can turn to another i went from being scared to even lick a stamp or chew a piece of gum because i thought it had to many calories to just eating non stop for hours…i have been pretty silent about this for 17 years though so i hope the therapy helps…its prolly the biggest step i’ve ever taken and i plan to be working onit for years to come, but i’m trying to stay postive…its not only the binges now though, its the body image issues…the endless thoughts about food and the fact that i have to know every nutrition label on a piece of food, can i just not read every label in the grocery store for once! I’ve been binge free for exactly a week and with my next therapist appt next week thats kinda giving me accountablity…i dont want to go there and admit i binged ya know…
There's not much I can offer because I'm currently struggling too but I can tell you one thing. EDs suck! They rob you of your life and lead you to believe you're in control when you're really not.
I really want to just say KUDOS to you for seeking therapy and looking for support here!
dfj
Thanks and i hope find some help and peace with your ED…they def suck and have already robbed me of a lotta life…it may sounds weird but i only had my first therapy session and something struck with me…my therapist asked me why i started bingeing in the first place and i was anorexic and was told by everyone to eat and eat and thats when it started and they asked so do u still eat to please people and i said absoultly not, and then they asked then why do u? I didnt have an answer, this is no reason for me to keep binging and i havent had a binge in about 8 days…today i sat down for every meal, i chew everything slowly and savored every bite, and u know what? I felt full and i put my fork down with food still on my plate! So its day by day and i just keep telling myself that a doctor pretty much told me and gave me that reassurance that im no longer binging to please people and that is a small step but it made a world of difference, are u also seeking therpay for help or still debating it?
I started out with Ana and branched off to bulimia, exercise bulimia also, so I took like Maureen have all the ed's mixed together (party mix anyone? lol) sorry, bad joke! It def sounds like your bingeing is triggered by more emotional aspects as you said, have you spoke to a therapist about what triggers you and how to deal with it without bingeing?
Well i only had my first session so i look forward to the outcome of all this but i basically started with my entire background and i sat there and yes i downpoured tears because i have hid this for a long, long time…my family thinks the problem is no longer an issue and everyone close to me doesnt know just exactly how extreme i am with bingeing so sitting there and telling a stranger all my deepest darkest secrets was scary but i dont know what clicked with me, but ive been 8 days binge free…i feel like i just let it all out and instead of shoving all my emotions with food i let them out and on the drive home i just had that beginning of the rest of my life feeling, mushy i know but after holding a secret for 17 years, i feel like i had an enormus weight lifted off my shoulders.
Wow! reading through these posts is like going through my life all over again. I started out having to deal w/Ana, then bulimia, then compulsive exercising & laxative abuse all before entering into treament for EDs. When I thought I had everything under MY control, ED came out again in the form of binge eating. All this started at age 14, treatment began at 39 yrs. I don't resort to binge eating much at all any more. I still am in therapy, probably will be lifelong for me (bipolar disorder too). What I have done to help with the help of therapy is learn to distract with other things besides food when I want to binge or exercise or restrict or purge or whatever. I actually made an "Instead Of" Jar. Inside the jar are about 100 pieces of paper with different specific things to do INSTEAD OF resorting to ED behaviors. It has really helped me.that way I don't have to think about waht to do. I draw a paper out of the jar & I do what it says. I keep repeating this til the urge passes. When I can talk to my therapist we try to figure the urges out.
Thanks for you idea…i have tried to do things that distract me from food and it sometimes word and sometimes doesnt…right not what ive been doing is sitting down to a meal and once im done i do the dishes i created in preparing it and eating it and i do the dishes slowly and by the time they are clena and dry and put away ten mins has passed and i am ready to move on…lately i just keep telling myself that i can eat again ina few hours if i want to and this is not my last good meal ever, like i use to feel…sound slike u have been through a lot…congrats to dealing with ur binges head on and continueing therapy i hope to also have a success story…when i think about the laxative abuse, i was so addicted to them and now i never think about them…its like a habit to break…so im taking the binges as a habit too…after a while i hope to jsut forget them, the only big difference in that, i dont need laxative to survive, but i need food…once i get pass that i think i’ll be stepping into the right direction.