Anyone feel like an illness has caused EDish feelings?

Hi,

I have been thinking alot about my attitude to food and eating recently, and the more I read ED related posts on this board, the more I realise that I share alot of these thoughts and habits...

I joined as someone trying to gain, and still am, because I have cystic fibrosis and have pretty much always been small and had very high calorie needs. Because of this, food, eating and weight has been something that has been a real issue for years and I always feel like everyone is very aware of my eating habits and weight trends. It comes with the disease I guess.

However, I have also had ED thoughts since I was maybe 15? These include: feeling fat even though BMI is underweight, sometimes significantly, feeling preoccupied with food and calories (I know the calories in everything), obsession with my size although I never tell anyone this, preferring to be thin, thinking it's better for me to be very thin even though I don't think others should be, constant checking of my weight and measurements (much more so in the past few months) and other things too.

I would never starve myself or actively try and lose weight because I know it's dangerous and especially so with my health problems, where you need weight to fight of infections. However I am constantly aware of how much calories I'm having and at the moment I'm not gaining on 3-4000 a day, which I should be trying to rectify, however I'm more comfortable not gaining weight.

I recently drank alot of water before a check up, where I am weighed, to increase my weight by 1kg, and also have lied about my weight to my parents. Which is very bad.

I wander if I've developed these problems from inability to cope with bad health... I've got alot worse with my lungs this year and can't run competitively anymore as I'm on oxygen, had to take a year off uni and stay at home to get better, have been in hospital over half the year, and tube feed also. I just feel a bit stuck and tbh it's exhausting haveing a preoccupation with my eating and weight and looks on top of everything else! I want to and need to stop thinking like this and stop myself feeling fatter than I am!

Any suggestions or similar stories would be helpful, thanks so much for reading my vent :-) xxx

I know that this is possible.  It's the "chicken or the egg" first sort of thing-and it creates a spiral effect.  Have you ever read the Minessota starvation study?  You can actually "create" eating disordered thinking and distortions by simply starving a person without those feelings/tendacies.  It's a reaction from and symptoms of a malnourished, starving brain.

To some extent, I know this is what's happened to me this year.  Part of the reason I've been so confused about "what the heck is going on here" is because I know what it's like to take on the ED mentality.  Whether it be a high off weight loss or less is more thinking...and I'd been feeling the opposite.  Alll my goals have been involving eating more, considering calories under 3000 as low, and I've been in "weight gain mode" for ages!

But for whatever reason my body has NOT been nourished, whether becuase I couldn't keep up with a rebounding metabolism or because of all the health problems interfering with my body's ability to take care of itself eating even as I am willing.
-I've lost weight and/or been in a negative energy balance, and I know that recently I've first had the symptoms [food obsession, wanting other's to see me eat, and so on; and then recently, even the feelings [the high's off the being low, the wanting security in restriction].

I think what it comes down to is first and formost getting the body out of starvation mode so it stops acting like it, mentally and physically.

Basically, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.....   Why anyone develops disordered eating and thinking behaviour is very individual  - there are many triggers ranging from depression, to illness, to a 'diet that goes too far', to acute self-consciousness.  So it doesn't really matter how you got here, what's important is that you can see it's a problem, that it's negatively affecting your life and that you need to get help in doing something about it.  Talk to people who are close to you and explain how you feel. 

I started having issues with ED when I was 11. But I also grew about a foot that year and had actually started to see myself as being pretty thin (5'6"/110 lbs) And I stopped restricting and actually ate quite a bit, never gained an ounce. Then when I was 13 I got pneumonia and lost a lot of weight because of it (about 15lbs). My doctor put me on a milkshake diet and while I gained back most of the weight, I never gained it all back. I topped out at 107-108 lbs before I started feeling like I'd gotten fat. And from there, I developed the ED. So while its not exactly the same thing, its quite close. I think I'd adjusted to seeing myself so thin, and since I'd always felt too big (I kept getting taller and was a head taller than almost every girl in my grade) being so skinny made me feel like I was less large.

My brother has UC and often says that he feels like he's fat now (He's 6'1" and 150-155lbs.) because he compares himself to before he got on medication to control the ulcerative colitis. He used to only be like 120lbs, but he was sick all the time. 

I think part of it is the starvation theory - that your brain is malnourished and starved so it functions like one. But I also think part of it is just that you adjust to seeing a certain thing in the mirror, and that even though the changes are good, they are still hard to get used to.

Wow - thanks so much for these replies. Really reassuring to know that this happens.

Gi-Jane and lilmissgutz, you're definately right that I need to nip it in the bud and get out of the habit in order to start feeling different, the chicken or the egg thing made me smile lol, it's a good way of describing how I've been feeling about this!

Rebelchick - you hit the nail on the head there. So so true... even though I was never tall or bigger than my classmates (infact the complete opposite) I got used to being a certain way and sort of living up to being the short skinny one. Also totally weird how I didn't really feel too big at my highest weight (still only bmi 20) when I was really fit anyway (I was probably least EDish then because I purely focused on my fitness), but now, a stone lighter, feel like I'd be obese if I gained even half that weight back.

Definately, I've got used to my body being much thinner and so this has become the norm to me, and I need to break that way of thinking. Normal girls have some fat on them and obviously that's essential to be healthy, so I don't know why I think I don't need my fat stores, IYSWIM.

Thanks for the help xxxx

your not alone my theapist told me a story about a friend of hers who decided to diet to lose a little weight  despite having no ed one thing the woman did say is after dieting and restricting she had noticed herself having ed thoughts this lady was totally normal. stravation and weight loss due to whatever  reason will almost certainly bring in these thoughts even in normal people h x

GIJane,
You said that really well!  That's what it really came down to for me:
"This isn't right--how I'm acting, how I am, where things are going and how I want my life to be or how I want to live."
The bottom line is zone in and change it, not wonder how to explain it!

Smash,
A lot of the way Anorexia started for me was that I was always too skinny and I was afraid of losing that.  I never intended to go on a diet or lose weight because I had always been told dieting was "bad for me" and I was "too skinny."  For me I didn't want to "get" fat and then the control bug bit with eating habits at the most impecible time.
Since then I've smartened up on those basics, but now I think it's more the malnourishment aspect, though unintentional, that fostered the disordered thinking.

But again, as has been said-bottom is this is no way of being, the skinny cage regardless of the thinking and symptoms currently involved. Let's see what's out there!

First I am sorry about all you are facing. I had my ed pre my nerve condition but that did set off another relapse cause I was in a better place. I think in combo with of course eating and gaining that I went back to psych etc to deal with my other health condition. It is very hard to face health conditions that you can't change. It causes a lot of emotional ups and downs and learning how to cope and do the best you can is very key. If you want an email buddy I am here. Now on the note of your condition causing you to be underweight. My nutritionist has told me studies of how people not ed but for what ever reason went into starvation. There mind was very occupied on food,some horded,started reading food magazines,binging after etc. Many were to found to have more depression and anxiety as well. Even after months of refeeding and reaching a normal weight many still had the issues and it took time for the mind to catch up but it did get better with time.