introducing myself and reaching out

hi my name is jilly.. for the past 15 months i have beeb takeb over by fitst ednos, and now anorexia

i am 34 years old, i have 4 children and i dont even undersrand why this has hapoened to ne.i just wanted to lose a few pounds when my bdd medication, zoloft, caused me to suddenly gain half a stone.

 

2 stone later, off all the medication, here i am 6 stone 4, 5 ft 3 and scared to eat over 800  calories a day. 10 days ago i managed to stop adding uo at the end of the day, added an extra meal and snack and i still dont feel like im beating it. the thing is, naturly i was never more than 8 stone, but my head refuses to let me believe im not gonna go straight back to the zoloft weight with one mars bar (i really want a mars bar)

i even know that all the time i am undernourished i wont be able to think straight and the only way to truly recover is to eat properly and get to a healthy weight. i want my period back, i got one  2 months ago and then relapsed. im so embarassed for my kids. the youngest is 3 and the eldest 15 and i see their friends and teachers look at my legs, my lack of thigh muscle, and im so ashamed.how can i get better without counting calories? do people my age usually get eating disorders? theres no appropriate service for me whete i live as i have no friends or family and there are only ed clinic day courses available.

and finally, what happens if i ruined my metabolism and it doesnt naturally stop at a healthy bmi. what if i broke it (seriously)

apologies for all the bad spelling,  on my phone and it doesnt work too well. thanks in advance xx jilly x 

Jilly, sorry to hear it's been such a rough go for you.  Four kids, especially with that kind of an age spread, has to make for a full day.  If you weigh 6 stone 4 in my terms that sounds like you're 88-90 pounds.  At 5'3" you must be petite.  Do have any opportunities to exercise?  Maybe a mile stroller push with your toddler would activate your endorphins and help abate some of the anxiety. 

It's always easy to give advice when you're sitting in front of the computer.  It's just thought.  Hope you feel better.  This looks like a pretty good website and hopefully you'll make some more e-friends.  I'm new on it too.

Hang in there and if life tries to give you a hard time smack it up the side of the head and keep moving forward.

"dheamhan geilleadh"

Hi , thanks for your reply. It means a lot. I go out daily I really hate staying in around all the food. I'm a feeder and I seem to give everyone what I want to eat. And on days there is nursery its a long walk too. I don't stop all day coz there's so much to do and clean and play but I love it. I know when I got up to 1200 calories for a week I lost 3 pounds that week. But I also heard someone small like me needs less calories anyway. I wish it would just go away. E-friends would be vert much appreciated :) Xx

Hi Jilly,

Welcome to the forum. I'm glad that you have found the courage to reach out. I haven't much time right now (going out to watch the London boat race today !!) but just wanted to say a quick hi and welcome and I will post properly later on.

You are by no means alone, people suffering with ED come in all shapes, sizes, gender and age. I'm 30 and currently suffering with a restrictive ED. My ED stems from adolescence. It's possible that you have developed ED for the first time at 34, it's not unheard of, it's also possible that your ED was developed years ago but that you didn't recognise it for what it was.

ED is usually a coping mechanism, rather than deal with stress/distress that we can't handle, we distract ourselves with food/body obsession and/or starvation addiction. ED also has a rain-chemistry element, something to do with the Leptin system. Therefore weightloss can trigger EDNOS/AN on a chemical level.

Check out the forum resources and also find the member Hedgren (do a search, lot's of people have included links to her profile and her own website). These resources are very comprehensive and really a good start in understanding what is happening both in terms of the mental health aspect and the brain chemistry aspect of a restrictive ED.

I hope you have a good day, I'll be back in touch.

Love Suzi xx

Thankyou so much! I hope you have fun watching the boat racing, that sounds really great, something id enjoy watching. I've read the posts I think you mean and also a while ago I read about the experiment on the men in America and that really helped me a lot. It makes so much sense. I do acknowledge I have had a sort of need in me , to be very slim, my goal weight was 7 stone 6 (104 pounds) and at that weight I felt I looked my best, my frames tiny, but it just didn't stop, I couldn't stop. At first I blamed it on not knowing how to maintain but looking back, what makes sense is this:

The Zoloft was crippling my natural metabolism. I was not losing any weight, nothing at all and I came off it. I did not wait for it to be totally out my system like I should have, waited a couple of months, I was too upset that I had gained without eating more than normal and my partner laughed at my bum (idiot) . And so I got impatient and basically stopped eating for a while , other than one slice of toast, a slim a soup and a cereal bar. This clearly made me lose some but such a tiny amount and I stayed impatient and stuck to it. Looking back now. I starved my brain as well as my body and that's how come ednos kicked in. And being susceptible to that because I also have body dysmorphic disorder, I couldn't let go. Til now. I have lost 2 stone (28 pounds)

Id quite like to not be on a diet anymore, but ed clings on and tells me I'm greedy. Maybe I should read all those posts and articles again

Sorry I talk a lot Xx

Hi again,

The boat race was fun thanks :) It's the first one I've seen, I enjoyed the atmosphere on the river, we had live music and a bit of wine :)

You said that there isn't any support that you can access where you are. I don't know where you live but if you're in the UK you might be able to find a support group via BEAT (check out their website). Have you seen your doctor? You are very underweight and it would be a good idea to be monitored to check that you are medically stable. It's tough to get help as an adult but I have found that a sympathetic doctor can be a good start. If you are in the UK you may also be able to acces an Out Patient Eating Disorder Unit where you can get dietetic help and therapy.

In my opinion it is damned hard to recover on your own. I think we all need someone to be accountable to and need the odd push to get unstuck. Does your partner know what's going on?

I am pursuing cognitive behavioural therapy as it is supposed to be the best treatment for ED and BDD. Have you tried this? I have come across a couple of good CBT self-help books. I can message you the details if you're at all bookish :)

Anyhow, please feel free to message me if you want an email buddy.

Love Suzi xx

It's funny you should say that because I have a Bdd workbook (by cherry pedwick I think) and a body image workbook I actually found in a charity shop. I called beat once, it really helped because I was about to binge when I was b/r stage. In October I had hypnotherapy and I've not binged since then but I have issues with greed now. As for my doctor, I went in and he said loads of triggering stuff like "ive seen thinner" and talked about cave women getting periods when the men hunted well...I was lost in "seen thinner" by that point and he gave me Prozac which I don't take. I take st johns wort. Ive since lost 4 pounds. I think I need a new doctor. When my counselling starts I feel I will be able to recover a little easier and currently its a case of doing it alone. I do try and talk to my partner, you'd think he would understand as he's training as an addiction counsellor but he's actually a trigger a lot of the time, coz he is passive aggressive and I take any negativity on board and so does ED. I really do appreciate your replies, its always good to just be able to talk to someone who understands. As I only really restrict now, I guess I'm suffering the same kind of ed as you? I hate all the labels , I'm jilly and I'm struggling but I don't wanna be jilly the anorexic. Really finding today fairly hard coz I am not counting still and not weighing coz I want to be free of it all so I ask if I look different, but I still look the same really. That water weight I keep reading about would send me right back into the depths if i weighed and it was happening. I'm sorry for going on. And thanks again Xx

Ugh, some doctors make me mad. Yes, see a different one, please do! It took me ages to work up the courage to talk to my doctor the first time. She was totally cr*p and didn't do anything. I eventually saw a different doctor for something else which ended up being related to ED and got referred to an ED Unit. The specialist at the unit was awesome but I was about to move county so they just gave me a diagnosis and onward referral for my new area. Then I saw my new doctor here and she is really great. She has referred me to some specialists but wants to monitor me regularly. It's taken 7 months to get onto yet another waiting list but I do atleast feel like I'm doing something about it now and the support of a sympathetic doctor really makes a difference. Unfortunately alot of people on this forum and elsewhere have reported really triggering comments from healthcare providers, check out this page on Something Fishy, you are certainly not alone!

http://www.something-fishy.org/doctors/theysa idwhat.php

Yes, I just restrict. I sometimes purge but only when I've really felt pressured to eat something that was completely unplanned, thankfully that does not happen very often. For me I think the restriction is a combination of coping mechanism and starvation-addiction. I feel extremely ambivalent about recovery so haven't managed alot on my own. I think that with some help, being able to talk through the emotions that I can't deal with and accountability I will get myself to a better place.

Not weighing I think is a major key to recovery. I have stopped weighing in the last couple of months and although I'm not happy about not knowing my weight I do feel less anxious about putting some weight on and I've broken the obsession with losing weight.

I totally agree with the labels. I don't see myself as 'anorexic', I see myself as a person who struggles with ED when I stop being able to cope. I feel divided inside and I can clearly identify my 'anorexic thoughts', but these thoughts are only one aspect of me. We are all very complex beings, mental and/or physical illness does not take that away :)

I hope your day is getting better.

Love Suzi xx

Todays a new day now :)

It's really good being able to read this and realise I'm not alone. I mean, its horrible we have all this going on inside us but its heartening to know its not "just me" and I believe we can do this! I purged for the same reason a while back after a bowl of ready brek someone else decided I needed I hope you have a good day today and let's fight this together Xx