grrrrr.... need advice

hi i usually respond and dont really post anymore. coz i know the majority of eating disorders are not about not having information. they are about choosing whether or not you use it.

anyway i am a former anorexia sufferer. today is officially my last day of sugar. i went to the dentist last week in excruciating pain. i knew i needed to go but i am afraid. but eventually the pain was too much and she gave me the devestating truth. i need 12 fillings (AAAAAAAAAAAAH) and my top 2 and 1 bottom wisdom teeth need to come out. i am a sucker for sugar and i majorly od'd on diet fizzy drinks during the disorder and now it has come back to bite my ass.

she (el dentisto) has banned me from sugar and all forms of fizzy drinks (diet or otherwise).... tonight as a last "binge" on sugar i ate too much of it. i was actually licking spoons of golden syrup! anyway i know the remedy of a binge (perceived more than ooodles of calories). i dunno how i am going to survive without it... or more importantly if i do manage to implement the ban, how am i going to prevent it spreading to outright restriction again.#

and finally this prob has been on my mind a long time. i am a long time sufferer of a vomit phobia. (im 24 n suffering about 20yrs). its how my ed started. my thought process was "if you dont eat you cant be sick" and soon i became more interested in the all consuming world of thinness. so that i didnt even care about vomiting anymore. however of late the phobia has really crept back on me to the point where i am afraid to eat. like petrified. i dont want to exhibit pro-ana but lets say it has become more serious of late - which is having repercussions.it is damaging the structure and regime i implemented but after every meal i spend the day worrying on a 8 (of possible 10 on a panic scale) that the food was bad or that there's something wrong with me. i spoke to my doctor today because life felt so bad i felt it was hardly worth living anymore. (NOT A THREAT AND I AM UNDER MEDICAL CARE.... I just wantd to explain how bad things have been)

does anyone have experience with this?

Hey,

I have not personally suffered from anorexia, but am a psychology major as well as have experience counselling a couple of teens with ED's. I am by no means an expert and am by no means claiming to be one but I thought it might help you out to hear that the people I know with anorexia had similar aversion phobias to avoid eating. I'm sure you know that anorexia is far more then a diet gone out of control it a a psychological problem with thought patterns and the best way I have heard it described is that there is a 'skinny b!tch' inside your head telling you not to eat, the food is bad, it will make you sick, it will make your family sick and so on.  This internal diolouge telling you that you will throw up if you eat, that the food was bad etc. is very normal with anorexia and you are not alone.  Are you in any type of therapy? I would suggest talking to our doctor about some kind of behavioural based therapy to help you kill that "skinny b!tch' that is trying to keep you from getting healthy. Good luck and I hope it helped to hear what you are experiencing is normal, and you are not alone.

when anorexia developed certainly a skinny b*tch did develop - but the aversion to food (particularly and obviously around times of intense panic... where i think there mayb something which could cause me to vomit) has been there long long before anorexia nervosa began.

certainly people thougt due to my terror of eating that it was related to an eating disorder. when in fact it had nothing to do with weight. i would have eaten happily if someone could guarantee that i wouldnt vomit. i only became obsessed with my weight when a terrifying panic hurdled me into not eating again - and suddenly i realised the control i had over my weight.... so in a way the eating disorder took the place of the anxiety. now that the ED is resloving (sometimes) the phobia is back with avengence. the fear of food is no longer anything to do with weight-more fear of something being in my stomach

oh yeah and i see a clinical psychologist regularly.

I'm not an expert in this area but you caught my attention when you said, "the majority of eating disorders are not about not having information. they are about choosing whether or not you use it."

So you know it's a choice you're making, right? Would it help to tell yourself (and the "skinny b"), since you enjoy exercising and various sports (from your profile), that you have to nourish your body to perform these activities efficiently? Think of food as fuel - it's a package deal => good stuff in = good results out.

I realize this may be over-simplifying your situation, but you seem to be very aware of what's going on in your head. This makes me think you're a very strong person.  Can you use your strength to convince yourself that you deserve to be good to yourself?

see thats the thing. its no longer about nourishing myself. its no longer about that kind of eating disorder.

this is potentially a situation which will escalate because i am becomming too afraid to leave the house, to go to college, to go canoeing, to sit on a train and even go to my psychol. i understand that when it involves food it is some kind of eating disorder, but the resulting fear is not that il put on weight. its that i'l get sick. and it isnt a worry its an out and out flight or fight panic response and it isnt bloody diminishing. (sorry not cross with you, just fed up of the situation)

thank you both for answering

this is something you need to speak to your psychologist about.  there are at leat two different issues at hand: 1) your love of sugary foods and 2) your fear of vomiting.  the former can be addressed via considering the value you associate with your health.  what about being healthy and having healthy teeth is important to you?  if you can find something in there that matters to you, you might be willing to tolerate your cravings for sugar.  as you've experienced first hand, eating habits can change drastically over time, especially if motivated by something that matters to you.  if you can get in touch with a value around your own health, that may help you refrain from consuming tons of sugar AND from doing so in a way that feels restrictive, because reducing your intake of sugar would be putting you directly in line with something you care about.

in terms of your fear of vomiting, the best treatments for fears and anxiety are exposure-based.  again, please consult with your therapist about this.  exposures are exercises where you planfully experience situations that give you anxiety.  this may mean eating meals where you have particular concerns about vomitting.  you can watch as your anxiety goes up in anticipation of the meal, goes up after the meal as your head fills with thoughts about vomiting...and then goes DOWN over time.  anxiety and fear are like waves.  they rise and fall with time.  by exposing yourself to situations you fear, you can learn that the situations may not be as scary as you think and that nothing bad happens despite the fact that your mind tells you it will.  so develop a list of foods and meals that give you anxiety.  and plan to eat those foods again and again and again until you can learn that your fears are not truths.  your fear of vomiting is no different than people who develop fears of flying or fears of heights.  for various reasons, usually based on some random experiences when we're younger, we learn to pair situations with aversive consequences. so now the work is just to learn NEW associations. 

the sensations you feel in your body--the fight or flight response--are not dangerous.  they are a natural consequence of your mind telling you to be afraid.  the sensations themselves hold no truth.  in other words, they are noe cues that you should, in fact, be afraid.  they are just the sensations that accompany anxiety.  try to just notice the sensations for what they are--heart beating faster, shorter breaths, heaviness in the chest--rather than what your mind tells you they are: DANGEROUS! 

your experiences are by no means uncommon and there is so much you can do to work on them.  you should be applauded for looking for support here. 

fear of vomiting is different than an ED.  so the approach is different.  you need to work with a therapist for phobias, not EDs.

I would suggest finding a therapist to help you with that.

fidget, I agree with the other posters - it's good you're seeking help.

Like I said before, I'm not an expert and, as much as I'd like to help, I don't think I'm able to. 

You sound like a sweet, intelligent, strong person.  I truly believe you can conquer this and I hope you believe it too.  I hope it all works out for you.  I'll be thinking of you.  Good luck. 

thanks for those few posts!

iv been with a therapist for a while-and before than for another good while. i am expert in fight and flight responses, the cognative behavioural model. i spent 8 months in hospital during which i did an anxiety programme.

im not sure if i agree with the part about the fear being the same as a fear of flying. im almost maxed out on exposures. iv watched youtube videos of ppl being sick, iv recalled in massive detail about being sick. eating for a while was fine. i actually seem to be getting worse rather than better. im not afraid of panicking-which is the harmless response. im afraid of vomiting which i associate with something traumatic.

i havent said this to him yet coz he's well on for the both of us to vomit in a session together, but if i endured something traumatic like sexual assault then the last thing anyone would suggest doing is going off to be sexually assaulted again as a means of de-sensitization in fact the opposite. i think this is more like PTSD when i look at things over the years. but on the food front im frightened that i will be frightened back into a disorder which nearly broke my heart to get out of

wow.  you've been working really hard, fidget.  i'm sorry it feels like this fear continues to be an obstacle for you.

maybe the work now lies in some acceptance.  i suggest speaking with your therapist about working on mindfulness and acceptance techniques.  these techniques can help you create some space from your sensations and thoughts in a manner that allows you to experience your life the way you'd like to.  having thoughts about vomiting and physical sensations that accompany those thoughts sounds like it's been really tough for you.  but if i had to guess, i'd say that the thing that's REALLY causing problems here is how badly you want to NOT have these thoughts and physical sensations.  so you experience fears about vomiting after you eat and then become really concerned about these fears (i.e., they may lead to another ED, they may ruin my ability to eat normally, etc).  so it's not the thoughts themselves that are problematic.  rather it's your thoughts ABOUT those thoughts and physical sensations that is problematic.  mindfulness and acceptance techniques can help you learn to see the thoughts about vomiting for what they are (expected chains of words that appear after you eat because your mind has learned to generate them), rather than what your mind tells you they are (dangerous, a sign that you're going to be miserable, a sign that you should not have eaten something, etc). 

you can live the life you want to live even with these thoughts and sensations.  they don't HAVE to be your enemy.  you choose to make them so.