Why did I stop eating? Part 1

First of all, wow was my last post all over the place and incoherent at times.  I have gone through and edited it and reorganized and what not so that it actually makes sense and is an accurate glimpse into my mind (minus the new drugs that I was still getting use to).  If you read the last one, please go back and reread it now that it is fixed.  So embarrassed but what was done was done and luckily is now fixed.

So I had started on a tangent at the end about the origin of my eating issues and I figure I'll continue where I left off.  Actually I'm going to repost what I cut from the last one since it was way off topic.  The inspiration for a few of my latest thoughts and posts are the last few episodes of Make it or Break it.  I know, I'm lame because I'm almost 28 and watch shows designed for teens but what can I say but I love gymnastics and drama.  Recently they have made one of their main characters develop anorexia.  I found this initially frustrating because her character went from fine to crisis and treatment center mode within a few episodes.  I know, I know it's just TV but the model she meets at treatment is what pissed me off.  They end up having her be the one that teaches her all the tricks to get out and then when they are both out the model goes to catch her flight to Milan and dies of heart failure.  The character they portrayed would never have been an anorexic who would randomly die of heart failure.  I know it struck a nerve because I didn't few her character as bad medically, as I don't view myself, and then she died which would suggest that you could be 'not that bad' and still randomly die.  I get the psych crap of all that, but logically the odds are against both situations ever happening.

That spurred the venting post about the fact that I don't really feel that I have an Eating Disorder.  Then they played the next episode where the main character is dealing with the fact that she does in fact have a problem and she starts exploring where it came from.  Her therapists on the show asks her "Why did you stop eating?"  Of course she thinks the simple answer is she had to beat another gymnast and she didn't stand a change without dropping some weight to be able to do a competitive routine.  Then she has a heart to heart with a song writer (I'll spare you anymore of the play by play) and she realizes that the reasons for her eventual actions came from things long before that one moment.

This really got me to thinking about my own history and causes.  It was such a simple question "Why did you stop eating?"  None of my therapists have ever asked me that.  They have always been so focuses on whether I still binge drink, how many times I've purged, what I was feeling when I purged, and whether I'm feeling like offing myself.  All valid things, but I think they've all been missing the biggest key to me ever making lasting change in my life.

So, why did I stop eating (or become so obsessed with restriction to the point that I don't think twice about shoving my fingers down my throat when I do eat)?  I don't really know.  It's hard to even pin point when it all started.  So until I find a new therapist I think I'll just explore this topic a while.

From 11-15 I undeniably started my restriction behaviors.  I didn't count calories like I do now.  I ate as little as possible every day just because less eating meant less weight gain and more weight loss if I was lucky.  I went on my first diet at 11.  The gummy bear diet.  I loved it.  I ate gummy bears all the time, whenever I was hungry.  No fat.  I thought it was great.  I didn't understand calories or how food really worked but I had an intense fear of weight gain and I always felt that as soon as I loss weight (this unrealistic amount of weight, one that I could never have actually accomplished) that I would just become this different and MUCH better person.  As soon as I lost ALL this weight everything would be alright.  I guess the everything should be a big focus since I don't really know what everything was or what alright would have looked like.  I just KNEW that it would be, when I lost weight.  I lived, and still do to a large extent, in this fantasy world where I could all of a sudden drop 30 pounds and be this new and much better me.  At the time of course I felt the weight loss would immediately make me pretty with a better personality.  Girls would want to be me and my friend and guys would want me (though in truth until 16 I really wasn't sure I wanted them- just wanted them to want me).  To say the least I had acceptance issues.  

Well everything was not alright because of course this dream world was not a reality.  I never loss this drastic amount of weight.  I never all of a sudden became this 'new' me.  And I hate the me I was.  I spent every day of year 11-12 feeling like I didn't fit in my skin.  I still lived in Houston and still had the extended family (of neighbor parents and my best friends since kinder) to stabilize my life.  I just felt so fat and so not good enough.  CG was my best friend and my total opposite.  She was a tomboy and good at all physical stuff and so comfortable with herself and confident.  F was her older sister, so by definition of how close we and our families were, mine too.  She was amazing.  Beautiful, bubbly, confident, not afraid to say what she thought or to be a strong woman.  She didn't care what people thought and she didn't need to since everyone loved her.  I was nothing like CG and F and I so desperately wanted to be.  I don't know why I thought that weight loss would get me there.  They never focused on their weight.  I'm not sure they owned a scale or ever once mentioned anything about their size.  I just remember those first few teen years feeling miserable because I didn't fit in with their world (more the popular crowd- thought they totally accepted me despite this) or 'mine' which was the gifted, academically high, and musically inclined crowd.  

I met my first ED prone friend in 6th grade.  We developed the gummy bear diet together and talked about weight and how we might lose it all the time.  We both had divorcing parents with little supervision and no one to notice our oddly developing eating habits.  We were in short horribly bad for one another (CT).  I guess you could say CT made me feel like my concerns and goals were normal.  No one else that over heard us (when we let that happen) ever said anything or thought we were weird for it.  All girls talk about weight and want to lose it, right?  CT wound up anorexic for life and died a few years ago from heart failure.  Haven't ever told anyone about this (unless I did so under alcohol or ambien influence in which case I obviously don't remember).  Want to know what my first thought was when I found out?  She won.  She was successful where I was not.  She was what we both unknowingly at the time were after, the golden title of being anorexic.  I have spent my life trying and failing.  I should have been mourning her loss (thought we lost touch over ten years ago) and reflecting on the way I life my life and feeling fortunate that I never got that bad.  Instead I was feeling self hatred for being so weak that I ate that day.  

But I moved on from that.  I did get sad and I am grateful I'm not that bad or dead.  Maybe that's why I have a condition not a disorder. ;)  But that was definitely not a promising start to adolescence.  Not sure it really gets down to the why, but it's a start to the how and what I suppose.  

I'm exhausted and sick and off to bed.  Just needed to fix my horrible last post and gets some of this off my mind.  I'm finally taking a sick day tomorrow to really get some good sleep and regain some much needed energy and uplift of mood.  

Lies I tell myself?

I don't really know where to start.  I guess first is about my stop in treatment as far as psych/nutr.  Yes, I did run out of my medical money.  Yes, I'm still getting that large chunk of used money taken from each paycheck until Sept.  Yes, it makes it quite tight to try to pay out of pocket on top of that.  Could it be done, yes.  I'd have to sacrifice all dinners with friends and shopping at all, but yes for the next three months I could swing it.

Truth, I don't want to.  I can't explain it well.  It's not that I want to just stop because I am 'fine', though most of the time I do feel fine.  It's more I think that this particular psychologist (S) and dietician (CA) are not for me.  I've made excuses for them.  I like S because she is smart and to the point.  I like CA (thought I hate her by definition because she tells me what to eat), because she is the nicest person you will ever meet.  But in the end they are both very religious, though S hides it better, and I am not.  I don't believe in 'God".  I'm not sure what I believe in, but it's not the 'Christian God'.  I don't believe in organized religion at all and I think it does more damage in the grand scheme of things in humanity than good at this point in our history.  I hold true to Bill Maher's idea that we need to be rid of it in order to evolve to a peaceful, logical, and truly caring species.  But I'm also a die hard socialist which is all that more ironic (as I think of all the Christians that flinch at the mention of the S word) since if Jesus walked the Earth today, he would vote democratic in the US and be socialist leaning in general because he in fact preached and lived a life of putting the greater good and good for anyone he came across in front of his own.  Jesus would have never ignored the poor or less fortunate because it might cost him a few hundred dollars more a year in taxes (not to piss anyone off but don't tell me you're truly Christian if you think a few extra hundred dollars in your pocket is more important than the welfare of others- period.)  He would have supported and dare I say expected his followers with much to share with those with little.  But I totally digress and you get my point.  How can I subscribe to any religion here in the states when they are all so hypocritical.  And that doesn't even bring Science and Historical fact into it.  So in the end these two wonderful and experience women are not for me.  I just can't connect with a team that truly believes that church and religious support groups are the key to my health. That stuff works great with those that have that kind of faith, but I do not.

So obviously these two clinicians (S and CA) are just not for me.  But I lie to my psychiatrist too.  She has been totally off my case since she knew I was seeing them so I just happened to not mention that I haven't seen them in over a month when I saw her this week.  Thing is, I research, experience, read, and talk to enough people like me or similar in some way to me to have a very good idea of what meds I should be on.  I don't take advantage.  I could have anything I want, but only suggest things I think are minimally needed.  I don't like drugs in general and am never happy to add to my list.  It's a pride thing.  Anxiety, however, has been disabling lately for me so I did fib a bit (told her I'd been on it in the past) and lead Dr. M to prescribe me Klonopin.  I'm just not ready for Xanax yet.  It works wonders for several dear friends but I think this is a good start.  I take it at night to help with the stressmares, and against doctors orders (or rather not with them) I take them during the day when I feel the need.  So far it has made daily life so much more manageable.  So as I told Dr. M, if I have to choose between my pride and my sanity then I guess I'll go with my sanity.  

I do need to find a new therapist and I realize this.  I don't think I'm ready for a dietician yet.  It was just so hard.  I'd need at least Klonopin and Xanax if not Lithium too to really make it through days with the the big D.  It was way too much for me.  I was truly a basket case.  But this whole thing is more than just being uncomfortable.  It's easy to say, oh she couldn't hack it and ran away as always.  Trust me I don't need anyone to tell me that.  I am, always have been, and always will be my hardest and most unfair critic. I just can't put into words the anxiety finding new therapists causes me.  I hate everything about the process.  But I have come to realize a few key points.  I'm not bulimic.  I have to stop telling the intake receptionist or nurse that I am out of convenience and simplicity.  As I said in my last post I'm simply not nor will I ever be bulimic.  

I have to stop saying I am, or rather allow myself to be pigeon holed into the diagnosis every time.  It gives me an easy out.  It's very easy for me to manipulate sessions and avoid the real issues when bulimia is their working assumption.  When you are bulimic there are certain techniques and focuses that all of the team works on.  I think the idea of getting someone to stop binging and purging is more concrete and easier to develop a plan for.  Since I don't binge, in general these plans of attack are not affective on me.  I live my life as an anoretic 'at heart' and though I have never been successful of 'earning' the title due to weight (which feeds right into the failure complex), it is the way my brain works.  It been better, it's been worse.  It's up in the air which time in my life was better psychologically.

Revisions to DSM... Disorder or Condition?

I would never argue that I am normal about eating.  I will argue that very few women are, but not that I am.  But I have never been comfortable with the label bulimic.  It's been the go to diagnosis because if you throw up then you must be bulimic.  It's very hard to take therapy seriously when everyone is treating you for a disorder you don't have.  I don't binge, period.  The only time I come close is after a very long period of restriction (auto pilot as I think of it) and even then calling it a binge is more my perception than diagnosable.

Under the DSM IV I'm not anorexic either.  I don't meet diagnosis (even purging type) because I have never been and am not underweight.  In fact they say 85% or less of minimal weight for size and age.  I'd have to weigh 85 or less to be diagnosable.  I also would have to stop having my period (which would be perk).

So I've always technically been EDNOS which most people don't know much about and is the catch all 'I think you have a problem and need help' diagnosis.  It's like there are these two exclusive clubs and you're not accepted into either.

DSM IV

It stands to reason that if my behavior is not medically and psychiatrically significant enough to get a real name and a real set of criteria, then how bad is it?  I mean realistically I'm not even at the bottom of my weight range, I function fine physically and mentally, have completely normal blood work every time, and my blood pressure is better now than it's ever been.  So I've got some maladaptive self destructive behaviors, but who doesn't.  Show me one completely normal person and I'll show you a liar or someone really good at hiding their quirks.  Mine just happen to be about food.

I'm not saying that restricting oneself to 800-1000 calories a day and purging anything over that is okay.  I definitely needs to work on some new ways to deal with the stress of life.  I'm just wondering if it's worth thousands of dollars a year in therapy and treatment and people treating you like your broken.

I have been keeping track of the revisions they have been considering for ED in the DSM-V due to hit your local psychiatrist in 2013.  It not that I thought there would be a disorder that was the perfect fit (like the elusive pair of perfect jeans), but I did think I'd fit in somewhere since I keep getting told 'it's a big deal' and 'beating this is going to be the hardest thing you do in your life'.

DSM-V ED thus far

First of all, they want to change the section to be titled Feeding and Eating Disorders.  Really?  We are now going to go from ED to FED?  Was that some psychiatric humor?  Not only in 2013 will I become FED, but I get to switch from the subtitle of EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) to Feeding and Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Classified or FEDNOC.  If you really wanted a new verb you might as well have gone with something like tagged so it could be FEDNOT.  At least it would have had some matching humor.  Next I get to go to all the subtypes in FEDNOC and get cross listed as Atypical Anorexia Nervosa and Purging Disorder.  More bang for my buck I guess... two for one special.  Oh except that these aren't actually classified as disorders, they are conditions.  But it says that only one condition should be assigned to patients so I guess I'll have to pick one.

I do think they are suggesting sound and needed changes.  I'm just beginning to think that if the diagnostic world doesn't think I have a disorder then I shouldn't either.  I have a condition.  Sounds much better than I am ED, EDNOS, or bulimic.  Some people eat too much salt, red meat, sugar, fried and processed foods.  The average american woman weighs about 30 lbs more than a 'healthy' range which means to me there are a LOT of over weight women out there.  A lot of women that eat too much and many that don't watch what they eat at all.  They don't have a 'condition' for that.  No one goes to their friend that is 30 or more pounds too big (very much putting them at more risk across the board medically) and tells them they think they have a problem.  When they eat when their not hungry or are never not hungry no one freaks out.  In fact no one really even bats an eye until someone is grossly overweight and well past simply obese.

So it's a double standard really.  I'm not hungry as often as many and sometimes I don't eat even if I am.  I watch what I eat very closely and when I feel that I need or want to drop a few pounds, I eat less.  I have a purging disorder (but classified as a condition) and I am working on it.  It's not surprising that it hasn't been an issue of late since I'm not stuffing myself on someone else's meal plan and idea of how much I should consume.  You can argue that I'm increasing my health risks (what doesn't), but I've had everything checked routinely over the past few years and I am 100% healthy.  I can continue to work on better stress management and continue the treatment that has my depression in check without treating a disorder that I don't have.  Now if I drop to 85 pounds, start losing my hair, and put myself in serious danger of heart failure then I'm just in denial now (and the past 14 years?) and you can tell me you told me so (and I'd qualify for treatment under my insurance for once).

"thin"

You can never be too rich or too thin.  My dad was far from the only person who quoted this during my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.  I hear it all the time still.  Sometimes by people who know that I'm ED.  Not that I think poorly about them for it, they just weren't thinking when they said it.  But that's because it's one of those sayings that people don't think about.  They are said in passing and the fact is that most people believe it to a certain extent.  Which is frustrating when you're like me and being told continuously by numerous people that you have an unrealistic idea of thin enough.  I don't think I'm the core problem.  I could never argue that my bulimic behaviors aren't totally out there and dangerous and let's face it disgusting.  But I've wanted those behaviors gone since they started.  But people are so sensitive to my restrictive behaviors and it all can feel pretty hypocritical.  I mean where is the line between dieting/weight loss and "we think you have a problem again."  Will I ever be allowed to be like every other female out there who decides that she needs to get a little thinner?  I understand the uncomfortable feeling, the wondering "but will she stop before she's too thin?"

What is too thin?  I am 5 ft nothing.  I could be picky and say 5 ft and 1/2 in because I know I'm slightly taller than my mother and she is exactly 5 foot.  I have a tiny frame, little bones.  Doctors say my ideal weight range is 90-130.  I wouldn't be 'too thin' medically until I was in the 80s.  Most medical doctors, though you know how I feel about them, wouldn't even be concerned until closer to the 70's.  I'm not saying I want to weight 70 pound, because I don't.  I'd like to live a normal life and not be committed into a hospital.  I would like to be around the low 90's.  I was there at 16/17 (well after I had stopped growing and maturing) and again for a 6 month section a couple years ago at 25ish.  I don't think I was too thin.  I don't think anyone who wasn't a friend who knew my struggles with ED would have thought I was too thin.  Very thin, yes, but not too thin.  

I guess I just worry that for the rest of my life, if I lose weight (even when I actually do need too) everyone will be worried and start talking about being too thin.  Too thin is in the 80's or less.  Too thin is having heart problems, unstable blood pressure, low body temperature, and your labs coming back all fucked up.  Well I weight 105 and I would like to get down to at least 95.  My blood pressure is stable, no heart issues, normal body temp and my labs all came back within normal ranges.  So I'm not too thin now and when I lose the 10 pounds I want gone, I still will not be too thin.  

If I had an extra 30 grand laying around...

I can't afford treatment anymore.  Not until September when my flex plan starts again.  I never dreamed when I made my elections and signed up for a huge chunk of my check to go to my medical account that it would be drained by April.  I tried to make it work.  I even decided to not refill my ungodly expensive migraine preventative so I could at least keep up with S.  I'm going to have to go get it though.  The headaches are back and worse than ever.  Maybe they seem so bad because I had so long with out them.  Either way it's becoming increasingly harder to function each day.  I have less patience with the kids and I'm very noise sensitive.  Last night I had to take more than normal to get to sleep and tonight my head feels like it's going to explode.  I'm really regretting my decision to pass up my prescription for the pain meds because those were at least cheap and effective if only a quick fix.  At the time I really didn't need them and wouldn't now if the other weren't so expensive.  


Headaches are a common complaint among people with ED.  The statistical correlation of the disorders with treatment for migraines is very high.  I'm fully aware that my own behaviors could be to blame for my condition.  If I could change my life just like that then I wouldn't have the high medical bills, but that's not the way it works.  My ex neurologist would have me believe that it is a disorder of itself and one that I will have for the rest of my life.  How much can you trust an opinion from a guy that only makes money off you if he makes you believe that?  Side effect, disorder, or both it doesn't really matter.  I'm miserable.  I can't concentrate on getting better and be in this severe state of constant pain.


I shouldn't have to choose between the two, but that's how the 'wonderful' American health care system works.  People who argue things like universal health care only help the 'poor' are ignorant.  It's people like me, who pay my fair share of taxes and uphold my place in our society, that get screwed the way things are.  People like me have to make choices between which medical issues to seek help for and which I can try to do without so that I can pay bills and live life.  But then again it's just my mental health... I should just 'get over it'.  It's just 'all in my head'.  Or to take the advice of the wonderful doctor I saw recently, just take up rock climbing.