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Managing Your Persistent Fears and Anxieties E verybody deals with fear and anxiety, however some people have a hard time in managing it. As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a person can use to help manage their most persistent fears and anxieties.When facing a current or upcoming task that overwhelms you with a lot of anxiety, the first thing you can do is to divide the task into a series of smaller steps. Completing these smaller tasks one at a time will make the stress more manageable and increases your chances of success. Sometimes we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breathe and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem. A person could get some fresh air, listen to some music, or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things. At times, a person might encounter a fearful thought that may be difficult to manage. A person should visualize a red stop sign which can serve as a reminder to stop thinking about that thought. This technique is good in dealing with obsessive and scary thoughts. Sometimes we encounter a scary situation that gets us all upset. When encountering these events, always remember to get all of the facts of the given situation. Gathering the facts can prevent us from relying on exaggerated and fearful assumptions. By focusing on the facts, a person can rely on what is reality and what is not. Sometimes, it helps to be able to talk to someone about our stressful situations. Talking to a trusted friend, counselor, or clergyman can not only make us feel better, but they might be able to give you additional advice and insights on how to deal with your current problem. Although I am a layman and not a professional I have interviewed many psychologists and clergyman and I have over fifteen years of experience in dealing with fear. Dealing with our persistent fears is not easy, however there are many helpful resources available to us if you look hard enough. Stanley Popovich is the author of "A Layman's Guide to Managing Fear Using Psychology, Christianity and Non Resistant Methods” - an easy to read book that presents a general overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties. For additional information go to: http://www.trebleheartbooks.com/mvStanPopovich.html For free articles on managing fear please go to: http://www.managingfear.com/ Copyright: 2005 Stanley Popovich Healing the Origins of Eating
Disorders To begin our recovery from any addictive pattern we must understand our eating disorder (as in any addiction) as an antidote function that developed to counteract painful unpleasant experiences. We must return to our early experience coming into this world as infants helpless and dependant on the responsiveness from others. It is there in our preverbal early life that all of our senses are attuned to the truth of how our caregivers really felt about our neediness and helplessness. And our utter dependence on them. What were these caregivers experiencing? Fear and stress we know are certain factors. What was unique to your family system? The additional aspects of child rearing practices and customs must also be remembered as part our internalized beliefs negative or positive. Regarding how we seek to gain security and insure survival; we have only to hear a baby's painful cries to remember the very real fears that can be evoked in us all. To understand the language of eating disorders it's helpful to begin with the context of this problem. Where and what were the contributing factors of how this disorder came into being? Instead of looking at this problem in the usual way, as pathology, a noun, let's look at it contextually as a verb or process and as part of a larger system, relational, familial and cultural. To facilitate our path to recovery, we're going to do an exercise. This may be a little tough online. So I suggest that you print this page out and read it first. Part 1: For the second part, you will
need to have your eyes closed. Print this out and read it first and then
follow from what you remember. Let's begin with deeply relaxing.
Get comfortable, lie down, do whatever you need to do to feel comfort.
Close your eyes and focus on your breath. As you exhale, breathe out an
thoughts that distract you from the exercise. As you inhale breathe in the
innocence of being an infant. Relax your feet and legs. Feel the
front and back of your torso relax with each breath. Breathing out any
tension. Breathing in the relaxation. Feel your hands and arms
relax. Relax your shoulders and neck. Again breathing out any
tension and breathing in the soothing. Relax your jaw. And the
muscles of your face and the back sides and crown of your head. Each
breath out is releasing the tension and each breath in the receiving of a
soothing feeling. Locate any parts of your body that still hold
tension. And then visualize those places in your mind's eye releasing the
tension as you breath out. Inhale the soothing. As you continue,
breath out the obstacle, blocks or just inner chitchat and feel your body
becoming more and more relaxed. Each in breath is receiving the positive
power of innocence and abundance. Continue the breathing out as the
letting go and the breathing in as the receiving and recovering of your innocence.
Just like the waves at the shore feel your self relax in the rhythmic sound of
your breath in and your breath out. If you can commit to doing this second part of the meditation each day for 40 days, consecutively, your life will change.
Susan Ricker is a Psychotherapist, Registered Nurse and Kundalini Yoga
Instructor in Los Angeles. In addition to her private psychotherapy
practice, she is involved in teaching groups and individuals mind body healing
techniques to relieve stress, depression and facilitate breaking habitual
patterns and increasing energy for healing disease and trauma. This article is not only insightful but is meant to serve as an exercise for healing. Coping
with Eating Disorders I'm a long-term friend of Sarah's. When I read the stories posted on Payson Road, I was struck by the amount of suffering which many of you expressed. The starving and the binging and purging are what typically grab people’s attention, but it was the suffering, the feelings of dread and self-loathing, of being trapped and terrified and helpless which moved me. So I thought I might share some of what I’ve learned, both personally and professionally, in hopes that some might find it helpful. Up front, I’m not a clinician. I don’t treat people, I’m not licensed, nor do I have that sort of practice. I’ve never had an eating disorder although I’ve done many dumb things in my life. Like many of you, though, I had a rough childhood. There was a lot of loss, anger, and mental illness in my family, and it’s taken me a long time to work through many of the resulting problems. When I was 11, I stopped brushing my teeth for a year. I went to great lengths to hide this, lock myself, the bathroom, run the water, squeeze out some toothpaste, wet my toothbrush but I wouldn’t brush my teeth. My mom got suspicious, but the more she pushed, the more inventive I got at hiding my behavior. It was the only area of my life that I felt I had any control over, and I stuck to my guns. I spent a lot of my adolescence and early adulthood flailing about, fighting everybody and everything, but never totally lost control but came close many a time. I am a person who is interested in adult development - the processes by which people choose to change themselves. I’ve spent 20 years studying both Eastern and Western psychology to understand myself and how people develop. I’m also a health psychologist and study how people cope with stress -- not just to alleviate problems, but how they can grow from even the most miserable of circumstances. We’ve learned a lot about how people get into trouble, and how people extract themselves from it but much of this information is buried in books and journals, and is not readily available. Clinicians can be extremely helpful, and I have benefited from being taught some techniques but, not all clinicians are helpful, and not everyone is ready to get help in that way. So I thought I would share what we do know about ending addictions and coping with stress. One study by a friend of mind showed that the difference between people who quit smoking and those who remained addicted was just one coping strategy. Didn’t matter which one, just having one thing to do instead of smoking made the difference. Also, there’s no magic bullet. There’s no strategy that will work for everybody at every time but the more tools you have, the better off you are. If you have overwhelming depression, thoughts of suicide, or anger you can’t control - get help! You might need to go through a couple of therapists before you find someone you can work with, but, trust me, it’s worth it. Suicide is never a way out it just makes things worse. But there are things that you can do to liberate yourself from the suffering caused by addictions and other forms of self-destructive behavior. It takes time, and it is a slow process, but, in healing, you learn valuable things about yourself, which enable you to help, not only yourself, but others as well. Which is why Sarah’s web page is so valuable. Reaching out to help others can be the best way to help yourself. By struggling with problems, you can become more mindful and compassionate, and a more integrated human being. Minding the Body Think of the body not of something solid that ingests and excretes, but rather as a beautiful, syncopated pattern of rhythms. Our hearts beat rhythmically, our lungs breath rhythmically, and our hormones ebb and flow. Food is simply the fuel which help keeps this syncopation going. When you eat, your body (among other things) makes more insulin to help store glucose into fat reserves. If you starve yourself, your body gets really insistent about food. The more you starve, the more insistent it will get (up to a point, at least), and it will want a quick fix -- sugars and starches that get glucose into the system quickly. But too rapid a flood of glucose will spike insulin levels, instead of allowing them to rise gradually. If insulin spikes, then it drops too rapidly and you feel like you’re starving again. Binging puts too much glucose into the system, and overwhelms the insulin levels, causing nausea. So, when you eat too much, you feel nauseous - a signal to stop eating. If instead you purge, you’ve gotten rid of the glucose overload, which may make you temporarily feel better, but you’ve still all this insulin in your system. So it crashes, and the cycle starts all over again. Eventually, the fluctuations get wilder and wilder, and your rhythms fall apart and gets unsyncopated. Your body starts fighting you, and you start fighting your body, and, in short, it’s a mess. But if you don’t love and care for your body, who will? The dirty little secret is that diets make you fat. Study after study has shown that people who diet end up weighing more than people who don’t diet. The diet industry and all the fashion magazines -- multi-billion dollar industries – don’t want you to know that. They’d lose too much money. Why does dieting make you fat? Because we have something called famine genes that change the body’s metabolism if it thinks there’s not enough food. So you can eat less but still not lose weight, because you expend less energy (and feel more tired). Yes, you can temporarily loose weight by restricting calories, but, once you start eating normally, you can gain it all back and then some. Why? Because the famine genes ensure that when food is finally there again, the body will secrete a lot more insulin to create fat stores to stave off the harmful effects of starvation. So dieting will, in the long run, make you fat. I know someone who went from a petite 105 lbs to 200 in a very short period of time by dieting. But there have been lots of people who have lost weight permanently. It can only be done by making lifestyle changes (Prochaska has a web site which recounts many of these stories). So, how do you establish a rhythm? Well, in small, boring ways. Eat at regular times, like 8, 12, and 6, or whatever works in your schedule. I don’t care if at first it’s just toast and tea, if your body knows when it’s going to get the fuel it requires, it’ll adapt. Eat things that allow glucose to enter the blood stream slowly, whole grains, proteins, vegetables, fruits. It doesn’t have to be exotic -- a roast beef or tuna sandwich on whole wheat w/ lettuce & tomato is fine. Avoid foods with simple sugars. Eat slowly. It takes a few minutes for the stomach and small intestine to process the food enough to break it down, so, if you don’t gobble your food, your brain has time enough to catch up and let you know you’re full before you finish your meal, so you end up eating less. Drink enough water to help process food efficiently (1-2 glasses/meal). Enjoy your food! Doesn’t seem likely right now? It is possible. But you also need to work on reducing/eliminating binge and purge cycles. We also know techniques for doing that. Minding Behavior What’s scary is that binging and purging can become automatic behaviors, which seem to be out of your control altogether. The only cure for that is self-knowledge and making behavior purposive -- in a word, mindful. Some people can stop cold turkey, but most need to do it gradually. Becoming mindful forces us to stop ignoring negative consequences, and become more in control. Identifying triggers. If you want to end a behavior, it is useful to understand the circumstances or feelings that trigger it. Many clinicians advise that you spend a week, not trying to change, but simply observing yourself, monitoring the behavior. When you want to binge (or purge or smoke or drink), where are you? What happens immediately before you feel the urge? What types of emotions are you feeling? Anger? Blue? Stressed? Helpless? Don’t try to change it, or even evaluate it. Don’t criticize or get mad or disgusted at yourself. Treat yourself like one of those kinetic sculptures that you can spend hours observing, trying to figure out how the ball gets to where it’s going. If it’s helpful, keep a small notebook, and just jot down where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re feeling. What you want to do is figure out what your triggers are, and how to avoid them. (Understanding how you got those triggers is a different matter, and one probably best explored with a therapist.) Binging mindfully. Usually when people binge, they shovel food in without bothering to experience it. You can eat a gallon of ice cream watching a video before you know it. Instead, when you binge, concentrate on the experience. What does it taste like? What does it feel like? Do different foods make you feel differently? How long does it take before you feel full? If you don’t feel full, how long does it take to feel bloated and nauseous? What’s your breathing like when you feel this way? Purging mindfully. When you purge, what does it feel like? What does it taste like? What does it look like? Can you identify what you’ve just eaten? Are you bleeding anywhere? (Yes, this is gross, but this is what you’re doing, and looking at the consequences square in the face is a good way of stopping.) What does it feel like after you’ve purged? What’s happened to your breathing? Changing Behavior After you’ve done this for a few days or a week, you will be ready to change your behavior. Again, some people can cold turkey, but others need to make gradual changes that eventually will allow then control over their lives. Avoiding triggers. Once you have an idea of what sets you off, you can try to avoid it/them. For example, if you rush home from work to binge and purge, try de-stressing a little before you get home. Go for a walk through the park before you go home, or just sit in the car, listening to a favorite CD. What you want to do is to break the behavior chain of rushing in the door, hitting the fridge, and then hitting the bathroom. Sometimes, we can de-stress by just paying attention to our breathing. Our breathing reflects (and reinforces) our moods. People who are anxious, take rapid, shallow, breaths; those who are depressed take slower, shallow breaths, punctuated by long sighs. You can change how you feel simply by changing your breathing to slow, deep breaths. Delay Binging. You might not be able just to stop binging, but you can try to slow yourself down by creating environmental barriers to binging. Some possibilities include:
If you want more, see if you can delay. Try delaying for one minute, and then two. Praise yourself for delaying! If you can build up to five or ten minutes, you=re well on your way to stopping! What strategies can you come up with to delay binging? Delay Purging. Again, you may not be able to stop altogether, but you can create environmental barriers that make it more difficult. Your body will actually take care of the glucose overload pretty rapidly, so if you can delay, you might not need to purge. Again, try delaying for one minute. Praise yourself for any delay, but then start increasing the length of time. Develop substitute behaviors, which are absorbing enough to get your mind off purging. Any sort of substitute, as long as it’s not self-destructive, will do:
Again, what delaying tactics might work for you? 12-Step Programs create a buddy system, hooking up new people with someone they can call day or night and get support when they feel the urge to do drink. If you know someone else who’s struggling with this same problem, maybe you can create your own buddy system and help each other through those times when you really want to binge or purge. Helping other people is often the best way to help yourself. Eventually, you will gain control over the behavior. It doesn’t happen all at once, and you mustn’t get discouraged when you have set backs. Keep a log of binging and purging, and, if these techniques are working, you should see the frequency of the behavior decrease over a few weeks or months. But you have to substitute healthy behaviors for self-destructive ones. Minding Your Heart Sal Minuchin believes that all symptoms are a purpose, there for a reason. They’re a form of communication that, for whatever reason, you can’t express verbally. Binging and purging may simply be a result of dieting gone awry, but, then again, they may also be a form of communication. Sometimes, people are so desperate for attention that they will engage in negative behavior B because any attention, even being yelled at or accompanied to the ER B is better than none. Other times, the binging and purging have another psychological purpose -- a way of getting back at someone, expressing dependency needs, or just creating an area in which you initially feel in control. So, in addition to self-observation and becoming mindful, you may need to understand what you’re getting out of doing this. Eating carbohydrates (or smoking or drinking) is a way of regulating mood. It can (temporarily) decrease depression or anxiety. The problem is that, in the long run, it makes the emotions worse. You may need to understand why you are depressed or anxious, and figure out what to do about that. Sometimes this is best done with a therapist. Well, I’ve gone on for long enough. I was going to write something about what we know about coping with stress, but nuff’s nuff for now. If people are interested, may I’ll write something up on that later. The important thing to remember is that all things are temporary, and will pass. Things may look really hopeless, but many people have been through this and gotten through it, and you can too. Just out of curiosity, you folks that wrote in that you did manage to stop, what did you do to stop? Knowing that it’s possible is an important first step, but knowing how is also helpful. Carolyn Aldwin is a Professor and Developmental Psychologist, E.S. She holds a P.h.D. in Adult Development & Aging from the University of California, San Francisco. Carolyn has generously offered her expertise and knowledge of Coping Methods to Payson Road. Learning to Love Our Bodies
and Ourselves Today in America you can be whatever you want to be - any dream can be accomplished as long as you pursue it. We have economic security and we live in a peaceful and prosperous nation! We live in the land of opportunity, rich with culture and diversity, the land of the free! The question I pose is - "is America the land of the free, especially for women?" With all the freedom and prosperity we enjoy women still remain prisoners. "Prisoners", you ask, what do you mean? Women are enslaved to a beauty myth, chained to the false belief that our value is based on our appearance alone. In the United States approximately 10% of girls and women (numbering up to 10 million) are suffering from diagnosed eating disorders. Of these at least 50,000 will die as a direct result! Recent data reported by the American Psychiatric Association suggests that of all psychiatric disorders, the greatest excess of patient mortality due to natural and unnatural causes is associated with eating disorders and substance abuse. How did this problem reach such epidemic proportions? Why are we dieting ourselves to death, literally dying to fit in? When did we become so ashamed of our bodies, when did we learn to hate them so much? While eating disorders claim lives and significantly impact the health and well being of sufferers, as we investigate further an even more disturbing picture emerges. An amazing 80% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance. These numbers are staggering! Surely they cannot be correct! How and why could we have learned such contempt for our bodies and ourselves? Eating disorders are complex and understanding their etiology requires complex interventions by professionals. In this article I want to examine eating disorders in the context of the questions I posed above. Why are women attacking their bodies? Where did we learn that our self worth is measured by external factors - by numbers on a scale? The answer lies in constant, subtle attacks on our bodies. These attacks wear us down, shake our confidence and esteem. We loose our sense of self, individuality and fall victim to narrow definitions of beauty defined by the media. The media acts as a propaganda machine determined to shake our confidence, remind us we aren't good enough, we haven't made it, that we just simply do not measure up. In a recent poll by People magazine 80% of women reported that the images of women of TV and in movies, fashion magazines ad advertising make them feel insecure about their looks. In addition, the poll indicated that women are made to feel so insecure that they are willing to try diets that pose health risks (34%), go "under the knife" (34%) and 93% indicated they had made various and repeated attempts to lose weight to measure up to the images. Why is the media bent on making us feel so down about ourselves? Why do they go to such lengths to make us feel "less than?" The answer is quite simple - pure economics. The media machine is economically driven as billions are spent on items such as cosmetics, new diets and clothes. This "beautifying" empire is dependent on our disempowerment. They count on us buying into their myths and misrepresentations: "we will never fit it, we can never be happy, thus we can never end the pursuit." Alas, the pursuit is endless, the products are endless, the damage to our self-esteem is endless, and the body hatred created is devastating. The assault is unrelenting! The images everywhere. How could it all happen, right under our noses? It is a subtle, continuous bombardment of images of beauty, images defined by profiteers, images that are not real, not authentic, and not attainable. The impact that these images have on women is profound. The financial, social and psychological and physical damages of a woman's lifetime pursuit of thinness are impossible to measure. Depression, despair, depletion of self-esteem, the withering and wasting away of physical, psychological and financial resources are unbelievable. How can we begin to make changes? How can we assess our damage report? We must all take a personal inventory of how our lives have been impacted by these images and how we have fallen victim to these lies and misrepresentations of beauty. By examining how these images have impacted your life you are better equip to avoid falling victim to these myths. You will learn to measure yourself by intrinsic qualities that are of far greater value and are far more beautiful than any image manufactured on a movie screen. I was a victim of these attacks on esteem, on women's power, on our self-worth. I was a prisoner and almost a casualty of this war. If I did not wake-up and take a personal inventory and examine my value system I could have easily sunken into the prison of repeat diets, repeat failure and lifelong contempt for my body. As a prisoner I had to ask myself some tough questions: when did I start to hate my body so much? When did I begin to measure my self-worth by numbers on a scale? When did I fall prey to the idea that beauty is external and success is measured by factors that have little to do with personal strength and spirit? We must be aware of the images presented to us and unmask these images for what they truly are - destructive, superficial and unattainable images. These images do not value our uniqueness, they do not honor our wisdom and our spirit, and they do not measure us. We must reclaim and redefine our bodies as ours. They are miraculous, we all know this! Our bodies perform wonderful feats every day. We are physiological and biological masterpieces. Our bodies are not our enemies - they put us in motion, they create and sustain life. The functions our bodies perform for us are too numerous and varied to list. Vow that you will not longer fall victim to these images and help those around you to the road of self-love and acceptance. Advocate for freedom from body hatred and fight the billion dollar advertising, cosmetic, diet, entertainment and fashion industries - let's stand up for ourselves, our values, our bodies, our lives. We must challenge ourselves, our culture and our children. The stakes are too high to back down. Lives are lost each year as beautiful, healthy young women starve themselves to death. Millions of us are suffering from depression and anxiety as we are bombarded with images of our "faults." It is time to change, change begins from within and radiates out- let's begin. The consequences of body hatred and the serious issue of eating disorders are far to significant and far reaching to be addressed simply by pointing the finger at the media machine. Eating disorders are complex and involved complex interactions of psychological, biological, sociological, and interpersonal factors and do require professional assistance. Further, eating disorders and body hatred impact the lives of millions of men and women. It is not only women that buy into these myths and it is not only women that suffer with these illnesses. Eating disorders are gripping and life-threatening. If you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder please seek information and assistance. For additional information on the treatment and prevention of eating disorders please visit the Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center. Like Payson Road, the Eating Disorder
Referral and Information Center is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of
eating disorders. Providing information and treatment resources for all forms of
eating disorders. Referrals to eating disorder specialists are offered at
no charge as a community service. Eating Disorder Referral and Information
Center International Eating Disorder Referral Center Office: 858-792-7463 Website
Email
What
a Miracle! “What a miracle! I could not understand how desperate you were to get out of the prison of anorexia. You have had a very sad life. Well, you have finally experienced the freedom from the disease. You are a survivor and a winner.” These
words were told to me 9 years ago at the age of 19 after finally, for the first
time in my life finding help. February 1, 1993 is the day I really started
living life. Before that time I was not living, but battling something greater
than myself every moment of the day. I never imagined I could stand before you
today and share my story with you. I am honored and devoted to try to explain
the destruction and damage eating disorders can cause. Sometimes I feel like I
am much older because of my experiences. I do not have many memories before the
age of 6. I have been told that I was put on a diet as an infant because I was
gaining too much weight. I also have been told I was a happy go lucky girl who
always had a smile on her face. I often have wondered where that little girl
went because I have no childhood memories of her.
Instead these are the childhood memories I have.
Between the ages of 7 and 8 I started to feel very uncomfortable in
my body. I hated to go clothes shopping and I received subtle messages that as I
look back played a role in the beginning stages of my anorexia.
The chubby cheeks my grandma and aunts loved to squeeze. On the soccer
field my dad called me thunder thighs. I also started developing and remember
being excited to get my first bra. My mom even started reading me books
preparing me for my first menstrual cycle. And then there was my first diet. My
dad and grandma were always trying to lose weight. I never thought much about it
until one day my grandma and dad said they were going on Weight Watchers. I
asked if I could join too. I was in the stage of baby fat and hated being called
chubby by family members. I went to my doctor who said I did not need to go on a
diet. He said I was starting to develop early and as I grew the baby fat would
disappear. I was stubborn and finally he said he would write a note to Weight
Watchers to allow me to lose at the most 10 pounds. The day I joined Weight
Watchers changed my life. For many victims their eating disorders begin with a
diet. I was 8 going on nine. My world changed overnight. My thinking about food
changed from just eating when I was hungry to labeling foods good and bad,
controlling my portions, fat intake and soon how few calories I could live on.
Within a month adults were complimenting me on my self-control-wishing they
could stick to a diet like I could. After
three months we no longer went weekly to save money, but that did not stop me. I
had lost 12 pounds and asked myself why stop there? I was a success, unlike my
dad and grandma. I realized how I excelled at dieting. It quickly took control.
Most evenings I cried myself to sleep feeling guilty for fighting with my
parents and wanting my inner torment to stop. Losing weight was taking a toll on
my body. I was competing in a select soccer league and taking dance
lessons. I had to eventually quit both because I fainted on the soccer field.
I was no longer allowed to do the activities that helped me feel like a
normal child. On my way to school one day in the Spring I felt overwhelmed with
guilt and other feelings so I ran all the way home and told my parents I needed
help. I could not stop what I was doing. The following Monday morning I was
diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and admitted into a hospital.
I was nine years old, dehydrated, my electrolytes were unbalanced and I
was having uncontrollable seizures. I didn’t know what to think. I truly
though it was a diet that went out of control. After getting stabilized they
sent me upstairs to the psychiatric ward where other patients were hyperactive
children, schizophrenics and suicidal teenagers. I was the only eating disorder
patient. The ward was based on behavior modification. If you did what they
wanted you achieved points. I worked with a psychiatrist who prescribed an
antidepressant and used threats to get me to eat. I had no contact with a
nutritionist and was not gaining at the rate they wanted. They threatened to put
a tube down my throat 3 times a day and often I was locked in my room as a form
of punishment. The hospital was a quick fix. It was also my family’s first
introduction to the frustrations of getting adequate and effective treatment.
The frustration continued throughout the years and I still see it with parents
today. Our insurance at the time
only would authorize this treatment program, which really didn’t know how to
appropriately treat someone with anorexia.
The insurance company also put a cap on the number of days they would
cover. Despite the fact that I was still mentally and physically a wreck I was
discharged early. I remember the day I left thinking everything will be ok. I
also remember for the first time seeing my dad cry in relief that they still had
their daughter. I never imagined that was only the beginning.
During the next year my father looked throughout our surrounding areas
for an eating disorder counselor who could finally start treating the root cause
of this terrifying cycle I could not seem to escape. The first one we
found was an hour away, but he had written a popular eating disorder book and
seemed very knowledgeable. After a month of seeing him he told me he did not
think he could help me. He had never encountered a child my age that had an
eating disorder and he did not think our time would be effective. At the time my
early onset of anorexia had many doctors frustrated in how to best treat me.
That began years of trying to find a counselor and a hospital that really knew
about and effectively treated anorexia. This
was the beginning of my childhood lost.
I spent over 12 years in and out of hospitals trying to find help and
break free from the prison of anorexia. My
dad drove me weekly 2 hours one-way to a counselor. Eventually that counselor
would not see me because I lost too much weight per our contract she had set up
for me. Two years later I entered another hospital, an eating disorder clinic. I
was there for two months and then the following year I was back in for three
months. If I were a certain “weight” the insurance company would authorize a
stay based on medical need, but if I was one pound more they would not. My
parents quickly learned that they needed to educate the medical doctors on how
the system worked. In the
hospitals the focus was on eating and gaining weight within the time allotted by
the health insurance companies. A pattern developed. I would get discharged from
a hospital and slowly lose the weight again. It was a drastic change going from
being fed and in a secure environment to being on my own and having to feed
myself. The hospitals never worked
with me to get at the underlying issues; such as the fact that I did not think I
deserved food or freedom from the torment of anorexia.
I developed a negative thinking pattern at a very young age that caused
me to believe that I deserved to be punished and did not deserve happiness. The
hospitals, counselors and medical doctors supported this thinking by rewarding
me only for weight gain. The way I chose to punish myself was through the
anorexia. The hospitals did not deal with my thinking. The anorexic voice
quickly became the only voice I knew. The voices would tell me lies and pretty
soon I could not separate the truth from the anorexic voice. In my family we
called it “Annie.” It was so real to me that pretty soon I only believed
what Annie told me. I often felt
crazy, weird and would cry out to God nightly to take it from me. It was not
that I did not want to get better, but I did not know how to actually do it. How
do you change the only thing you know? I
never achieved a healthy weight throughout my adolescence. By age 12 I was
prescribed birth control pills not because I was sexually active, but because
they were afraid of me developing osteoporosis. They also warned me that I could
stunt my growth and the opportunity to be able to bear children. I heard it, but
my drug of choice, anorexia, was the only safe and consistent thing I had.
I led two lives. I put on the happy face long enough in public. My
parents always knew it was a lie. They could see through my hollow eyes. It was
like I was controlled by something greater than myself.
At a desperate place I attempted suicide by overdosing on Prozac- the
medicine I was on at the time. I wanted my pain to go away. I felt so alone. It
already had been over 10 years of trying to get me help. The next treatment that
my insurance would authorize was a convalescent home. For two weeks I lived in a
home with elderly patients in Sacramento getting tube feedings and working as
the “bingo” lady. It was a humiliating experience. When discharged I set my
sights on college. I begged them all to let me go thinking maybe college could
change me. I excelled my first semester of college. I thought I was doing ok
until I was called into the college’s president’s office. They sent me to be
evaluated by an eating disorder specialist who told me I could die any day with
a heart attack and that I would die if I continued in this pattern. The school,
being private, told me they could not be liable for my death. They told me that
I could not return the next semester. Within a month I was back home, lying in
our local hospital with IV’s, near death and the lowest weight I had been
sense 7 years old. My parents were desperate after years of attempting to find
me a counselor or a hospital that could actually help escape the prison I was
in. They knew another hospital
would not help me. It would stabilize me, but not help me learn to live again. I
needed something different-long-term. Shame,
guilt, loneliness, hopelessness overwhelmed me. College was everything to me and
I had lost that too. I knew I would die from anorexia if something did not
change in my life. But how? The
only thing I knew was living in the prison. I had already lost my childhood.
I had a choice to make. I knew God saved me for a reason and somehow
someway had a plan for me. Desperate, but not hopeless my father called
throughout the world looking for a residential program that they could somewhat
afford. At this point they were already in debt due to past medical bills. It is
not unusual for a one-month stay at a program to cost over $30,000. How
realistic is this? My parents told me if I had cancer they would do anything to
get me help and they saw anorexia as just as important. They sacrificed cars,
vacations and even a home to try to get me help.
After days of calling around my dad found a residential program in Miami
called Pathways. It currently is under a new name. Pathways was based on the 12
step model treating several different forms of addiction. It was economical too.
It cost a total of $3,000 a month, including living expenses.
I lived in apartments with three other patients. I was responsible for
maintaining the house, grocery shopping and cooking for myself. You had to want
to be there or you were kicked out. February
1, 1993 was the beginning of a long and difficult recovery.
Pathways had counselors, nutritionists, psychiatrists and doctors who had
experience treating eating disorders. Several had recovered from some addiction
too. They helped me work on Mind and the lies I had come to believe about
myself. They helped me mourn the little girl and childhood I rejected and never
could reclaim. Recovery was a process. I developed a willingness and courage to
trust that I would be ok. I realized I no longer needed the protection of
anorexia and I no longer needed to punish myself.
At my graduation the counselors told my parents that when I entered
Pathways they thought I was a hopeless case because of my age and the years I
had battled anorexia. The saying goes the earlier the onset of an eating disorder
the harder to break free. Pathways
helped me build a foundation and helped me learn how to live without an eating
disorder. It was not easy because my memories, my life up until that point, were
only of anorexia and the negative thinking that I had come to believe. I had to
rediscover who I really was. I allowed my body as well as my mind and spirit to
return to health. Though healthy now I live with the consequences of anorexia.
At age 27 I already have osteoporosis despite the years on hormones. Also, due
to the years of stress I put on my body I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I
also stunted my growth. I am only 5”2. I have been told I would be taller
today if not for the eating disorder. My menstrual cycle has never returned. Now
married that hits home. I have an 80% chance of not being able to conceive. I
put my body through so much abuse during a crucial time of development. It is a
daily reminder of the destruction eating disorders can cause at an early age.
Today I live in a small rural town in Northern California working as a
teacher, and an eating disorder educational speaker and consultant. I work with
the Eating Disorders Coalition, which sponsors today’s briefing and the
Kristin Watt Foundation to bring awareness to children, parents, teachers and
medical professionals. I also work with girls one on one who are struggling with
eating disorders. I provide support, recovery tools, nutritional plans and hope.
Their eyes light up when they realize they are not alone and are not crazy. I am
committing my life to prevent these girls from losing their childhood the way I
did. I ask you to help them as
well. It is hard to put into words what it is like to be caught in an eating disorder. It is a living hell where you want so bad to get out, but do not see the way. It creeps up on you and slowly invades every aspect of your mind, body and behavior. I thank God everyday for the life I lead today. If only I could have found effective treatment earlier maybe some of those years could have been saved. Contact Mindi: Website designed and
administered by Sarah Mason.
Payson
Road was created Copyright © June 2, 2000. All rights
reserved. Copyright © 2000-5
[Payson Road]. All rights
reserved. Revised:
November 04, 2005.
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