 |
 |
  |
 | ||
 |
 |
 |
 | ||
   |
click here to return to the list of
Andrea
My name is Andrea. I'm in an odd mix of being in recovery (since about 1990) from an eating disorder, and becoming a professional who can help others find the path to recovery.
I came from family that seemed normal on the surface, but there was alcoholism (some admitted, some not) and a looooot of feeling-stuffing. I never purged (except for running once for an hour after a binge), and I never was anorexic. I suffered from what the DSM-IV now lists as "binge eating disorder". One thing that's bothered me for years is that in the professional and media world, if you didn't get super skinny and you didn't purge, you didn't really have "an eating disorder", or at least not one that they could define. To me this means it wasn't really seen as significant. Now, DSM-IV (that's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, version four,
published by the American Psychiatric Association--us helping professionals' controversial official manual of What Can Be Wrong With You) is now working on finding out more about Binge Eating Disorder. Its proposed definition and guidelines are in the section labelled "Criteria Sets and Axes Provided for Further Study." To me that's really good. We'll finally have a voice. For those who are interested I'll post the diagnostic criteria at the end of this letter. These criteria really spoke to me when I read them. I think they're finally on to something. (Mind you they don't say that all obese people have an ED--they say if you're bingeing, it's causing you distress, and you don't have anorexia or bulimia, you have this disorder.
At Overeaters Anonymous, I learned that I had an eating disorder. OA also gave me a thorough, personal understanding of the Twelve Steps. I believe in this program and I use it in my work now that I'm a certified substance abuse counselor. I also use the principles in my ongoing recovery. However, this is all--and I do mean all--that OA was able to give me. Mind you I'm writing about my experience and no one else's. In OA I got fatter and more miserable. I tried--oh how I tried. No one in OA has ever tried any harder than me. (I'm sure there are people who tried as much, but no harder.) I tried for years, and I even tried to not try, so as to "let it flow more naturally." All the time, my disorder raged on, worsening. By now I was an undergraduate at UCLA. I was crankin' away in school--I ended up graduating with a 3.89 in Psychology, Summa Cum, PBK, the whole bit. Ah, how perfectionism and self-denial work wonders on one's academic record! I suppose that was one of the upsides of my dysfunctional family. But, I gradually faded out of OA as I saw (my opinion only, mind you): People who claimed 5, 10 years' "abstinence from compulsive eating" but didn't seem too abstinent to me; conditional love from my sponsors ("I'll only be your sponsor if you stay abstinent"); and I also saw that no one in OA truly grasped being at peace with food. If there were any such people, I never met them, and I went to hundreds and hundreds of meetings.
Finally, after floundering for a while, I began to use the principles of two books that literally saved my life: Overcoming Overeating, by Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter, and Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating, by Geneen Roth. Today I can say that I have recovered. I am not recovering. I have recovered. I still have many days where I believe I'm too fat (and I'm not--I'm normal weight). I think this is because I'm a perfectionist surrounded by a thin-obsessed culture. But I don't binge, starve, etc. Haven't in years. The basic idea of my recovery, obtained from the books listed above, are:
Yes, there is life on the other side. Our bodies contain inherent mechanisms to regulate food -- UNLIKE alcohol or other drugs, which are totally foreign to them. You have to try to discover them. One critique I've heard of twelve step programs as used for EDs is that they always require you to use some energy maintaining vigilance against "slips", rather than allowing you to find your way back to the natural state you were in as a baby. Then, you cried (and hopefully ate) when you were hungry, and stopped when you were full. You hadn't yet internalized the damaging norms of "lunchtime" or "too fat", etc. etc. I give my most wholehearted blessing to those who use and believe in and find success in the OA program for themselves. Hurrah, keep it up!!! I just feel angry when OAs say, "There is something inherently flawed in you -- you are different from everyone else -- there is no other way out for you than this program." It is a blanket judgement that IS NOT true for all people with EDs. That frequently espoused dogma kept me sick -- and very guilty for my "failure" -- for many years. I really did have it bad, too -- I am someone who used to binge on powdered coffee creamer when nothing else was available. If I could go 5 minutes without thinking about it it was very unusual. So you can't
really say I never was a compulsive eater.
Anyhow, to wrap up (I never could write anything short), I am now a student in the Masters of Social Work program at Cal State Long Beach (California). I work as a counselor working with 79 developmentally disabled teens. I want to do my thesis on using the programs I mentioned above to treat people with EDs. These methods haven't gotten very much attention in the research -- neither has Bradshaw's work. I feel angry about that because they **work**. It's really scary to process all the anger--fury, really--I stuffed for years. It's still my first impulse to repress a feeling rather than live in it. That's what I learned in my family. But it's really neat to feel feelings. I now feel alive, living, rather than existing. It's been difficult,
working a 40 hour week in social work and getting through grad school at night. In fact, I've even felt like overeating at times. But now, if I "overeat" -- which ALL people do sometimes, mind you--it's only a few extra bites beyond physically full, or one chocolate chip cookie when I'm not hungry, something like that. It's not a binge. The desire's gone. And I continue to work on what AAs refer to as "the hole in the soul". Never could figure out what they were talking about, before. Now I know! But it's closing.
If you'd like to write me with any comments, feel free! My address is:
[email protected].
:: Reaching In ::
YOU ::
Coping ::
Motivations :: :: Affirmations :: Body Image :: Treatment Types :: :: Questions :: How Will I Pay :: Helpful Books :: :: Treatment Finder ::
|
 | |||
 |
  |
 |
 | ||
| :: back home :: | The Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders is the property of and copyrighted to Something Fishy Music & Publishing. All rights reserved. Read the legal stuff and our privacy policy, who we are, and thank you's. To get authorization for reproduction, in part or in whole, for print or electronic media, you must get permission. |
 
|