So Lauren had this brilliant idea, and I’m trying to figure out how I can help. I thought I might put up a post about low-cost/DIY framing options. Framing usually helps sell a piece of artwork, and is often required for showing work. It’s also horribly expensive and a pain in the ass, especially for someone who might not have very much money or equipment and who is already forced to budget for art supplies. I don’t know a handsaw from a hawk, though, so it’s difficult. I’ve encountered a few ideas; I’ll go check for more, and see if there’s some way to test them out.
Until I get around to doing that, I came up with something else. One of the ways in which the blogosphere is really useful is bringing people with similar experiences together, even though they’re generally isolated in real life and would never meet each other otherwise. The internet has offered incredible possibilities for support and information sharing, formal and informal, and it’s allowed people without many resources to find assistance. It’s not free, but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy and it’s available all the time.
With that in mind, I thought I’d open up a series of threads as resources. I’m not sure what the end product will look like, or if it’ll be as useful as I hope, but here goes.
I’m starting with eating disorders, not to be confined to bulimia and anorexia. I outlined some of my thoughts in this post.
For those of you who are struggling or have struggled with eating disorders, disordered behavior, bodily shame and self-hatred:
What did you need more than anything else? What help did you want from your friends, family, spouses, loved ones, and community? What help did you receive? What was most difficult? When were you most miserable and isolated? When did you feel safest? What strategies did you use to heal yourself, and how have they worked for you? What resources, online or offline, were useful? How did you regain your health and your appetite? How have you continued to protect yourself and others?
On the other hand, what didn’t work? What was dangerous or ineffective? What contributed to your isolation or exhaustion? What aggravated your disorder or your misery? What irritated the living fuck out of you? If any of these failed measures can be improved, how would you fix them?
Finally, are there any thoughts you’d like to share about this loose collection of problems and your experience with it?
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I haven’t had time to get through all my thoughts on EDs, but slightly off-topic, I really hope you’ll do this! It would be very helpful, and is something I’d love to know how to do.
Outstanding idea, Piny. There’s a lot I could write about in response, starting with Hello! Straight men do battle eating disorders!.
Being told I was already thin enough never helped. Certain phrases did help. One ex of mine put it in a way I would get: “Hugo, your body is like a car. Cars run on fuel. Without fuel, you can’t drive. Without food, you can’t do what you want to do.” It was a blatant appeal to the traditionally male sense of the self as a machine — and more than anything else anyone ever said to me, it worked.
I’ll think more about this, but thanks for starting this up.
I’d like to second Hugo’s thoughts as to what has really worked – I’ve never had an ED, but I’ve been teetering on the edge many a time. And the thing – the ONLY thing – that has always, always pulled me back from that edge has been the thought of not being able to accomplish the goals I want to accomplish because I have an eating disorder. It’s the equivalent of a bucket of cold water on my spiraling-downward thoughts towards ED-related self harm, and it always works.
I’m female, though, and I don’t think that the idea of body-as-machine, or more generally, the idea of body as active tool rather than passive object, is specifically masculine. Radically rethinking my body in terms of what it can do rather than what it can look like has been the key to my finally accepting my body for what it is. It’s feminist, sure, but not masculine, KWIM?
Yes, I think so. Although I’ve had problems keeping this from becoming an obsession as well, using my body to do things like eight-mile hikes and all-day bike rides has helped me think of it as an actor rather than an ornament.
I’ve been bulimic off and on for 15 years and am finally trying to get beyond my ED. What helps the most for me is for the people around me to tell me that they love me just the way I am, that I don’t have to change a thing, and they won’t love me any more or less if I do change. (I’ve learned not to expect this from my mother, though, and I’ve also learned how to shut her down when she gets weird about my body and weight.)
What absolutely DOES NOT help is the mention of any numbers. Don’t tell me your weight because I’ll instantly compare myself to you. Don’t talk about calories or fat grams, either, but especially don’t talk to me about the number on the scale. Don’t say “Why don’t you just stop? How can you do that? That’s so gross!” unless you want an explanation of binging and purging that will expose how truly awful most bulimics feel about themselves.
Don’t assume that your lack of ED makes you a better person and especially don’t assume that your weight makes you a better person (because that’s the very thought process behind eating disorders).
I’m still very much a work in progress, and this past weekend has contained some big decisions and changes regarding my recovery (binge eating disorder). I have made great strides in the past year but I still have so very far to go.
I want to be able to talk to my family or friends that don’t have issues around food, and have them listen and try to “get it” without giving me weird looks or judging me because of my food issues. I have enough shame surrounding it already.
I’m most miserable and isolated when I’m home alone and have been blown off by friends/boyfriend/family. When I feel helpless or disappointed.
I feel safest when I am connected with my body and its’ signals. Exercise helps me do this. I am far less likely to overeat or binge on the days when I exercise.
To heal myself, I’ve learned how to get in touch with my body’s signals of hunger and fullness. I’ve also started to change my beliefs about food, body and weight. I have a list of STUFF TO DO OTHER THAN BINGE when I start feeling like I need to. I’ve allowed myself to FEEL my feelings instead of stuffing them down with food, and I didn’t die from it. The feelings passed.
I’ve also gained a ton of body confidence and overcome reservations about how my body moves in space by taking a hip hop aerobics/dance class. I was miserable the first few times, but now I feel comfortable dancing and moving my body. Watching other normal and large-sized women dance and shake their stuff has done wonders for my confidence and not feeling self-conscious about dancing or even walking across a room in front of others.
Two really great resources for me have been the ed_recovery community on Livejournal and the book “The Rules of ‘Normal’ Eating” by Karen Koenig. Somethingfishy.org is also a good, informative website.
Weight Watchers didn’t work. Yeah, it helped me lose some weight and learn a few things about portions, but I made the decision last weekend to quit after almost a year because the scale has turned into a determiner of success or failure for me, and that’s not what I want for my life. I want to listen to my body and care for it, regardless of what number shows up. I don’t want a number to determine how I feel.
What is really irritating is when friends I haven’t seen in a while comment GOD YOUVE LOST A TON OF WEIGHT and then want to spend 20 questions asking me how I did it, and can I teach them how to lose so much weight. Even though I’ve lost some, I’m still extremely uncomfortable with the subject and don’t want to go into details about it.
What makes my disorder worse for me is when I’ve been “on track” or “on plan” or stuck to weight watchers exactly, and then I gain at the weekly weigh-in. Lately it’s become a very negative, triggering thing, and does nothing to help my all or nothing mentality. Another big reason I quit.
Thank you for doing this, piny.
My Background:
Self-loathing is at the center of most eating disorders. This was definitely true for me. I was 13 and actively disliked by everyone in my small class at school. I had only recieved one B grade in my life, but my parents still lectured me constantly about not working hard enough because they were afraid I would slack off in high school and not get into college. I decided to deal with this pressure by creating the perfect “healthy” diet – I was probably only taking in about 700 calories a day, but I was absolutely convinced that this was the “perfect” way to live, that anyone who ate more than me was a disgusting glutton, and that the extremely low weight that resulted was the “natural” form for women of all ages. This pattern continued for almost a year until I joined a basketball team, made some friends, and found that I had to eat more to keep up with the team. I slowly introduced more healthy food into my diet until eventually I was able to eat a healthy diet without counting fat grams, and have the occassional dessert. By the time I was 15, I was able to eat completely normally.
My Advice:
Don’t use threats to try to stop the disordered eating. Especially don’t threaten to reveal their disorder to others or force them to visit an ED recovery unit or a psychiatrist. If you do have to get others involved, explain to the sufferer that you’re not trying to punish them.
Don’t make it personal. My mother decided that I had adopted my new eating habits just to pass judgement on her. By doing so, she let my eating disorder double as both my revenge on the world AND my teenage rebellion.
Don’t taunt an anorexic about how they’re missing out on the taste of junk foods. It just reinforces their sense of moral superiority. Instead, make healthy calorie-dense foods, like whole-wheat bread, natural peanut butter, or cottage cheese available.
As Hugo, little cabbage, and piny discussed, focus any body discussion on function rather than form.
And for God’s sake, do NOT discuss your own body/weight issues in front of someone with an ED! No matter how “normal” your comments about your body are, they will be triggering.
What helped me was first getting the tools to figure out what it was I was feeling at any given time. That required cognitive therapy, about six months worth. (I had it for depression, not the ED.) Then I got in a situation where I could control my eating; I cooked or bought the meals, what I wanted, when I wanted. I needed that degree of autonomy and privacy. I found Geneen Roth’s book “Feeding the Hungry Heart” helped a lot in terms of speaking to where I was about things. I had to sort out what being angry felt like, or feeling hurt, or feeling physical pain, or being bored, etc. So that I could say, “If I’m bored, I need to go read a book or clean something”, and if I was angry, I could do something to release that. But eating wasn’t that.
What helped me was first getting the tools to figure out what it was I was feeling at any given time. That required cognitive therapy, about six months worth. (I had it for depression, not the ED.) Then I got in a situation where I could control my eating; I cooked or bought the meals, what I wanted, when I wanted. I needed that degree of autonomy and privacy. I found Geneen Roth’s book “Feeding the Hungry Heart” helped a lot in terms of speaking to where I was about things. I had to sort out what being angry felt like, or feeling hurt, or feeling physical pain, or being bored, etc. So that I could say, “If I’m bored, I need to go read a book or clean something”, and if I was angry, I could do something to release that. But eating wasn’t that.
Background: binge eating disorder, still struggling sometimes, still fat, but mostly coping well. Strategies and things that helped:
Disconnecting food from comfort and pleasure; not that I cannot enjoy food, but learning to find ways of reacting to disappointment and frustration and sadness that don’t include reaching for the chocolate.
Learning to eat without shame. Going to college really helped with this, oddly; though I did gain some weight, it felt tremendously freeing to be able to eat whatever I wanted without my dad giving me the stink-eye or my mom talking to me afterwards all worried. The chefs didn’t care if I had a greasy fried sandwich or a healthy salad, and my friends didn’t either.
Finding ways to feel good about my appearance that don’t revolve around weight. For example: fantastic haircut, sweaters in rich saturated colors, beautiful perfumes. It helps me a lot.
And working out my depression, definitely. I went to therapy for about a year and a half solid and am going off anti-depressants after two years on them, but untangling a whole knot of issues has also helped me figure out my issues with food.
Thank you all. This is very helpful.
I’ve been bulimic for nine years, and I’ve actually just backslid in the past couple of months (it’d probably been close to a year before that since I’d last purged). That, incidentally, is very possibly harder on me than being sick to begin with; being sick and knowing what I know and seeing how far I’ve come makes everything a hundred times worse.
What has helped the most (when it did help) was getting out of my supremely superficial fashion industry job and into a job that a) wasn’t completely centered on appearance and b) judged me solely by my talent, as opposed to my talent-plus-ability-to-fit-in (i.e., be skinny). I know that’s kind of intuitive, but there you have it. When I was in therapy, it was actually for my depression, recognizing that my ED was really a reaction to that and a coping mechanism.
Starting to exercise has really helped, for all of the reasons other people have given: It delivers plenty of endorphins (which help with the depression), it reinforces my responsibility to take care of my body rather than stuffing it with food and then purging, and it turns my body into a functional instrument instead of a decorative object. When before, I’d been satisfied just to see my weight dropping, now I’m paying attention to things like muscle mass and endurance and being a strong woman instead of just a pretty one.
It also helps for me to not eat out. I’m far more likely to purge something I’ve eaten at a restaurant than something I’ve cooked myself, I guess because I “trust” my own cooking. I know that’s something I’m going to have to work through eventually, but at this stage, for me, I’m still taking (or, I suppose, re-taking) baby steps. And it helps to have understanding friends who aren’t going to nag me about food; if we’re all eating, and they’re on their second helping, and I stopped at one, I’m not going to get pressured. They understand that the first helping will probably stay down, and the second helping might not.
The most valuable thing, though, has been a great support system. My parents both freaked out when they found out I was sick, and as much as I hate to say it, I haven’t really been able to lean on them in that respect (although they’ve both been great as far as my depression is concerned). My strongest pillar has always been my best friend, because he’s the very definition of unconditional love and reminds me that I’m a valuable and worthwhile individual – period. Sappy, I know, but again, there you have it.
One thing that hasn’t helped in the slightest is being told how good (read: thin) I look. The fact that acknowledging my “success” only reinforces my ED totally escapes some people.
Another thing that didn’t work: Religion. I had a priest tell me once that I needed to stop bingeing and purging because my body was a temple to God that I needed to take care of. That worked for about two months, until I backslid, at which point I felt guiltier than ever, because not only was I weak, I was also a sinner. Great! Thanks for that.
A third thing that didn’t work: Getting mad at me. I had a boyfriend who, every time I backslid, got angry at me – not frustrated with the situation, angry at me – because something about his loving presence was supposed to miraculously heal me. Things got a lot better after I unloaded him.
Wow, and when I read the post I thought I’d be the only one with a straight overeating disorder, rather than undereating or purging. Hard to say what might have helped when I was falling fast into it, but here’s what didn’t:
Any mention of diets.
Anyone else talking about how they needed to lose weight, or were losing weight, or how “someone” could lose weight.
Any discussion of food, period. I was, and am still, extremely sensitive about food, and probably do know more about calories and nutrition and ecological impacts and heath impacts and everything else about food than the people I’m talking to, because I’ve been fucking obsessed about it, so don’t think you’re doing me a favor by telling me about the latest research on diets.
After all of that, strangely, what bothers me the most is that no one said anything to me about what was going on at all. I gained 70 fucking pounds in less than 2 years, and no one said anything about what might be wrong, other than the side comments about food I just mentioned. Now that I think about it, what would have helped would have been for someone to look beyond that to see what was bothering me, to see that I was stressed out and overworked and one chocolate truffle away from a nervous breakdown. The food was just the coping mechanism, the only thing I could think to do to get enough endorphins to survive without going crazy. I would have liked someone to notice.
when someone with anorexia starts to gain back weight, DON’T tell them they look ‘healthier’ or ’so much better’ – it translates into their minds as ‘fat’.
if you live with someone with an ED, or have one yourself, throw out the scale! i haven’t had one in my house since i started my recovery and it’s been really helpful.
Question from someone without an ED:
Does telling someone who is recovering from one that they “look good” translate badly also? I’m not being snarky — I’d really like to know. I don’t *think* I know anyone with an active eating disorder, but I do dance, and come into contact with a LOT of women in my business with whom I end up working closely, and statistically, I’ll be close with someone at some point who has struggled with ED issues. I’d like to be supportive without running the risk of triggering things.
car:
The only reason I can think of that people around you didn’t mention your weight gain is because it’s considered socially unacceptable to comment on weight gain in most places. By most polite people. There are always exceptions, and they often cause a lot of pain, so most normally sensitive people try to not be like that. But yeah, I can see where someone mentioning that they noticed your (rapid?) weight gain, and is there something you’d like to talk about would have been helpful. I guess a question is would you have felt it to be helpful at the time, or is that hindsight?
I’d recommend telling someone that they looked happy, that there was a glow to their skin or a sparkle in their eyes. Put the focus on an improved emotional state rather than their physical state.
things that have helped:
- folks wanting to talk with me about my emotions – good friends who know that ‘fine’ isn’t a real answer, and who let me know that they’re there for me to talk to. I’m *really* bad about asking folks for help, and so there’s no such thing as saying “I’m here for you” too many times – it helps each and every time I hear it.
- seeing friends actively embrace nontraditional physical types of beauty. As I get older, more of my friends got heavier, and when they can be positive about their bodies, and about other folks’ bodies that aren’t the ThinTallBlondeBeautiful type, it’s helpful.
- having a space where I can be messily emotional. Living in an apartment SUCKS for this, because I hate the feeling that people will hear me. Driving in a car and screaming, ranting, crying, whooping, etc. has often helped.
Things that haven’t helped:
- talking to me about my weight, in any way. It’s not your body, and I didn’t ask for your opinion. Leave it the fuck alone. If you want to ask how *I* am, and see whether there’s something awry emotionally, ask about that. But do NOT comment on my weight, gains, losses or anything else.
- hearing friends obsess about calories, talk at length about fat grams, etc. Even if it’s all about your own situation, and not a comment on me, it’s really hard for me to hear you talk about these things. (Of course, I want to be there for these friends around *their* issues with food, but even though I try to be understanding about this one, I know that it takes a toll on me.)
- hearing friends talk about their bodies or their eating negatively. Again, I want them to be able to talk to me about the stresses they’re going through, but from a purely personal standpoint, it takes a toll on me to hear these things. I don’t talk to my friends about the depth of my issues with food, so they’re unlikely to know what I’m experiencing when this happens. They’re just doing the normal girl talk thing.
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