Scared I might have an eating disorder

[sparrowhawk]

Hi everyone,

Last year in February I got very sick with a respiratory virus which was never diagnosed. This triggered a sort of reflex in my body and I started regurgitating and vomiting food from time to time. It eventually got bad enough that I wasn't keeping any food or liquid down and lost a significant amount of weight. I spent Christmas and New Year in hospital, was diagnosed with a disorder called rumination syndrome, and had a feeding tube placed - I still have it. I had so many comments about my weight loss, all of them negative and out of concern - comments like "Your clothes are falling off", "you look like an ironing board", "you look like you belong in a concentration camp", really awful things. I really disliked the comments so once I was able to stabilise my weight with the feeding tube, I made sure I maintained it. I didn't want any comments on weight gain/weight loss.

Now my rumination syndrome is much better and for the past two months I haven't had any vomiting at all. But there is a lot of fear in me about eating and about weight gain, mainly coming from my real dislike of comments and wanting to avoid attention on myself. So I restrict how much I eat and prefer to favour lower-calorie foods. There was so much focus on calories when I was using tube feeding, so it's become a sort of unhealthy behaviour to count calories and make sure I'm only getting a certain amount every day. I also notice I feel guilt when I eat particular foods, or only allow myself to enjoy "unhealthy" foods in secret.

When I think about all these things I'm doing, I feel really stupid because I know health is so important, I know I need to gain weight, and I know that everyone's bodies are different. I'm really scared I could have an eating disorder. I do have a psychologist I see fortnightly and she expressed concern an eating disorder could be developing. I really try to fight the behaviours and thoughts but sometimes they win and I just slide into that place of fear and self-protection. I do have anxiety about gaining weight but for me it's even more than that - I have anxiety about people's comments, because I really dislike any attention given to my appearance and just want to avoid that if my life depends on it. So I think all of this is coming from that desire to protect myself.

I'm not sure if this makes sense, I'm really just looking for someone who can relate. Sending hugs to all.

[Sophie_M]

Hey sparrowhawk,

Thanks so much for being so vulnerable and honest to share your experience with us. We're sorry to hear you're struggling these days with unhelpful thoughts and behaviours around food. It's really unfortunate that you had to hear unnecessary and unkind remarks from other people when you were going through your treatment. We're glad you're seeing a psychologist every fortnight and it's great that you're here as well. You deserve all the support.

Just wanted to let you know that you can contact Butterfly Foundation who help people with eating disorders and body image issues. You can call their national helpline on 1800 33 4673. There's more information on their website that you can read here: https://butterfly.org.au/

We hope you'll get some insight and support from our wonderful community members here. Please keep posting and let us know how you're doing, whenever you feel up to it.

[yggdrasil]

Hi sparrowhawk,

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences on this forum. You've clearly experienced some real adversity, and are dealing with it bravely and appropriately. Members of my family had eating disorders for many years, and I visited them in hospital many times when they required a feeding tube. It's challenging stuff, and you're a real trooper to be getting through what you've experienced as well as you are.

The appearance stuff is really hard. Society obsesses over people's appearances. I'm in science, and we're all supposed to have flashy photos taken for websites, and promotions, it makes me really, really uncomfortable. I'm not really sure how to avoid it, other than by trying to only be around people who don't care about appearance so much. I like hanging around much older people for that reason, as I've found they're less likely to care about appearance.

Rumination is also challenging to deal with, but you can eventually get it under control. I've found CBT/schema-therapy style worksheets an effective way for me to "process" intense rumination when it occurs. Also, although I'm not really a religious person, I've found repeating "mantras" like the lords prayer and hail Mary etc to be an effective way to slow my brain down and break out of rumination cycles. Something about speaking it out loud forces your brain to slow down to the speed of your speech, and eventually my mental focus moves away from the thing I'm ruminating or obsessing over. I'm lucky I live alone so I can do this in private! I probably sound a bit loopy, but I figure lots of different cultures have these sorts of "mantras", so I can't be that crazy.

As for anxiety, I found attending support groups a helpful way to get some perspective and control. ADAVIC and ARCVic both ran in person support groups throughout Victoria before COVID, and I believe these will be starting up again soon. They also run telephone and online counselling for anxiety.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful in some way! All the best,

yggdrasil

[sparrowhawk]

Hi Sophie_M,

Thanks for your kind reply. It's been really hard, but what I can't understand most is why this response in me has happened. I would understand it better if the comments around my weight loss had been positive, like "you look great" sort of stuff, but they were so negative and coming out of a place of concern. I really think I've been motivated a lot by wanting to protect myself and avoid any sort of attention given to my appearance at all.

Thanks for directing me to the Butterfly Foundation, too; I have heard of them and visited their site before. I really appreciate your kind reply and help.

[sparrowhawk]

Hi yggdrasil,

Thank you for your kind reply. It is a struggle but I'm doing better (physically) than I was at the start of the year, I have more energy and colour. It's been a huge emotional journey and not many people get that. People keep asking me when I'm going to return to my former job (I used to work in a hospital in pastoral care, but have resigned, and now work in communications). The truth is my former job was so emotionally heavy that I don't feel I can go back yet, if at all. I still have a lot of healing to do.

Thanks for sharing about your own experiences with appearance. It's interesting, I also prefer being around older people (most of my friends are older than I am). I also have a physical disability which I was born with, and that impacts my self-perception quite a bit. I've been bullied a lot by people my own age, so I think that's another reason why I prefer the company of people who are more mature.

Thanks for your kind advice about rumination. The rumination I'm talking about is gastrointestinal (like regurgitation, similar to what cows do). It often gets confused with rumination disorder, or mental rumination. I am really glad you've found techniques that work for you. And thanks so much for the tips about support groups. I saw that the Butterfly Foundation does offer groups for people with eating disorders so I may give them a go.

You really have helped. Thank you.

[yggdrasil]

Thank you - and I apologise for mixing up rumination with mental rumination! Pastoral care would be very demanding. Congratulations for working in it for the period you did, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with moving on if it's no longer consistent with your health and well being. All the best,

yggdrasil

[sparrowhawk]

No problem at all! It does happen a lot - there's rumination disorder (mental) and rumination syndrome (gastrointestinal) so the two kind of get mixed up!

Thank you. I'm feeling a bit of pressure from my former colleagues to return to the hospital. They don't see my current job as a real job, which it very much is. One thing people don't seem to be able to grasp is how emotionally painful my illness is/was. In truth I'm not surprised I have fallen into problematic behaviours. All the very best to you, too!

[yggdrasil]

Ah that's frustrating. You always have to be wary of that sort of work pressure/guilt coming from others, sometimes it's quite subtle. I've found I'm much happier with a stronger separation between work and personal life (different friendship circles etc). Take care!