Why Eating Disorders Are So Damn Easy (Kinda..)

(Note to all you anal-retentives out there: I realize that the view of eating disorders as an “addiction” is still up for debate. I just couldn’t think of another suitable word. So sue me, it’s late and I’m not feeling that creative. Save the emails, or don’t, I am running low on toilet paper.)

This is the addiction that should have parents quaking in their boots: EATING DISORDERS; the “hidden” disease. What would most parents of teenagers notice more; food missing in the pantry, or alcohol missing from the liquor cabinet? Most would quickly answer the latter. Some of that is simply due to media attention. It seems that every other Dr. Phil episode/news cast/Dateline special is featuring teens sinking to new depths of alcohol or drug depravity, but little attention is paid to their ugly stepsister, the “ED’s”. And the attention that is paid is often highly dramatized. People with ED’s are depicted as emaciated skeletons. The truth is that not all of us look like war victims. We are your sisters, daughters, mothers, and sometimes brothers/sons. In many ways ED’s are the safest addictions around. There is no need to break the law; like with drug addictions or to go and purchase alcohol; read drunk driving, underage drinking and a plethora of other problems. No, with an ED even your parents can be your “drug” suppliers. You can “use” in public. Hell, you can “use” in front of your grandma, and if you are good, nobody will be the wiser. Try doing that with heroin. (You won’t be invited to many more holiday dinners, that’s for sure.) Another way in which eating disorders are uniquely accessible (or hellish, depending on where a person is in recovery) is that our “drug” of choice is uniquely accessible. An average American eats three meals a day. For a person in recovery or trying to fight their ED that equals three opportunities to go completely off the wagon. Imagine giving an alcoholic a glass of booze three times a day, then telling them that they can only take a sip each time. Or giving a drug addict their drug of choice, but telling them to only use half. Complete “abstinence” from food is not possible (read: anorexia). Ours is a unique drug in that it is one that every healthy person on the planet also consumes, and if we want to be healthy, we must too. What makes ED’s so easy in the beginning of our disease is what makes them so hard to recover from: accessibility. So pay attention, if we seem a little off to you parents, maybe we are. Sorry Dr. Phil, but we don’t have to be teen crack ho’s to have a problem (but if you’re a twin teen crack ho now THAT’S good tv apparently). Remember ED’s might be “easy”, but they might not be so easy to see from the outside.

Angry Letter to Some Body-Judgers

This a letter to my BF's body-judging-so-called-friend-assholes. Yes it is bitchy and angry but I love my BF too much to say it to anybody's face. Just a few notes:

A) Don't think when I see you snickering in the corner and then looking my way that I don't know that you are talking about me...what are you? 12 year old girls?

B) You are the fakest mother-fuckers that I've ever seen. Just because your sweet to my face you don't think I'll give a shit about the crap that you said behind my back about how I look in my bathing suit? (FYI that shit got spread around)

C) I know that I'm fucking hot, some of you do too, try growing a spine and not being your friend's little whipping boy all the time.

D) Don't be jealous that the BF doesn't want to spend as much time with you assholes anymore...Let's just say that I'm WAY more entertaining than you.

E) Stop dating the doormats that you call girlfriends and maybe you'll learn a thing or two about a real woman.

F) You assholes can't even imagine how good of a lay I am (and I know you imagine it dickwads).

G) So how long does it take for a woman to get un-satisfied with a man's bedroom performance? I'd say about 3 months based on y'alls dating history. (FYI that shit got around tooo....I think they have pills for that, in case you were interested...)

P.S. Your insecurity is showing...you might want to check that shit.

Just Another Reason Why Insurance Companies Totally Suck

I was recently moved to tears by the story of the very inspiring Sofia Benbahmed. She was forced to leave treatment for her eating disorder after her insurance company refused to continue to cover her stay. For somebody who has not suffered from an eating disorder, it might seem that any stay in a treatment facility should be some help. People who have sat on the other side of the eating disorder fence know differently. When I read Sofia's updates I hear how badly she wants to get better, but there is so much to recovery besides a desire to succeed. Treatment is a place that not only physically prevents us from acting out on unhealthy thoughts, creating a new behavior pattern, but also teaches us new ways of coping with our emotions. We can do that first bit on our own, for a while at least. But as soon as those pesky emotions and stresses in our daily lives start creeping up on us, we slip back into our familiar, destructive coping mechanisms. The longer we have been depending on our eating disorder for support, the harder it is for us to support ourselves in other ways on our own. I liken it to a CD that is stuck on repeat (Yes, a "CD" I am an old fart). The longer we have been listening to the same song, the harder it is for us to listen to a different song. We need a helpful treatment specialist to keep pushing that "FORWARD" button until we are healthy enough to do it on our own. It might take us a while to realize that there are other ways of coping (or songs on the CD) that we can use but for most of us it takes a while before we can use them consistently.
I too had my share of insurance woes when I decided to go to treatment. Despite having what my boyfriend jokingly calls "insurance worth it's weight in gold", (both of my parents are government employees in California, you cannot get better coverage than I had) getting my health insurance company to pay up when I need inpatient treatment was a nightmare. Treatment is expensive; that's no joke. I stayed in treatment for two weeks. With the amount of forms that I had to fill out, you would have thought I was trying to go on a space shuttle trip to the moon. The first week of treatment was paid for without incident. It wasn't until I received a bill for almost four thousand dollars a month later that I realized that my insurance had not covered my second week of treatment. When I called the company to question why they had not paid the bill yet, I was met with almost open hostility from a very rude customer service representative. He demanded to know "exactly what I was being treated for" and kept grumbling something "pre-authorization". At that point I refused to talk to him anymore and requested a supervisor. It might sound like a perfectly normal response, but it was an I'm-gonna-stand-up-for-myself-and-not-take-anymore-BS-from-you reaction that I never would have considered before I went to treatment. Without even knowing it, my insurance company's employee was giving me one of my first examples in why treatment was so vital in teaching me how to respect myself, not just stop purging.
Eventually my insurance company ponied up the cash, but the stress of being constantly reminded about treatment when I was doing my best to move on with my life was not particularly helpful. So in case you insurance peeps are out there, here's a clue: Finding the desire to get healthy should be the most difficult part of eating disorder recovery, not finding the access to help.

♥ Donate and help get Sofia back into treatment at: http://www.giveforward.org/sofias-eating-disorder-treatment-fund ♥

Be Positive!

Sometimes being positive can be hard. I love this video of a little girl giving herself a pep talk in the mirror. Check it out and just try not to smile :)

Talking Back to a Binge

Dear Binge Voice,


I know that you feel like being especially vocal today. I might have listened to you in the past, but you've been in charge for the last 4 years; it's my turn now. I recognize that when I first got out of treatment my way of dealing with you was by simply ignoring you. I realize now that you took care of me in the only way you knew how at the time. It wasn't healthy and I have much better ways of coping now. I know that these new strategies may be hard for you to accept at first; they were for me too. I trusted you to handle my emotions for years, it's time for you to trust me. In return I promise to listen when you speak. I accept that you are a part of me. The part that lets me know when I am stressed, when I have too much going on, when I'm not expressing myself enough. You mean well, but your "fixes" are not helpful anymore. You don't have to believe me right now; I know eventually you will come around and see that our new way of dealing with issues is better for both of us.

Love Always,

Melly

Seven Signs That Your Diet Might Not Be Healthy

Here's a link to an old article in SHAPE magazine discussing how you can tell if your diet is healthy: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0846/is_1_22/ai_90528566/?tag=content;col1 I am not a fan of this particular magazine, but think that this article is very helpful in determining if your eating is nutritionally sound. I don't believe in diets. I think that they promote unhealthy eating and elevated food to a status that it really has no business being in (it's just fuel, nothing more, nothing less). None the less, I do believe that even a person who is eating "intuitively" needs to evaluate their food intake from time to time to make sure that all of their needs are being met. This checklist is very useful for evaluating symptoms that one might not normally associate with not eating the right amount or the right kinds of foods. Enjoy!

Love Your Tongue, Don't Destroy It!!

The latest accessory in extreme dieting: a steel mesh implant for your tongue? A surgeon will implant the device in the tongue making it physically painful for a person to eat solid food. Um, gross. It begs the question; when does dieting turn into an eating disorder? I've done some pretty self-destructive things in my life, but even on my worst day would not have considered this procedure. The fact that medical doctors are performing this operation that basically amounts to forced anorexia quite frankly pisses me off. Check out the article: http://www.allure.com/beauty/blogs/reporter/2009/09/the-new-extreme-diet-1.html