ED Ptsd & eating disorders

[piratelady]

Family members like that drive me crazy. My grandma used to criticize my mom for being too skinny. She finally got to a healthy weight and my grandma commented that she gained so much weight. She says the same things to me. One time she told me about some diet I should try. I declined and my grandma became upset saying, "Oh my God (Pirate lady)! What are you going to do!!"

I did finally lose some weight, but it wasn't enough for her. Then the pendulum swung the other way and I gained it all back. Now that I want to lose it, I can't... Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

 

[MomOfTwo]

YES! I have been trying to explain the incredible feeling of safety when I go to bed empty to my therapist but all she ever says is "but that's false safety." YEAH, I know but it doesn't change what I'm telling you! I don't feel safe otherwise and when you're not used to feeling safe, which all humans NEED to feel, it's that much more powerful when you do.

This happens to me too. It's SO confusing and frustrating! I am so so sad right now and I don't even know why. I feel like ripping all my skin off and just jumping right out of the disgusting shell (body) I am stuck inside. Normally this happens if I binge or something, but I haven't actually eaten much today or yesterday so this both confuses and scares me.

I feel like I'm a baseball player in a "pickle" if anyone knows what that is. I'm trapped between two "bad guys" and when I turn to run from one (restricting) I am faced with the other (feelings, memories, emotions, etc). Then I run from that back to my ED, say "what are you doing know you where this leads!?" And turn around again only to be confronted by the other "bad guy" even closer and scarier than before. It feels like they're closing in on me and I can't escape. It's scary!

I want to send you all lots of hugs tonight.

Lauren- It is not false to you (going to bed feeling empty)and has been working for so many years to make you safe that it is not easy to change. Your therapist needs to strategize with you on ways that you can perhaps create that sense of safety. Even to try and imagine it. If you have difficulty think of it for someone else. Like even for a pet. How would you make your pet or an imagined pet feel safe? I am trying to work on this for myself because I don't feel safe ever. I met with a new doctor yesterday to go over treatment. I told her I used to have an eating disorder and restrict. I said I feel like I don't deserve to eat and don't recognize hunger at times either. I was so used to not being allowed to eat that I numb my body to physical needs as well. She told me she does not want to talk about the trauma at all but to focus on dealing with the here and now and deal with coping skills. I told her I never feel safe. I told her I have nightmares all the time and hardly sleep. I am thinking she is right. I think talking about the trauma is making me too overwhelmed. I am restricting because I cannot deal with the emotions that go with the trauma because I never dealt with it to begin with.

I told her I neatly put all my bad experiences into boxes and was successful at them just staying closed and after being in a working environment similar to how I grew up it triggered PTSD and I am not able to contain things anymore or at least that is how I feel. I can have good days but then can be so overwhelmed it feels incapacitating.

I never told her how I feel like I take up too much space. I thought she would think that is really strange. I feel like Alice in Wonderland. When she takes the pill and becomes too large and it looks like she is going to suffocate because she becomes so large. I feel like that often. I need to feel smaller.

The doctor wants to do a bunch of bloodwork. Wants to check my vitamin D levels as well because it can cause depression. It does not mean an increase will fix it she said but it can be very low in depressed individuals.

The last couple of days I have taken time for myself and had the tots play in the playroom while I had a cup of tea and toast. My nana used to make me tea and toast. I have fond memories of that. I am going to try and do that for the rest of the week and try to not feel guilty for it.

 

[poeticprincess88]

Wow! Didn't realize how many other people have the same connection with trauma and eating disorders. I just read the entire thread. It's interesting. I love how everyone is so supportive of each other through the thread. Enjoyed reading! It was encouraging to look back on a post I started and see a lot of positive energy from the thread.

My eating has been going back and forth. Some days I'm okay but others I don't eat another. I go to two pro recovery forums online for eating disorders. Recently I posted my intake on there they challenged me by telling me I needed to eat more. I know I need to eat more.

I've had some stressors. Recently my abuser contacted me. I just haven't been able to get him leave me alone. Also a friend died. I know stress signals eating disorder. I wish I was recovered already but I know it takes time.

 

[Britt.f7]

Still trying to eat more per the nutritionist to kick my metabolism back into shape. Tried a program that I thought was only going to let me keep track of my food intake but it counted calories. Sometimes I felt like eating more as a reaction to the calories, even when they were getting to my limit. It wasn't in a good or healthy way. Definitely an entirely control issue. I notice I begin to obsess. My nutritionist said no diet programs because of this. I obsess and go overboard. She also doesn't want me to count calories. Just keep track of the food for her to look over.

I just wish I would/could eat like a so called "normal" person.

(eat more, but continue eating healthy...with occasional treats of course!)

 

[Maggiemay]

Urgh..

I thought I was doing a good job of maintaining my weight, until I get on the scales and realise I've lost 4 whole lbs! How?? :'( Boo!

I've been trying to consciously eat more, however I have also been sick this past few weeks a lot and chest is so tight and painful the last thing I feel like doing it eating! :( Keep forgetting to eat at work too... Not good... :'( oops!

I was told I was at risk of developing an eating disorder and tried really hard to maintain my weight as GP is weighing me every time he sees me. But it appears I need to work harder... :'(

Xxx

 

[Traumagirl]

You're right. The more stress we have, the harder it is to control the eating disorder. My husband has cancer and I had to go back to full time work. My eating has been out of control for at least 6 months. I'm hoping to get it under control soon. I've gained 15 pounds at least.

 

[shoulderblades]

I have always battled with eating. My mum started it - her way of feeling less guilty things was by feeding me, I guess maybe to prove to herself that she was providing well for me and that I was 'properly' looked after, so I learnt from a young age that eating was comfort. I think, as well, she fed me as a distraction from feeding herself, as she battled eating disorders and anorexia her entire life. She was pretty obsessed with food - making it and feeding it to others, especially to me. But would never eat, herself.

So, eating is a comfort for me; it's the only thing I found solace in during my teenage years. It didn't talk back at me, didn't make me feel bad, didn't abuse me, didn't hurt me. It gave me pleasurable feelings instead of painful ones. Eating was my friend. I ate and I ate and I would keep eating until I felt sick, because I least I was feeling something other than abuse, or numbness from abuse.

I still battle with it. I sometimes get it under control. And then I relapse. It's a cycle I don't know how to break.

 

[Traumagirl]

I don't know how to break the cycle either. I just know that I have to try.

 

[Finding Shawna]

I have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I tend to go between under-eating and over-eating

This is me also, I suffered from an eating disorder (ED) from about 9-17. Now I have have been yo-yo dieting since. I was addicted to crystal meth for a few years, I love how it kept me thin. These past two years I have been on adipex. I long to be thin. I am not over weight, I am a runner. I have curves. I have just never liked what looks back at me when I am naked in front of a mirror.

 

[shoulderblades]

I have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I tend to go between under-eating and over-eating

Huh, I do that, as well. My vice is overeating but I have gone through plenty of times where I've barely eaten, borderline starved myself. Then would come hurtling back towards overeating. Then go off food and undereat. Then eat healithy for a short while. Then collapse into overeating junk food. Then undereat. Then binge. Then eat healthily. Binge. Not eat. Binge. Binge. Emotionally eat. It never stops. I can never maintain consistency, with anything! It f*cking frustrates me!!!

 

[maddog]

I have been eating more and exercising less in the past couple of weeks, and hating myself more and more for it every day. And I should say that neither the eating more or the exercising less are particularly healthy or consistent patterns - the eating more is coming in the form of all-day starvation and nighttime binging, and the exercising less is coming in the form of multiple days of total inactivity followed by frantic heavy workouts.

In other words, I'm doing the right things in the wrong way, and hating myself more and more. I can feel myself spinning back towards obsessive starvation and overexercising as my depression and anxiety increase.

I feel as though food will hold me hostage forever.

Maddog

 

[Mella]

Wow! I didn't realize so many people had eating disorders and ptsd. I have had an eating disorder for far too long. I'm seeing a therapist now for both. She doesn't specialize in eating disorders, but that's okay because she has experience with trauma and I think I need that more than someone specializing in eating disorders.

Just 2 nights ago I put it together that the eating disorder was really a way to self-harm, due to the ptsd. It was such a huge AHA! moment for me. I was reading The PTSD Workbook and there's a chapter on self-harm and it suddenly all made sense.

Thank you all for your posts on this hard subject. And take gentle care....