Posted by Racer on March 28, 2005, at 1:19:16
In reply to Anorexic on the Edge, posted by narcissistic_martyr on March 27, 2005, at 20:34:01
Does your school have a student health center? Many times they will have a counselling service of some sort available, and that's my first recommendation. Second recommendation is, of course, a good nutritional counselor -- I go to one for my weekly spanking ;-O -- who will work with you to build your way up to normal amounts of food.
Horrible as it is, sometimes a quick weight gain is necessary, as long as you don't get hit with refeeding syndrome. As for the "blob" factor, that's all too real! Seems that most anorexics get hit with "visceral obesity" even before getting up to the normal weight range! How much does that suck? (In fact, it's triggered my current relapsing, after doing a bit better in recent weeks...)
I could offer you a ton of suggestions, like setting a timer for three minutes before you purge, so that you can see if you can resist the urge, but I don't know what to suggest beyond finding a therapist -- preferrably one who has experience with EDs or body image distortions.
I've never had IP treatment -- hell, I wasn't even formally diagnosed until the age of 40! -- so I can't speak to that. I will say, though, that nutritional counseling has helped a lot, and that psychotherapy is a very, very necessary adjunct to it. I was close to being able to follow my meal plan until the past week or so, but my body image issues are so strong that without therapy, I could not have made it even that far.
By the way, my OP NC has not tried to get me to eat anything like what I'm supposed to be eating for my size. She's set my meal plan for about half of that amount, so that I don't freak out. And my weight gain, although quite significant (and distressing) has been pretty much steady rather than rapid.
Hope that helps, somehow.
poster:Racer
thread:476427
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/eating/20050314/msgs/476569.html