Posted by maura on July 27, 2005, at 3:34:05
In reply to How do you stop yourself from going back?, posted by tygereyes on April 17, 2005, at 22:10:27
you're pre-med, I'm in dietetics. It is not a pleasant thing to be sitting in a physiology class and learning about the degeneration of your own body. My history is very similar to yours. At 15, I was a textbook anoretic, sparsely ate anyhting at all, kept close tabs, and was completely obsessed with emaciation, in a completely aesthetic sense. At the same time, I developed an interest in health sciences, and so wanted my body to be 'healthy'. It causes quite the struggle, and this never fully goes away.
I thought I had beat it, have beeen trying to 'recover', but if I remember correctly, even during some of my worst episodes, of lowest weights, I'd also be claiming to be in 'recovery', and 'trying to regain health'.Part of recovery is becoming comfortable with a healthy body. It becomes really difficult to get to that point when you've been battling AN for enough years. What usually ends up happening, it seems, is that people, out of reason, sacrifice their passionate want and need for emaciation, in exchange for life, or preservation of the self/the body. It's something that will be fought every day. Even in my times when I seemed to be fully recuperated, my paintings and drawings always were of emaciated characters. I think it's just a choice you have to make every day, that life (at least one free of the debilitating effects of starvation) is more important than this apparent appearance of beauty or thinness.
This unfortuantely, is a really rational way of recovery, and maybe that's why it hasn't worked for me. When you're at a low point in your life, you're not going to think rationally, and may tend to fall into the comfortable behaviours of starvation, without even knowing that your using it as a coping strategy.
I may sound a little despairing. And I apologize for that. I have recently found myself relapsed and am not happy about it. It's actually caught me by surprise.
What I can tell you is that it is very challenging to overcome the urge to go back, and to feel comfortable in your skin again. Something that helped me stay 'recovered' for some time, was just regularly reminding myself of my tendency, and this addiction to weightloss, and that I am no longer me when the episode takes over. It becomes a cliche situation of you being your own worst enemy. I, then seperated my anoretic self from me, and began to distrust those thoughts and urges. I am really me, when my body is fed, when my mind is nurtured.In my babble at 4 30 am, I think all I meant to say is that it's just a daily battle, which is easier some days than others.
poster:maura
thread:485668
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/eating/20050314/msgs/534085.html