what is it called?

Hi deadlyhours, and welcome

If you're not sure what to call it, why not simply stick with 'eating disorder' - or even disordered eating? People often experience elements of several different eating disorders - sometimes at the same time, other times separately depending on life circumstances, so it can be a personal thing.

"I don't think I have anorexia, because it's not like I feel hungry and want to eat that slice of pizza for example and I just stop myself so I wont get fat, it's I don't have the desire to eat that slice of pizza in the first place..."

I had a good friend who was like that. She said that if she didn't eat for a number of days the hunger eventually subsided, and that it became easier to not eat than to eat. She no lonnger had the desire to. So anorexia doesn't have to mean feeling hungry but resisting those feelings. It becomes something more than that when it starts to take hold.

"...but it's also true that I hate to gain weight though I don't think about it like 24/7 or count calories or whatever"

But I bet if your were to gain weight you'd soon start counting calories and thinking about it more. It's just that the eating is under control at the moment so there's no need for those behaviours.

"now when I actually attempt to eat I get full really fast and eat too little thinking it's too much, and the problem here is that I can't know if I ate too little"

That happened to my friend too. The body changes when a person restricts food over a long period. For example, the stomach shrinks, making it uncomfortable - and often impossible - to eat normal portions. And the digestive system doesn't work as effectively, causing a person to feel bloated after eating. That's why it would help if you could talk to a doctor, or somebody who understood nutrition. They could advise about the type of food and portion sizes suitable for a person in your situation.

"people tell me I'm probably less than a size zero, some say I look scary, others offer me food thinking I'm about to collapse. 83 pounds, 38 kilos and about 5.7 feet tall."

A good indication of a healthy weight is a person's BMI because it also takes their height into account. There are lots of calculators online. I'll let you look one up, but it's worrying. I know we're not doing labels, but a BMI of around 15-16 and below is considered to be anorexic. I get the impression that you're not in the UK, but here when a person is below a certain weight they're taken into hospital (against their wishes sometimes) because their life is considered to be at risk. My friend was hospitalised, and her weight and BMI were only a little lower than yours are now.

The scary part is that when a person is at such low weights they're not consuming enough calories to sustain their body. So the body starts eating away at itself in order to keep things going, and that's why the medical concern. But having said that, while it's essential for a person to gain weight, at such low weights it's advised not to gain too much too quickly. It's because the organs of the body become weak, and can't support that sudden weight gain. Sudden weight gain can in fact be as dangerous as continued weight loss, and that's why expert advice is recommended

Take care,
Nigel

Hi Nigel,

I wanted to know what is my eating disorder is called so that I could do more research about it, it's true that I might be more comfortable now that my weight is under control but I also feel sad, that for example I stopped walking home because I started to get really dizzy and was afraid I'd faint in the street though it's only a 20 minutes to walk.

Thanks a lot for warning me about gaining weight quickly, but I don't really think it's possible for me, and no where I live they don't get me hospitalized for being underweight, which I wouldn't accept anyway, and the doctors around here don't have any experiences with eating disorders that concern excessive weight loss or being unable to gain weight, because most people suffer with overweight problems, so I'm like an extremely rare case.

Still I've been to many doctors about my eating issues, a couple of years ago a doctor suggested I take vitamin supplements and also gave me B12 shots for a few weeks, he said that along with a good diet I would be much healthier withing a couple of months, but the thing is I started relying completely on those supplements and ate much less which caused worse problems with my stomach, so the last doctor I've seen said no supplements for me, no exercise and I have to rely only on food to gain some weight.


Anyways my college schedule doesn't help at all, I'm going to take 6 classes next semester and I don't feel comfortable with eating there because people start staring at me, however I have a short vacation four days from now and I'll try to work on my diet, lately I've been drinking a lot of milk and taking yogurt I found it helpful because I can't eat enough but drinking is much easier, so I'm switching from coffee to fluids which are rich with vitamins and carbs, I'm not sure what to do after that I might try to see another doctor.

can you tell me more about what happened with your friend after she was hospitalized?

Hi deadlyhours,

"I wanted to know what is my eating disorder is called so that I could do more research about it"

I suppose from the point of view of researching it, anorexia would seem the most appropriate. That doesn't mean you have to give yourself that label though. As an example; I also belong to another forum that deals a lot with anxiety, and some people there find their anxiety makes them lose their appetite. Others have a phobia of vomitting, or worry about food allergies, and as a result also develop a fear of eating. It's fundamentally the same thing, but for completely different reasons, and I'm sure those people wouldn't consider themselves to be anorexic. That's why labels sometimes don't work.

"I also feel sad, that for example I stopped walking home because I started to get really dizzy and was afraid I'd faint in the street though it's only a 20 minutes to walk."

I guess you need to think about the reasons for wanting to walk. For example, I have a car but often walk to the shops for a little exercise because I know I spend too much time sat in front of the PC. I want to stay healthy. But some peoples take exercise to extremes, and for them it's not about health but solely about losing weight - even if they don't need to.

As for feeling faint and dizzy... I think your body is trying to warn you that things aren't right. When my friend was at her lowest weight - which was a bit lower that you are - she found it hard to walk at all. There were times when we would drive round for 10 minutes waiting for a parking space close to a shop, even though it would've taken less than a minute for me to walk there from the shop we were currently at. Even then she needed to hold my arm for support. It was so sad to see her like that

"The doctors around here don't have any experiences with eating disorders that concern excessive weight loss or being unable to gain weight, because most people suffer with overweight problems, so I'm like an extremely rare case."

That's an interesting point. It shows how much lifestyle and social and media pressure must influence these conditions.

"Anyways my college schedule doesn't help at all, I'm going to take 6 classes next semester and I don't feel comfortable with eating there because people start staring at me"

Do they really stare? Even if they do, I bet it's not half as much as you think they are. And anyway, does it really matter? Yes, I know it does, but I mean does it really matter? If you ignore them they'll soon get bored of starring. After all, isn't your own health more important than what a few ignorant people might be thinking?

I do actually understand because I too worry a lot about what people are thinking about me. Not regarding eating though. I know it's hard to ignore it, but in the great scheme of things it isn't worth stressing about.

"Lately I've been drinking a lot of milk and taking yogurt I found it helpful because I can't eat enough but drinking is much easier, so I'm switching from coffee to fluids which are rich with vitamins and carbs, I'm not sure what to do after that I might try to see another doctor."

That might be a good idea - especially a doctor with some experience of diet and nutrition. I don't know a lot about that myself, but there have been quite a few posts about it in these forums if you have search.

If your schedule allows, eating little and often would probably be easiest, because as you said, eating larger portions makes you feel uncomfortable. Over here you can get various nutritional drinks that are designed to help build a person up when they find it hard to eat. Do you have anything like that?

My friend created a website for eating disorder sufferers, and wrote a page about Nutrition Information. It might give you an idea about what to eventually aim for. She also wrote a section about Anorexia that you might find helpful.

"can you tell me more about what happened with your friend after she was hospitalized?"

It wasn't a good experience. Basically she was forced to eat and gain weight, and under strict supervision. Some of the things she told me about it sounded appalling, and she suffered nightmares and flashbacks about it even 2 years after.

I get the impression that while you'd rather not gain weight, you do value life and don't want to become ill, and that you do want to take positive steps towards a healthier lifestyle. My friend wasn't like that at all. She didn't really care much about life or her health - the only think she wanted to do was to lose weight and be as 'small' as possible. That's why she found forced hospitalisation so distressing. Day by day they were taking away her dreams, and were destroying all her hard work and achievements.

It was a very sad story

Take care,
Nigel

Hi Nigel,
we do have nutritional drinks but they taste awful, I don't know if your friend was underweight all her life or she was normal then lost much weight, it's not an achievement for me to be this small, it's who I've been for my whole life, I remember ditching meals ever since I was 4 years old and my parents kept draging me to doctors ever since, but when I stepped into teenage and I noticed the number of people around me who would kill to be as small, having this image created in my mind made me hold on to this size and I can't get myself to be convinced that I have to gain weight, I have to be of a larger size, someone who wont fit in my current wardrope, I feel really torn apart about this and it makes it harder for me to accept eating, not to mention my depression...

in the last couple of days it started to become harder for me to walk because my legs start to shiver when I stand up, I can't even think of how I'm going to get to college to do my next final exam...

Hi deadlyhours,

My friend didn't like those drinks either, but if eating is difficult and they help, is it worth it?

"I don't know if your friend was underweight all her life or she was normal then lost much weight, it's not an achievement for me to be this small"

You sound different in that respect. My friend did see it as an achievement - her only achievement in fact - and that made it so hard to let go of. She had been at various weights before I knew her - even overweight at times, I believe. The anorexia began after a perfectly innocent diet. For the first time ever she felt good at something when she began to see results. Those good feelings helped her cope with other things that were wrong in her life. Then when she reached her goal there was nothing to maintain those good feelings. So a new target was set in order to feel good again, and so it went on.

"When I stepped into teenage and I noticed the number of people around me who would kill to be as small, having this image created in my mind made me hold on to this size and I can't get myself to be convinced that I have to gain weight..."

There are similarities when you think about it. For my friend it was never about appearance, but even for you it seems a lot about feeling good.

"I have to be of a larger size, someone who wont fit in my current wardrope, I feel really torn apart about this and it makes it harder for me to accept eating, not to mention my depression..."

But do all those other people really want to be like you - I mean exactly like you? You mentioned before how a lot of people in your country are overweight, so it's understandable that many would like to me more like you, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want to do it in quite such an extreme way. You yourself know the problems that accompany it, and I'm sure most people would aspire to something in between. If you knew that, would it make it easier to accept?

"in the last couple of days it started to become harder for me to walk because my legs start to shiver when I stand up"

There are a lot of flu bugs going around over here - don't know about your country. It could be something like that. I'm not trying to scare you by telling you about my friend, but it's helpful to be aware of what can happen when things get serious. It did eventually have quite profound phsyical effects, and some of those never healed.

You mentioned depression earlier, and also in another thread. Low weight can cause that as well - and suicidal thoughts, which you also mentioned. People think of food and energy being required by muscles and organs like the heart, but they forget about the most important one - the brain. It probably uses more of the body's energy than any other single organ. That's why thinking can eventually be effected by severe food restriction.

My friend was a very intelligent woman, and a much better writer that I am. She struggled with social anxiety and dealing with people, and would often write her thoughts and feelings down for doctors and therapists appointments because she could express them much better in writing. But at her lowest weight she struggled to write half a page, and even then I had to help her with it. It was so sad to see her like that.

When the brain is undernourished it reverts to more simplistic black and white thinking. Yes or no, good or bad, everything is fine or everything is a disaster sort of things. All the clever thinking and reasoning and considering the finer details are too much for it to cope with.

One thing that leads to depression is that very same black and white thinking style. It's obvious that things aren't good, therefore everything must be a hopeless disaster. Reality, which lies somewhere in between, is too compelx to grasp. Suicide is another black and white concept. It's a simple - though extreme - solution to a problem. Of course, there are lots of other options but they involve a lot more thinking, and that's too much for the malnourished brain to comprehend.

Having read some of your other posts you sound like a great person with a potentially promising future ahead of you. I hope these issues aren't allowed to get in the way of that.

Take care
Nigel

Hey again,

I guess you have a good point, I might just start taking nutritional drinks again.

I don't think I have a flu bug, because I noticed that when I eat even if a small amount of food and waited for a while then I would be able to walk well, but when I don't eat especially breakfast I find it hard to walk, I'm trying to start a new decent diet and stick to it, but my eating disorder is connected to many other emotional issues that I have to work on, luckily I've just finished this semester at college so I have about a month off to work on my health.

for me it is about appearance too, I don't see anyone around me who I could consider as an acceptable weight, I hate to feel like I'm fat, and having to deal with alone makes it a lot harder, not that I want anyone to help me but my appetite is directly affected by my mood, things do become all black and white like you said so when anything bad happens like I woke up and it was raining, knowing that I hate rain and winter in general it puts me in a really bad mood so everything else is affected especially my appetite.


sometimes I think maybe I should isolate myself from everyone and everything else in the world till I can help myself out, I don't know, by the way you seem to be relating a lot to what you experienced with your friend's eating disorder I hope talking about it doesn't make you feel sad or anything, and I don't mind if you try to scare me... not too much though lol, actually right now what makes me eat is that I'm too afraid that if I kept starving myself then soon enough I wont be able to walk, and I don't want that to happen, I don't want to be weak.

Hi deadlyhours,

Been reading your thread in the depression forum – sounds like you’re having a tough day. I’m sorry.

“by the way you seem to be relating a lot to what you experienced with your friend's eating disorder I hope talking about it doesn't make you feel sad or anything”

Thanks. It does make me feel sad sometimes, but it helps too. It helps more than it makes me sad. She was a truly special person who had many emotional issues and a very unhappy life. You may have guessed that she’s no longer here. Don’t worry, it wasn’t as a direct result of her anorexia, although indirectly it played a very big part. She found it impossible to return to her anorexic ways after her last stay in hospital, I think because she found it so traumatic and was terrified of being readmitted. However, she still needed a way of coping, and as food was a familiar way of doing that, it seemed to manifest in bingeing and comfort eating instead. You can probably imagine how utterly distressing that must be for a person who desperately wanted to lose weight and felt that being ‘small’ was her only way of ever finding happiness.

She always said that anorexia had left her, but I can say that her mindset was still very firmly gripped by it. I think she would find that comforting to know.

She wrote a lot on forums trying to help other people who were struggling, and she was really good at it. Much better at writing than I am. Sometimes people thought she was a professional, not a fellow sufferer. I learnt a lot from her, and in a way it feels like a part of her still lives on in the words I now try to write. She is in those thoughts somewhere. It’s funny but sometimes it’s almost like she’s standing just behind me, watching what I type, and perhaps guiding my words. One thing I’ll never have though is her empathy. If she were replying to you now, the words would be the words of a person who knew first hand what an eating disorder felt like, or what being so desperate that suicide was a viable option felt like. I hope I never know what that’s really like. She always said, “You never truly understand what it’s like unless you’ve been there yourself.”

“Things do become all black and white like you said so when anything bad happens like I woke up and it was raining, knowing that I hate rain and winter in general it puts me in a really bad mood so everything else is affected especially my appetite.”

Exactly – all black or white. Do you think that way of thinking might’ve been responsible for that earlier rant? And don’t worry... I’ve been know to have my rants too

It can become a bit of an endless cycle though because lack of food makes it harder to think straight and harder to cope. That leads a person to turn to their old coping strategies, which in this case is to restrict food still further, and that just makes everything even harder to cope with.

I’m sorry things are so tough in your country. You seem to have a very intelligent outlook on life, and that deserves to be rewarded.

Take care
Nigel

Hi there.

I read your posts and thought I'd reply as I seem to have similar eating habits. I have never thought of myself as anorexic since I have never had a fear of becoming overweight. In fact, all my life I have wished to be larger than I am. I recently discovered a label called selective eating disorder and i think this most accurately describes me and maybe you too. The problem however still exists. Thinking a label might guide me to solutions, it has not. I would enjoy chatting with you and perhaps we might work through this thing together. I think we have similar situations and I do not have a network of people to speak with. Most people have problems overeating and dismiss being underweight as it seems an ideal for them. Also I am the type of person to not discuss these things as I do not like being seen as a person with a problem. I will not go to a psychiatrist as I do not like the idea of someone judging me! What foods do you like?

Hello there thinlizzie,

I would love to chat with you, like you I don't have a network of people to speak of this with too.

P.S. I have sent you a private message.

Anyone with an eating disorder should check themselves for zinc deficiency, you can Google the link.

Hi deadlyhours,
First of all do consult some psychiatrist for depression. I can smell it is due to depression.
With depression people have eating disorders so I will suggest you to meet psychiatrist in priority.