theagingofanorexia

Sydne Confronts Her Inner Child Chapter 16

I've been told that part of the challenge in treating women is getting them to understand the normal process of aging. Women need to understand that the waistline they enjoyed as younger women is an unrealistic goal in middle age. Some female weight gain and for sure body reshaping is a result of normal hormonal and metabolic shifts, the natural result of aging and menopause.

That's not to say women in mid life now have an excuse to gain weight. They don't and neither do men. However, no matter how much they diet and exercise their body isn't going to look like it did in their twenties – unless they go overboard and spend hours on the treadmill. Regular exercise does play a very important and positive role for women as they age but excessive exercise is asking for trouble.

Finding the source of the eating disorder is the key in the treatment process. Unresolved adolescent or childhood traumas and conflicts are often the challenge that both patient and therapist face. Dealing with their feelings about aging and understanding that the body does slow down becomes part of the treatment.

I have decided to take an inventory of my progress. An inventory of the day I decided I would recover from an eating disorder.

I entered the Facility in February, 2007. The Facility was a place that was about how to treat women who suffer from eating disorders from the inside out. It wasn't about just feeding my once starved body but about treating my broken and damaged heart and repairing the inner turmoil that was going on inside that had poisoned my mind and ate my soul.

Once I decided to dig in and really do some intense work on healing the traumatic events that had happened to me as a child, it was then I could start to see myself as a woman. You see I just went along with the motions of portraying I was a perfectly happy child that grew up to be a perfectly happy woman. Wow! I should have won the Academy Award for the best lying actress in her own life story. I even had myself convinced I was perfectly happy an adult.

I never realized until I started the healing process how important my inner child was to me. As I started to confront the trauma from the past I thought my inner child was so far gone that she would not be reachable. Boy was I wrong and I'm glad I was wrong!

By allowing my inner child to resurface and be part of my journey to recover, and not just recover from having an eating disorder, but allowing oneself to heal my body, my mind and my soul. To allow the three of them to be one.

This was a huge step for Sydne and one that she needed for healing to take place. More on Sydne's inner child in our next post. Until then, best wishes for a healthy and peaceful new year.

Ruthan Brodsky

Your comments are most welcomed on this blog.  Scroll down to Comments and type your questions or your story in the blank window

Learning To Let Go Chapter 15

The research says that eating disorders at mid life are often accompanied by addiction to stimulants or even cocaine to lose weight. Herbal supplements, over-the-counter medications and prescribed meds are also used frequently to lose weight. Some individuals, particularly women, exercise to excess, spending hours in the gym or racing from one activity to the next.

Similar to an adolescent or young adult who has problems with their body image, individuals in mid life may be unhappy with their appearance. However, because time and money are more available to an adult, affluent individuals often decide on plastic surgery to erase any signs of aging.

There are also people who find themselves struggling with a psychological concern in mid life. Rather than deal with the concern, they become more centered on an eating disorder so that the adult avoids facing conflicts, losses, normal life transition concerns such as having no children at home or the need to care for aging parents.

Middle age is the time when we evaluate our past and are expected to shift the focus from ourselves to helping others. This is the time when many adults tend to find their spirituality and emphasize fundamental values as opposed to appearance. When an emotional problem occurs, such as an eating disorder, it prevents someone from moving in this direction.

Sydne's Story

The Facility was a place I knew I had to go to. It was a place that would remove me completely from my environment and put me in a place where I would be safe. The people around me would truly understand me and would treat me from the inside out.

There was nothing wrong with the outside of me other than I was way too thin. I don't think I ever said it but when I arrived at the Facility I weighed only 92 pounds. My insides were a mess. Not must physically but emotionally.

It probably took me a few weeks to completely trust the staff, but once I did I was able to start my journey to recovery. The first think I had to learn was to let go and allow people to help me. Even if it meant them holding me while I feel a part about missing my daughter or screaming at the top of my lungs and when I was done I was asked if I felt better.

I had worked with some amazing people at the Facility. From Nurse who told me one I start to feed my body again I would be able to feel and to allow myself to feel each and every emotion because it had been so long since I had felt anything. To the Aids who were at my beck and call when I needed them. And to the one person who was actually able to be the first person to get to the core of me – Dr. Loretta Jones.

For the first time in my life I was able to expose all the ugly, horrible things that I had kept in for 32 years. Loretta taught me over the course of time that I was not trash, that I was a beautiful woman who needed to find that lost little girl that I had did so deep down to protect her from being completely destroyed.

Your thoughts and comments are welcomed. Scroll down to comments and ask your question or share your comment.

Happy Chanukah beginning this evening.

Merry Christmas this Thursday.

I'll be here again before New Years.

Ruthan Brodsky

Anorexia - Other People Don't Get It Chapter 14

Mid-life is usually taken as a time when people have achieved an identity and a personal sense of empowerment. Yet this is the same time when body image becomes so much of a primary focus. It doesn't make sense that body dissatisfaction is higher in mid life than it is when you're younger. Not only that, the number of people, especially women, who are dissatisfied with body image has increased in the last 25 years by 15 percent.

Apparently diets leave women unsatisfied with the results. For example, in 2001 over 93% of liposuction patients were women between the ages of 17 and 74 years old, but 98% were within 50 pounds of their ideal weight. Even thought the procedures for liposuction have improved and there are far less complications for bleeding, liposuction hasn't addressed the increasingly negative body image of millions of women who believe that weight reduction or body fat removal will make them happier and healthier human beings. It appears that liposuction helps address part of the problem, to come closer to the female slender ideal, but it still fails to resolve the negative body image that leads to self-defeating dieting. Given this assumption, clinicians question whether women who seek plastic surgery at mid life should be screened for an eating disorder.

I get asked a lot about my recovery from those who know. The main question is: Are you recovered now? I always respond with a slight smirk because I know they mean wee, but at the same time I don't think they clearly understand what being recovered from an eating disorder really means.

Most people, and when I say most people, I mean my co-workers, my husband's family, and our friends, just think it is about me wanting to be thin so I will look good in a bathing suit for the summer or at a party. They don't understand, and not that I expected them to because most of them are always complaining about their weight as they are working on their third helping at dinner.

I only have a very select few that truly understand what my eating disorder was or I think at this point in time, I should say what it is about. The sad thing is out of those select few, I can count them on one hand, and four of them are therapists that I've been working with.

I actually have someone who can completely understand what it is all about but I'm too afraid to let that person in completely. This person is someone that I have known for a very long time and have a strong connection with but my heart is afraid, afraid to let that shield down.

I have always been good about having a wall around me. The closer someone tried to get, the higher the wall got. I still have a wall today but it isn't as high as it once was. Some times I feel the wall is still there, helping protect me until I get a real clear understanding of who I am and not just knowing who I am but being comfortable with whom I am. Over the last year and a half I have learned to accept a lot of things about myself that I wasn't sure about. I also learned to not accept the really horrible things I once thought I was.

I will say that the horrible things were much easier to believe than the good things. The Facility was the place where I discovered that I was not a horrible person. I was not fat, ugly, and stupid and most of all I was not TRASH.

 

I am open to sharing your story with our readers. If you think you'd like me to write about your experiences with eating disorders, email me and describein general what your story is about:

ruthanb@gmail.com

Wishing you the most of this holiday season.

Ruthan Brodsky

Thinking About Her Future Chapter 13

How we see ourselves, our body images, is a process that develops over the years. Our body image is influenced by our own life experiences, media, and feedback from others. It is derived from both our conscious and subconscious thinking. Figuring out what and separating the parts of her life that contributed much to her negative thinking was part of Sydne's therapy. It allowed her to better understand herself, her life, and the struggles that shaped her into who she is today.

In 1997 the magazine, Psychology Today, surveyed a group of women. Eighty-nine percent said they wanted to lose weight. What is mind boggling is that 15% of these women said it would be worth sacrificing more than five years of their lives to achieve their desired weight. Another 24% of these women would sacrifice three years of their lives to achieve their goal.

There is no doubt that preoccupation with body image affects a woman's sense of herself. No wonder so many are preoccupied and dissatisfied with their appearance and body size. It is almost a pathological "I'll do anything" to lose weight.

This attitude is closely associated with teen age females but there is a larger group of older women who are also dissatisfied with their body weight. For many, the attitude of body dissatisfaction at a young age stays with them and prevents a normal transition to middle life.

One big major thing I was also able to do for me was I was able to say and believe that I know I may not spend the rest of my life with the woman I love so deeply. But that's okay. I only have half of a relationship with her because of the world she lives in but that doesn't mean I can't find someone else one day and be able to love them openly and have them love me just the same.

I know this woman loves me and I know her world is complicated, but mine doesn't have to be any more. I won't settle for anything less than what my heart desires. If that means I need to let her go or set her free, then I shall. Like they say if it is meant to be she will come back to me.

In the mean time, I will do what makes me happy, what makes me feel complete, and do what makes my hear feel good.

You are probably thinking can it really be that easy, that simple? YES IT CAN!

You can't go wrong when you follow what you truly want from your life. It's your life and this is mine and I will do what is right for me. What is right for me is to be kind, to be helpful, to be understanding and just simply listen to what is around me.

I have finally listened to what was around me and that was to take off my mask and discover who I was underneath it. By removing my wedding ring I removed the mask of deception. Deception that I was a perfectly happy wife who married the man who fathered her child out of a one night stand because she and the people around her and the family thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe it was to most, but the mask made everyone, including myself believe, that I was the happy wife.

How do I feel now that I have removed the mask? I feel free as stupid as that my sound. I really feel free of all the lies, deceptions and the task of juggling two lives everyday.

Yes, you can say I was living a double life. But now I can live the life I was meant to live all along! Will it be easy? No. But I feel I have the strength and courage to be who I am.

There are a several more chapters in Sydne's journal. I spoke with her about a month ago and she indicated she may want to continue telling her story especially if it helps other women work through their eating disorder problems.

May we all continue to invest in our personal growth.

Ruthan Brodsky

http://www.upsideofaging.com

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