A lengthy article appeared in the magazine Scientific American Mind this summer. It basically asks whether anorexia can be blamed on the pressures of our society or whether it is a profound psychiatric disorder.
The article is excellent, well organized and easy to read. The author, Trisha Gura, wrote the book Lying in Weight: The Hidden epidemic of Eating disorders in Adult Women (Harper Collins, 2007).
Gura argues that cultural reasons don't easily explain why someone who is emaciated perceives themselves as fat. It also doesn't make sense that anorexics say they feel more energetic and alert when starving , that starvation seems to boost their metabolic rate which contrasts to people who are fasting and their metabolism slows.
Researchers are looking for biological answers and are probing the brains of anorexics. They now see it as a multifaceted mental illness whose effects extend far beyond appetite. The illness is accompanied by disturbances in the brain's reward circuitry and shares characteristics with drug addiction, the drug being deprivation of food.
According to the National Institute of Mental health about two thirds of anorexics do not fully recover even after years of treatment which today consists of psychotherapy. That is one of the reasons anorexia has the highest mortality rate for any mental illness in young females.
"People have long been blaming families and media," says psychiatrist Walter Kaye of the University of California, San Diego. "But eating disorders are biological illnesses, and better treatments will come from more biologically-based approaches."
I have long since left the Facility and have been spending time at Outreach. I attend Outreach twice a week for three hours but that will change soon because my progress is going well. Even though my insurance would like me to be finished, I also feel my time is coming to an end and a new chapter will begin in my journey to recovery. I have met some amazing people in my journey. From the women at the Facility and the staff and also at Outreach. I have been very fortunate to have worked with a woman who started my journey to recovery and taught me to love me for who I am. That I am not the trash I thought I was and I deserve to be happy and to be loved. To the women I will most likely end my chapter at Outreach with who taught me it is okay to still have struggles and to give myself more credit than I do. That it is important to see how far I've come and not to look at how far I have left to go.
Facing and overcoming an eating disorder is a means for gaining true self love. When you know how to love yourself, your life is forever changed. When you quiet your mind, you can more easily hear the voice in your heart. Sydne
To your health success,
Ruthan Brodsky
Comments