theagingofanorexia

Diet and Addiction continued Chapter 20

Most of us don't like to diet. Many of us could even use some extra help when it comes to losing weight. When a person with anorexia diets, she actually feels better, more alert and energetic. They may be starving, they feel the hunger pangs, but they've learned to ignore them. Dieting and not eating become the ultimate goal.

Researchers report that this kind of starvation acts as an addiction. The brain's natural reward circuitry responds to drugs, boosting the levels of dopamine which produces the high that addicts crave. Starving yourself may have the same affect.

Sydne's story

Anorexia Nervosa: An Addiction to Starvation Chapter 19

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

Hope and Recovery: Sydne's Journey Chapter 18

Anorexia is a very complicated disorder and different people develop an eating disorder for different reasons. Although many of us view anorexic behaviors as self-destructive, most individuals with the eating disorder don't believe they are hurting themselves.

The most common reason therapists hear about why someone starts starving themselves is that at some point they feel out of control. It could be a feeling inside them or it could be about something that was happening to them.

Family problems are often a major reason. The families of anorexic patients may have very controlling parents or there are few if any boundaries between the parents and the child. Some anorexics feel that their control over their eating is the first thing they've been able to do by themselves. Or they may be crying out in desperation for attention because of the disconnection between themselves and their family.

A vision is a road man to keep us on the road to take us to those things that we desire in the most heartfelt, deepest manner.

I have made a decision to take ownership each day for my choices and be accountable for them. To fulfill our vision, we must commit to it; a promise to try hard each day to pursue your vision.

A wise woman once said healing from an eating disorder is about embracing yourself instead of pushing yourself away. It is about accepting with gentleness all the difficulties you have suffered and it is learning from others.

Recovery is about experiencing your feelings, as raw and scary as they sometimes feel. When you come to a place where you choose to know and love yourself through these struggles, you are living the definition of hope.

So I guess I must be living the definition of hope. I have had some struggles since deciding to let go of my eating disorder and the road to recovery has not been easy! But it is a road that I would not have changed for anything.

To all our visions and recoveries,

Ruthan Brodsky

Vision for the Future Chapter 17

 

When the Beijing Olympics began in August of 2008, Allie Outram watched them on TV from beginning to end. A cross-country and track athlete, Outram once had dreams of competing for her country. Now she watches her contemporaries compete for the

U.K.

 

In her book published in July, Running On Empty, she revealed how an eating disorder and intense training regimens left her close to death. She began running when she was 14 and to perform well she started to control what she ate leaving out high caloric foods and then any carbohydrates or fats. She also started training intensively twice a day. At her lowest point she weighed 63 pounds.

 

Outram spent two years as an inpatient in a hospital eating disorders unit. She continued to starve herself and in her attempt to eat to recover, her anorexia developed into bulimia. After a binge she would vomit and starve herself again.

 

Outram found that friends and family thought she was too thin and exercised too much but fellow athletes accepted and encouraged her behavior. One of the reasons she wrote the book is to raise people's awareness of the long term damage athletes suffer to win a medal. Now age 32, Outram is recovered and hopes her book will be an inspiration to others.

 

Sydne writes:

 

As my inner child and I become one again, we must journey together to get close to whom we really are. It is important for us to understand the notion of our hearts. Our heart or our sense of heartfelt, spiritual yearning is much more profound and important in defying who we really are and what we really want, then the wishes of our hearts.

 

Our hearts are the most patented source of motivation in our lives. The heart is more of a sense, a knowing, an intuition and an impression. The heart is the part of us that recognizes spiritual expression that comes from God. When we speak from the heart we are referring to spirit, soul. The heart is the part of us that recognizes spiritual expression that comes from God.

 

I hear women talk about what they desire in recovery and what their visions look like when they feel they are recovered. I think desires and visions are about getting what we want most in our lives.

 

Vision is reality, even though not yet tangible, we can see, feel, sense and recognize a vision spiritually. Vision is something that we can have. We begin with the possibilities. Possibilities are the building blocks for faith and hope. Our hope can increase and become the vehicle towards making these things a reality.

 

Your thoughts are appreciated. Scroll down to Comments and type them in the blank window.

 

To your good health and peaceful life,

 

Ruthan Brodsky

 

For more information on Ruthan, opt in at her business blog for men and women in mid-life at From Retirement to Career Change.