Binge Eating Disorder

Started by Not Alone, January 13, 2020, 04:08:55 AM

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Not Alone

I think I might have Binge Eating Disorder (BED). When I look at information and check lists online, well, I check a lot of yeses. It makes sense, using food and especially sugar, to 'medicate' my cPTSD symptoms. I don't know why this is a shock to me. I knew I had eating issues, but don't have bulimia or anorexia. I looked up PTSD and food issues online and saw BED. I didn't know that Binge Eating was a disorder. Guess a bit of a punch in the stomach to add another (self) diagnosis to cPTSD and DID.

Other then once saying that my eating is out of control, I haven't talked about my food issues in therapy. I am very reluctant to bring it up. Still dealing with relationship/trust issues with T. Also, haven't told him many things over the last four weeks that I need/want/should tell him that occurred during those four weeks (including SH).

Having Binge Eating Disorder is another thing that I don't want to be true and another issue that is too big for me.

Kizzie

Sorry to hear this notalone, it can be a shock and discouraging to come face to face with yet another injury relational trauma inflicts on us.  :grouphug: 

I am in the process of looking for a T who is knowledgeable about relational trauma, in particular the link between food and trauma. I admit I am quite apprehensive because I don't want to feel any more shame but also I am afraid of giving up something that has always been there to comfort/numb me. I just don't want to feel any more shame, I want to to get to the bottom of things with someone who gets that trauma spawns issues like this.  And that will take a lot of trust in the T but also in myself I think, that I am ready to face the pain behind the eating. 

Anyway, FWIW I think taking your time is not a bad thing.

Not Alone

Kizzie,

Thank you so much for your response. I completely understand what you said about shame and not wanting to give up something that has medicated the feelings. My T has never reacted to me with judgement; however, the shame is within me. I also have been afraid to look at this for fear of someone (or even myself) taking away my security blanket.

Perhaps when you interview therapists, it would be helpful to state your apprehensions.

Sorry that you have those experiences, but grateful to you for sharing with me.

Quote from: Kizzie on January 13, 2020, 05:16:04 PM
Sorry to hear this notalone, it can be a shock and discouraging to come face to face with yet another injury relational trauma inflicts on us. 
This also helpful; instead of just seeing my lack of self-control, this is an injury to me caused by trauma. Doesn't take away my responsibility, but helps to recognize the cause.

Kizzie

QuoteI also have been afraid to look at this for fear of someone (or even myself) taking away my security blanket.

It really is nice to speak about this openly, tks for this thread and your suggestion.  :hug: 

I binged watched the show Shrill the other night, don't know if you've seen it but it is about a woman who is overweight and starts to push back against the treatment she has received because of her weight. 

In one episode she goes to a pool party for plus sized women and  is hesitant to join in at first but then jumps in and you can just see the pure joy of being able to swim without feeling judged and to just have fun. There's a flashback in the same episode to when she is a teen and her family is on holidays staying at a motel with a pool.  She stays in the room reading a book while everyone is swimming, but later that night when everyone is asleep she sneaks down to the pool and you see her smiling as she floats on an inner tube.  I understood those two scenes completely.  Shame keeps many of us from living fully and I for one want to get over it.   :yes:    Anyway, good show if you're looking for something to watch.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/dec/15/shrill-review-taboo-smashing-comedy-is-a-big-fat-delight-lindy-west

sanmagic7

hey, notalone,

i've struggled w/ eating/food/body image issues for a great part of my adult life - starting in my 20's.  i've done Overeaters Anon., read books about not dieting (been thru the yo-yo bit more than once), attended therapy groups, but what i kept missing was the answer to the 'why' questions - why was this happening, why do i feel like this, why do i keep doing something that doesn't make me feel good,  :blahblahblah:.

as a therapist, those 'why' questions have always been important to me, so i ended up creating my own program (about 25 yrs. ago) to help answer the questions, at the same time tackling issues like shame, self-hate, comparisons, non-acceptance, even inner child awareness (this was before that was a big thing) - all the stuff that i eventually  learned was totally related to trauma and dysfunctional relationships. 

part of my shame, then, became that, while i taught and wrote this program for others, i am not model thin, like so many other programs and their advocates are.  following that thread backwards, i find it belongs to my perfectionism/having to be and look perfect.  still working on this, but it's getting easier.  since writing the program down, it helped re-focus my own perceptions of carrying shame.  talking w/ my d about it has also helped.  i think just bringing it out of the dark is a good start on eliminating it, or at least making it a non-issue, as dylan says, 'most of the time'.  i'll take it.

love and hugs to you, sweetie.  shame is the least fun, to my mind, of all these trauma-relational issues.  ugh! :hug:

Not Alone

Thanks, Kizzie. I don't think I have access to see the show for free, but will keep my eye open for it.

San, appreciate what you shared.
Quote from: sanmagic7 on January 15, 2020, 08:03:12 PM
i think just bringing it out of the dark is a good start on eliminating it, or at least making it a non-issue, as dylan says, 'most of the time'.  i'll take it.

This has been a shift in me from complaining about my weight, joking about what I eat (without anyone knowing how much sugar I am really consuming and how much I am binging) to -------I have an eating disorder (sorry for the pun, but still hard for me to swallow that one) as an unhealthy way of anesthetizing my feelings and damage from trauma.

". . . trauma exposure leads to emotional dysregulation (difficulty managing emotional reactions), . .  In this model, binge eating and purging are believed to be an attempt by the affected person to manage or numb their intense PTSD symptoms. When they succeed in doing so, the eating disorder behaviors are reinforced." https://www.verywellmind.com/ptsd-and-eating-disorders-4172983

Still am not ready to mention this to T. This insight has helped me to stop from automatically reaching for candy &/or that second or third or fourth food item. Not even thinking about calories and weight. Just trying to stop and listen to what is happening inside.

Kizzie

Quotewhat i kept missing was the answer to the 'why' questions - why was this happening, why do i feel like this, why do i keep doing something that doesn't make me feel good

Exactly San.  I know now it's trauma driving my overeating, my cravings for salt, sugar, carbs, etc., I'm just not sure how to get at the trauma part that's causing this behaviour. I can almost feel the trauma part take over -- at night in particular -- and like you Notalone I don't care about calories or anything, I just want the food for comfort, mostly carbs & sugar. It doesn't just feel emotional/psychological but very physical as well, like I need a fix. And I feel panic at the thought of not having that fix.  Honestly I gave up smoking and drinking and it was so much easier than this because I just had to stop something completely. You can't do that with food. 

QuoteI have an eating disorder (sorry for the pun, but still hard for me to swallow that one) as an unhealthy way of anesthetizing my feelings and damage from trauma.

I'm beginning to see my behaviour in these terms and also starting to shift towards the idea of loving myself no matter my size which is probably one reason Shrill resonated with me.  I'd really like to be more comfortable in my own skin and let go of shame.   

bluepalm

Reading through this thread, I realised something and wondered if it would be helpful to share it. I hope so.

Yesterday I looked at my reflection in a window - my body side-on - and felt cringing shame go through me, although I know, at 164cm and 67kg, I am objectively an 'acceptable' size to this world.

This disjunction between my knowledge and what I felt, and reading through this thread this morning, have made me realise that the only thing that would make my shame go away is if I disappeared altogether.

No matter what size I am, it is too big, too much, too solid, it is unacceptably taking up too much space. I remember as a young girl (when I was really skinny) looking down at my thighs as I sat waiting for a train and feeling disgust at my flesh. It was all too much. I've had the occasional impulse to cut my breasts off because they stick out from my body and at some primitive level I feel this is 'too much', it's offensive for other people to have to tolerate looking at me. My flesh is taking up too much space.

My response to the shame has been to treat food as forbidden - to deny myself the pleasure of food. And here I'll recite a poem I wrote many years ago in a moment of awareness of this struggle and which I've already posted on this site:

Hansel and Gretel ate the house
nibbled at it like a mouse.
I shut my mouth and hunger denied.
To save my mother, my soul, it died.


These feelings are so irrational, so primitive, so unhinged from reality, I'm sure that they are driven by the trauma of abandonment and my learning as an infant that my very existence was an outrage, a mistake, a reason for others to treat me with cruelty and hostility.

If these intensely strong feelings about our right to be alive on this earth underlie our body image, how hard is it for us to come to acceptance of our bodies, whatever shape they take? How much strength and tolerance for deprivation does it take for us to forswear the comfort of carbs and sugar and warm, filling food? Or, in my case, how much strength and tolerance does it take for me to go through life not indulging the need for comforting food? Either way, it is a terrible burden to carry these feelings through life and be subject to the judgment of others who have no knowledge of the trauma inflicted upon us.

The consequences of human cruelty for the lives of other humans are appalling.

sanmagic7

hey, bluepalm,

appalling is a great word for this stuff.  the idea of accepting ourselves is so foreign cuz we've never known what that is, what it means, how it feels. 

shame of being alive - how much worse does it get?  so, yeah, denying oneself food makes perfect sense in that perspective - i'm not worth being here so i'll do what i can to disappear. :disappear:

we've also been taught to ignore the messages our bodies give us as to their needs, the importance of those messages, and deny those messages when they don't conform to what we've been taught.  our very natural messages from when we were born - eat when you're hungry, eat what your body is hungry for, stop eating when you're full - have been drowned out by the messages about ourselves that have been piled on us by people in authority over us who didn't have our best interests at heart.

so, from little on, when we didn't have power, resources, or even life experience to draw on, we had no way to fight those messages, and eventually adopted them as our own.  something that's helped me is writing down some of those messages, all that i can remember, and tearing them up and tossing them out.  what's important here is to replace those old messages with new ones that are personal and individual, natural and focused on your body's needs.  start repeating the new ones every day so that hopefully they'll be able to keep the old ones at bay.  this has helped me a lot as to accepting my body as is and not attaching neg. labels to myself if i don't do it perfectly.  (and, i don't do it perfectly, but then, i'm not perfect, but a messy human, wounded and damaged.  that deserves compassion, not punishment).

i really am sorry for your struggle.  i hope some of this helps.  i believe you are worth the space you take up, no matter how much it is, by the mere fact  that you shared a part of yourself so that other people can relate, know they're not alone, and get some inspiration from the fact that you are continuing on w/ your struggle.  we can all use that, so thank you very much for sharing this.  sending love and a hug filled w/ encouragement. :hug:

bluepalm

Thank you so much Sanmagic 7.  :hug:

Kizzie

Bluepalm, you write with such clarity, depth and sensitivity about this issue. In another thread on this issue we did talk about the idea of overeating as a way of taking up more space/becoming more visible, or undereating/denying as a way of becoming less visible/invisible so you're not alone in how you feel.  :grouphug:

It does all seem to come down to what you wrote San: 

"eat when you're hungry, eat what your body is hungry for, stop eating when you're full - have been drowned out by the messages about ourselves that have been piled on us by people in authority over us who didn't have our best interests at heart."

I agree that we need to figure out what we're saying to ourselves and replace those messages with more positive, self-affirming ones.  We need to counter these deeply held beliefs about ourselves, our worth and our place in this world and that means getting at what is driving our thoughts and feelings around eating, our trauma.

I don't want to try and do this on my own any more though. I think we need more compassionate people and resources, maybe an online program that deals directly with trauma and eating. I can't bear the thought of going to another group or professional that isn't, just can't do it, nope, nope, nope. 

bluepalm

Kizzie, my unconscious is at work because after I read your post this morning I found, while ostensibly looking for something else, notes on my phone of a long-forgotten dream I had in May of last year. You said: "In another thread on this issue we did talk about the idea of overeating as a way of taking up more space/becoming more visible, or undereating/denying as a way of becoming less visible/invisible so you're not alone in how you feel."

My dream was about "taking up more space/becoming more visible" and seems an exaggerated response to the part of me that feels I should disappear. However, it also equates bigger size with dignity and respect - something I know occurs in cultures where larger body size is a sought-after indicator of wealth, health and power.

In my dream I was moving out of a messy house I shared with someone else and was throwing out rubbish and being very selective about what I took with me. Having done that I used an elephant to stretch out my body to become a bigger person, a person with dignity and self-respect, a person worthy of the respect of others, and then I said to myself in a child-like way: "see how large I am really - I needed an elephant to stretch me to my proper size".

I know the dreams of others can be tedious, but I felt the way my unconscious wanted to stretch my body out to take up an elephant-sized amount of space was interesting indicator of my inner spirit bursting to be truly alive and seen and respected in this world. The feelings and emotional issues around eating and body size are complex and intense aren't they. I can understand your antipathy towards having to deal anymore with 'helpers' who fail to comprehend this complexity and the myriad ways in which trauma distorts our perceptions and injures our minds, bodies and souls.








Kizzie

Seems like a clear message from younger you about needing/wanting to take up more space Bluepalm. They do speak to us our various parts don't they? Dreaming is a good way to 'sneak' in those messages they want us to know - love the elephant. :thumbup:

Notalone, just to bring this back to your original post I wanted to say that I have issues with the word "disorder" because it doesn't capture what's really going on, it puts the onus or responsibility on us, portrays us as the problem rather than what happened/is happening to us that is causing us to respond in certain ways. 

I would much prefer something like "binge eating response" as in "I binge eat in response to trauma" vs " binge eating disorder" which essentially equates to "I am disordered because I binge eat."  It nails down what's going on, and is less stigmatizing/pathologizing and more compassionate (to my mind).

sanmagic7

nice catch, kizzie.  words make all the difference!  it's like i don't like the word invalid for someone who is sick and/or can't get around on their own, because invalid, as in not valid, is spelled the same way, and i don't think anyone is invalid.  look at steven hawking! 

i like the idea of response taking the place of disorder.  the disorder was in what and how we were taught about ourselves, not in how we respond.  love it! :hug:

Phoebes

Notalone, I relate to your post, as well as others, and it's helped me as well to hear your conversations on this.  In my case, relationship to food, drink and body image are things that have always plagued me daily. I believe I also had/have an eating disorder of sorts, binging, yo-yo'ing, lots of focus and shame in that area over the years.

Once I started realizing about C-PTSD and all the reasons, I could see it was trauma related. I'm not well versed on the subject or talked about it with a T, ever. I realize though that my relationship with consumption and shame has always been an issue.

I was thinking of this yesterday as I caught a glimpse of my reflection and just saw, well, "more" of me than I wanted to be there. I thought, you know, I'm doing ok. I'm working out, eating healthfully. I've got hormone stuff going on I don't fully understand. I'm doing the best I can right now. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and I think things will become better over time. No rush. That sort of self talk helped. But I also remembered where it comes from. A lifetime of being shamed by Nm, and a major topic and focus on image and weight. Not only that, but the major control she had over my food. I think now that I understand how and why I was shamed and controlled so much (HER issues) I can put the focus on health, fitness and thinking of food scientifically more than emotionally. AND, not feeling bad about myself. My body. It's definitely a process.

I like the concept of healing so something can become "not a thing."