Yup. Never liked skipping meals. I get low blood sugar and cranky. Just ask Mrs AFB!
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It is not a good idea to skip meals, especially in winter time.
Summer is (or can be) different.
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I do have the opposite issue!
Having experienced anorexia nervosa for many years and having lived to tell the tale, I can attest to how "good it feels to fast," but can also emphatically state that it is very dangerous.
Yeah, I lost a dear friend to anorexia when I was in high school. I still remember her downward spiral, how she kept losing weight, and I even remember her wearing a heavy coat during the summer heat. We were both huge fans of the same soccer team.
I am truly glad you recovered.
Thank you! Yes, I remember the days of carefully layering clothes in the summer so that I could try to stay warm and yet not draw attention to the fact that I was more heavily dressed than most people! The spiraling-down thing sneaks up on the person and suddenly one day it becomes all-too-clear that one is caught up in something which is not easy from which to extricate oneself. The thing with anorexia nervosa, too, is that (to a certain extent) it DOES "feel good," and is ego-syntonic, so that the affected person does not want to stop, just wants to keep doing what he or she is doing. Denial is strong, very strong, and the disorder becomes more and more compelling, just sucks one right up into its vortex, not letting go.....
I always wondered what could drive a person to basically starve to death. I don't think there is any way I'd ever be able to understand it unless I experience it (not something I want). Alcoholism, drug addiction etc., I can rationalize them (as erroneous my evaluation might be)… however, starving to death, I truly can't as eating is one of the basic survival activities of any single species on the globe.
It is therefore very interesting that you say "the disorder becomes more and more compelling."
No different from eating oneself to death. I never understand how once your loved one gets so overweight they can’t get out of bed, that someone is still bringing them dinner?
From what I have read (and some of my close friends at secondary school - and, indeed, university - were, I now know, anorexic), the concept of "control", self-control, being able to exert some degree of control over elements of your life (changing bodies, changing school cycles and academic demands, pressures of societal demands, impossible demands made on young women), where little else is amenable to control, for starving oneself allows for being able to exercise or exert a degree of control, - can be considered very attractive, and extremely important.
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I disagree. Eating more than needed on a specific day is part of survival, just brought to the excess x1000. Not eating at all goes counter to all survival and basic needs.
Usually there are many factors in play underlying the development and maintenance of an eating disorder -- either anorexia or bulimia. The whole thing is quite complex, and that only adds to the difficulty when clinicians are trying to help and treat someone with anorexia nervosa. It's not a simple matter of one day someone deciding to starve themselves, it usually starts out insidiously innocently when for whatever reason perhaps someone decides to "just lose a little weight" and goes on what is anticipated to be a temporary "diet," the idea being that once that five pounds is lost, that'll be it. Trouble is, for some people, that five pounds becomes eight, then ten, then fifteen pounds lost....
Somehow, somewhere along the line things go out of control, and although the anorexic feels that she is more and more "in control" the reality is just the opposite. That sense of being "in control" increases in intensity the further one slides into the disorder, which in turn then enhances the denial. Various behaviors and thinking patterns come into being, often entrenching themselves without the person's awareness until it is too late. It is a deadly disorder, with an extremely high death rate due to starvation, other medical complications, or suicide.
Somehow, somewhere along the line things go out of control, and although the anorexic feels that she is more and more "in control" the reality is just the opposite. That sense of being "in control" increases in intensity the further one slides into the disorder, which in turn then enhances the denial. Various behaviors and thinking patterns come into being, often entrenching themselves without the person's awareness until it is too late. It is a deadly disorder, with an extremely high death rate due to starvation, other medical complications, or suicide.
And, if you starve yourself sufficiently, the menstrual cycle comes to a halt, as your body prioritises survival over the alternative of being primed for - or capable of - reproduction.
Knowledge - or, the vocabulary and awareness that allows you to put words on actions you have contemplated or carried out - can come later, much later, but one of my friends - years and years later - did say to me that she had dreaded puberty and the sometimes impossible demands and pressures and expectations that came with it; anorexia was a way - perhaps subsconsciously - of delaying, or temporarily suspending this process.
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Yes, all the contributing factors that you mention are components.....for both young women and young men, and the whole "control" thing is definitely a major part of this. it's contradictory, isn't it, someone denying himself or herself food, the very sustenance of life, and feeling more and more in control for doing so?
The menstrual cycle thing is interesting, inasmuch as some women lose their menses fairly early-on in the process, even before having lost much weight, while others may actually be at clinically very low weights and STILL have monthly cycles (scanty, perhaps not as regularly as previously). The onset of puberty is indeed for some young people a threatening, fearsome situation and that may be a contributing factor to their development of anorexia nervosa, while for others that may not play a huge role at all.
Yes, it may be contradictory:
Nevertheless, in a world where what you study, what you wear, where you can go, when you can go, what you can (publicly) express belief in, can be subject to sanctions, requiring permissions, or negotiation, or conditional approval - deciding what and when you eat may be one of the few areas where you can exercise or exhibit or exert control or autonomy or direction on your life.
I can barely imagine the added pressure that social media is putting on kids nowadays. I mean, it's not a secret that suicides are going up in all age brackets 20 and below.
Yes I recall being on that ward with Miss AFB. Stick thin teenage girls with feeding tubes forced down them.
Not a pleasant few months.
Of course she is on my mind today as 5 years ago today Mrs AFB took her to school, only for her to never return.
Not a pleasant few months.
Of course she is on my mind today as 5 years ago today Mrs AFB took her to school, only for her to never return.
Big hugs my friend. Big, big hugs.
Sorry I’ll have to decline on social distancing grounds. But thank you.
My mother used to say - and I must say that I agree with her - that - notwithstanding the freedoms of later generations - she was very glad that she wasn't a teenager in current times.
Yes, I can only imagine that this is an exceptionally tough day for you both; stay strong and the best of luck.
Likewise. Very much likewise.
My mother used to always say that we were "late developers" (she meant psychologically, not intellectually, if anything, we were pretty precocious intellectually), as she had been - and that we could and should take our own time to develop - not be rushed into anything we were uncomfortable with by peer pressure - and try to take things at our own pace, which was very sound advice.
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I don't think I'm suffering from that but not eating helps my lingering pain that never went away after my hysterectomy. So it's possible I could develop a disorder due to my desperation to lower the chronic pain. I'm trying to find a balance but I'm walking on a tightrope.
In my earlier posts, I did neglect to mention that anorexia nervosa is not just for the young -- the disorder affects people of all ages, but is most commonly diagnosed in preteens, teenagers and young adults who are taken to the doctor by concerned parents or other family members. Sometimes a teen or young adult develops the disorder, but just to a subclinical degree so that he or she never comes to to family or professional medical attention.....and then sometimes years later, events in adulthood, middle age, etc., can trigger the acceleration of what had been seemingly mild, innocuous behaviors to the point where the disorder is no longer subclinical and eventually cannot be ignored or denied. Someone may be admitted to a hospital's eating disorder unit or a residential treatment center in middle age and while working in therapy begin to realize that they had actually developed the disorder in their teens.
One reason for the late realization and identification of the disorder, especially during the 1980's and beyond, is that prior to that time anorexia nervosa was seldom written about in the popular press, seldom talked about, although it was very definitely something affecting many young people throughout the decades before that. From time to time articles appeared in clinical medical journals and treatment was pretty much dealt with only in medical units in hospitals. In the 1980's things began to change and over time awareness of this serious disorder among the general population really began to make a difference, with parents more tuned-in to what might be happening with their child, or other adults, such as teachers, noticing signs and symptoms of a student experiencing emotional distress and manifesting it physically.
Unfortunately, though, in the US, unless someone has financial resources to allow for self-pay as opposed to insurance coverage, receiving the appropriate level of care and length of stay which might be needed in treatment -- particularly inpatient -- can be problematic, and many families and patients struggle with this. There is a long way to go yet in providing adequate care, an issue which is made all the more difficult when the patient is resistant to treatment in the first place.
One reason for the late realization and identification of the disorder, especially during the 1980's and beyond, is that prior to that time anorexia nervosa was seldom written about in the popular press, seldom talked about, although it was very definitely something affecting many young people throughout the decades before that. From time to time articles appeared in clinical medical journals and treatment was pretty much dealt with only in medical units in hospitals. In the 1980's things began to change and over time awareness of this serious disorder among the general population really began to make a difference, with parents more tuned-in to what might be happening with their child, or other adults, such as teachers, noticing signs and symptoms of a student experiencing emotional distress and manifesting it physically.
Unfortunately, though, in the US, unless someone has financial resources to allow for self-pay as opposed to insurance coverage, receiving the appropriate level of care and length of stay which might be needed in treatment -- particularly inpatient -- can be problematic, and many families and patients struggle with this. There is a long way to go yet in providing adequate care, an issue which is made all the more difficult when the patient is resistant to treatment in the first place.
I like etymology - albeit not enough to seriously study it. I was one of those kids that could spend hours randomly browsing an etymological dictionary, and I could easily do the same on the interwebs.
Today's word is "aftermath". I guess I never realized that in this context "math" comes from "mowing" ("maeo") and that therefore it's a term with roots in agriculture.
Today's word is "aftermath". I guess I never realized that in this context "math" comes from "mowing" ("maeo") and that therefore it's a term with roots in agriculture.
