Bulimia

[-Mhairi-]

Is anybody here who can help me with a little bit experience?

I've got first-hand experience but I'm not able to help a friend and to recommend a way how she can deal with her problem...she's not got the courage to go to a psychotherapist and I couldn't recommend that either, cos of bad experience with that stuff, but I don't know how she can get along...
my best help were my friends and especially my (now) boyfriend...but I know from others that it's most unusual how I've made it...they all say nobody can do this without professional help but I'm completely against psychotherapy and I don't know what to do now...
Having fought it and won doesn't make me an expert, but that's what some people believe or hope, and it's difficult for me...
It sounds so selfish when everybody knows I'm clean again but I say that I don't know how...
but it's true!

Can anyone tell me a little bit more?
Is here maybe someone else with personal experience, from friends, relatives or maybe themselves?

[crying-charlie]

Hi Mhairi, you are, a heroe, fighting and winning! It is estimated that some 8 million Americans are affected by the insidious eating disorders: Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge-Eating.

Thousands of lives are claimed annually. These disorders are accompanied by a variety of changes in the areas of behavior, thought, perception, mood, and social interaction.

The focus of treatment is twofold: 1.) weight restoration, and 2.) psychological restoration.
There is no single event or factor that causes an eating disorder, but most professionals agree that dieting precedes the onset of an eating disorder. It is important to note that most individuals who diet *DO NOT* develop full-blown eating disorders. Researchers have identified certain risk factors - genetic, biological, psychological, personality, social-cultural and familiar - that MAY contribute to the onset of an eating disorder.
Early Intervention is the best predictor of a good prognosis.

Listed below is a list of things to do instead of starving, purging, bingeing, over exercising and other forms of eating disordered activities. Please remember, that not everything on this list will work for everyone.


ALTERNATIVES TO EATING DISORDERED BEHAVIOR
1) Listen to music/relaxation tapes
2) Make a mourning wreath (start with black flowers and replace with colored flowers)
3) Repetitive reality checking (It's April 1997, and I'm going to be ok)
4) Negotiate with yourself
5) Get to know others
6) Recognize and acknowledge the choices you have NOW
7) Offer options
8) Carry tokens to remind you of peaceful comforting things/people
9) Create and use mental safe places (beach, cabin in the woods, peaceful mountain)
10) Get out on your own, get away from the stress
11) Help someone around you (reach out on a bb, newsgroup, phone list etc.)
12) Pay attention to the changes needed to make you feel safe
13) Count yourself down (10...9...8...7...)
14) Take a different perspective (different vantage point)
15) "I'm aware" Repeat 5 things you see, smell, touch, taste in your present surroundings to help ground you in the present
16) Pay attention to your breathing (breath slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth)
17) Pay attention to the rhythmic motions of your body (walking, stretching, etc.)
18) Move to music
19) ASK FOR HELP
20) Ask yourself inside, what YOU need
21) Make affirmation tapes inside you that are good, kind, gentle (Sometimes you can do this by writing down the negative thoughts and then physically re-writing them into positive messages)
22) Journal
23) Touch Something familiar/safe
24) Draw
25) Put your feet firmly on the floor
26) Make something (craft, needlework, etc.)
27) Accept a gift from a friend
28) Meditate
29) Make a phone list of people you can call for support. Allow yourself to use it
30) Learn HALT signals (hungry, angry, lonely, tired)
31) Identify what is causing you pain (other than food)
32) Accept where you are in the process. Beating yourself up, only makes it worse.
33) Do something FUN!!!
34) Take a break from mental processing
35) Take a SAFE risk
36) Tear up paper (old phonebooks, newspapers, etc.)
37) Honor your present anger
38) Throw ice cubes at the bathtub wall, at a tree, etc.
39) Give yourself permission to.... (Keep it safe)
40) Lose the "should-could-have to" words. Try... "What if"
41) Choose your way of thinking, try to resist following old thinking patterns
42) Put memories in air tight containers with air tight lids
43) Notice black and white thinking
44) Connect with others around you. Call a therapist or friend.
45) Notice "choices" versus "dilemmas"
46) Keep in touch with others who are fighting the same fight
47) Check in with yourself and others frequently (try not to isolate)
48) Make yourself as comfortable as possible (Without using food)
49) Take a bath or a shower
50) Color in coloring books
51) Hold a stuffed animal
52) Write a poem
53) Leave the room
54) Leave the premises
55) Write a letter, NOT mailed, to the person or problem upsetting you
56) Play a musical instrument
57) Plan regular activities for your most difficult time of day
58) Call a hotline or support group
59) Listen to a comedy tape or video
60) Reality check old messages (Those you supply and those you hear others tell you)
61) Clean the house
62) Get out a fine tooth comb and vigorously brush the fur of a stuffed animal (but use gentle vigor )
63) Pull weeds in a garden
64) Plant flowers
65) Play with a Pet
66) Take Your Dog for a walk

The best way to utilize this list is to print it out and keep it handy. When the eating disorder urges hit, we are often easily overwhelmed. This is not the best time to try and remember what our healthy choices are. If they are already written out and on hand, all we have to do is read down the list until we find something safe and helpful.

Here are a few websites that may be of help to you.

http://www.thefamilycorner.com/archi...rition/2.shtml

http://home.talkcity.com/StageSt/kim...Disorders.html

http://www.psychlinks.ca/eating.htm

I hope this is of help to you. Good luck and warmers regards to you and your friend.

[-Mhairi-]

RARGH I just replied and then this f***ing (sorry) computer reloaded...I hate university computers!

Now I'm out of time, so just a short note:

Thanks a lot for the kind words and the help, Charlie, I'm going to copy down that list (I recognize many of my own ways ) for her and translate it...(she's German)

Best wishes,

Mhairi

P.S. How is your father?

[crying-charlie]

Hi Mhairi, hope that was of some help to your friend.

My father is doing very,very well and is back at work again.

[-Mhairi-]

I'm glad to hear this, really.

Yes she said she liked the list, though not all the ideas are good for everyone...

best wishes

Mhairi

[Archangel2]

I hope this has not come too late but I have a close friend who struggled with bulimia. She was dealing with a tough family crisis and she felt much the same way. She did not want to talk to a therapist but eventually when they look at themselves and don't like what they see they come around. I'm not saying that's what happens in all cases but in this instance it was. It is sometimes self-image, peers, fitting in, self-comfidence, that is the source of the problem. You must build up their self-confidence or help counsel them about their fmaily life. Sometimes even just talking with the person about what they feel will help. If they refuse to to seek help you must tell someone!! If you don't they will quietly die piece by piece. They must aknowledge that they do have a problem and it is very dangerous and if they do it too often too long they can die from it.

[-Mhairi-]

Hi Archangel!

No it doesn't come too late,
because this one friend I spoke about is trying to solve the problem together with her girlfriend now and has stopped talking to me (I can't do anything about it...her choice. And I'm NOT going to talk to her parents or anything),
but a close friend of mine has told me she got the same problem, too.

Everybody considers me an expert just because I kept fighting and won...

I know they must acknowledge that they have a problem...but this is nothing you can force. Talking to some friend about it is already a sign of accepting that they do need help...
The best help is love and self-confidence (which can be very close), but damn, I can't create a lover for her and I can't always be there for a friend and build up her self-confidence if she lives about 100 miles away! And she hasn't talked to a friend there, yet.
She said sometimes she can force herself to keep her food, but then she has to look for another way to deal with her problem and then she starts hurting herself...with a nail-clipper...

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! WHY THE HELL ARE WE SO STUPID TO DO SUCH THINGS?

Never show weakness, never tell anybody you got a problem, hide your feelings, swallow it, don't let anybody know you are kind of psycho, be hard, be strong, don't talk about it, don't bother anyone, be nice and beautiful and successful...

MY GOD, WHAT KIND OF ILL SOCIETY DO WE LIVE IN???