A few days ago I though of when I was asked by my doctor what I thought of the group session I had just done.
I was in the hospital for anorexia. It had all happened very quickly. I had gone to a doctors visit when I was 15. What my Mom had told me was she was concerned that I hadn’t started getting a period yet, so I agreed to go of course.
I was curious too and felt very embarrassed that everyone had a period and I didn’t. I had nine sisters who were all normal “women” now., who started their periods at 13-14. I felt like a freak for not having a period yet and that I was not a real female due to this. I thought there was something so wrong with me at my very being so much that I couldn’t get my period. I couldn’t even get that right, I wasn’t even a real female in my mind.
The doctor did a full exam. Looking back I know my Mom probably had quiet conversations with the initial GP doctor about her suspicions that I had a problem bigger then not starting my period, but all of this was not told to me. I was under the impression it was a gynecological issue I’d be dealing with and having checked out by the doctor.
The GP told my Mom to take me to Children’s Hospital to speak with a doctor there who specialized in eating disorders and my mother told me this. I was shocked by this–in my mind I didn’t have an eating disorder at all, and I of course agreed because once I went there the doctor would see that it was preposterous to think I had an eating disorder this and that’d be that.
The specialist doctor’s appointment was on a Monday that I’d typically be in school for. I got to take the day off high school and I used that to extra day off to get my exercise in–running- before going to the appointment. Typically my exercise had to be done after school since I could not get up before to go running outside–I was a teenager living at home and it was not allowed per my parents to go out in the dark and run. I had a regime of exercise needless to say, and did it daily.
My mom took me too the appointment. The specialist eating disorder Dr was named Dr. Siegel. We had our consult, and instead of him scoffing at the idea of me being sick he picked up the phone and called the unit upstairs and told them to get me a bed. I wasn’t going home I was being admitted NOW. I was admitted that day for my first medical hospitalized stay for treatment and it began my treatment for anorexia. I was diagnosed that appointment.
Its a two fold treatment for how I presented to the doctor… Objectively I was over 15% underweight, my heart rate was very low, my blood work was abnormal. So the hospital medical part was there to manage treating these things. The second part was the subjective psychological treatment --because no sane person starves themselves, therefore there has to be something wrong with you to fight your body’s biological will to live. That is a very basic concept from 1 celled organism up , I cleanly MUST have a problem if I didn’t even get that right.
We would have group talk therapy sessions everyday where we’d go to a room with the other patients who were in the hospital like me as well as the ones who were medically stable and were being treated as out patients. We’d as well do once or more a week individual talk therapy sessions with a psychiatric professional.
My first group session I was blown away. Dr Siegel ( the medical doctor in charge of my care) asking me about the session, asking me what I thought of the group stuff. I told him “I feel so bad for these girls! They all have such sad stories!!” He asked me, “You think your story isn’t sad?” and I told him “No! It isn’t!” It wasn’t.
I was not abused as a child. I was not molested, I had not have a bad upbringing at all, I had a loving one which I knew. I was never mistreated by my parents or a stranger, or a trusted adult. I did not have a crazy medical issue like diabetes, a crazy coach in sports, or anything traumatic that happened to me. I told him I really didn’t belong there, these poor girls had such terrible stories and I did not. I felt so bad for them…and guilty that I was there and I did not have the problems they did.
A few years back–long after I was in the hospital, around 3 years ago- I found an article. It was about the differences in brain chemistry in those with anorexia. It lists the results of deficiency’s or having too much serotonin, dopamine-- a very interesting article. The gist of it was that in this study of anorexic people they followed, it appears that they have imbalanced brain chemistry.
It described how these imbalances based on what scientists have figured out about brain chemistry would predispose people to have feelings of anxiety and stress over the intake of eating instead of the normal feelings a person who didn’t have this brain chemistry disturbance would feel. As in normal people feeling eating was satisfying and pleasant and helpful, due to the bad brain chemistry in the studied people who had eating disorders , eating made them felt the opposite therefore they bad brain chemistry people did such totally biologically insane things as not eat and thus developed eating disorders because they had inappropriate chemical levels in their brains.
I read it and was so excited! FINALLY! A scientific reason why I had developed eating disorder! I was so excited I sent the article to my Mom.
I wrote how I wanted her to see this, since I had always known that I had no idea why I ended up as an anorexic person. NOW science had an answer, I just had bad brain chemicals! I wanted her to know and to be relieved by this new scientific find.
Its traditionally thought- as in my example with the group session- that eating disorders develop in a person due to some past abuse or trauma. As a juvenile who became an anorexic, often to start family upbringing and home life is looked into to see if that was the cause of it. It in effect silent pushed blame on how the person was treated in there formative years. Nurture vs nature being the most common culprit.
I wanted her to see this article so she’d know that I was so happy I had an answer, and I had always known it had nothing to do with my upbringing at all, I was a very cherished and loved child. She wrote back how happy she was I had seen this too.
Side note.
I had a relationship with someone who had serious demons. He ended up in prison.
He wrote to me when he first got there, having asked his friend to find me online, and to contact me since I had stopped contact with him due to factors I did not see related to his going to prison. At one point in my life, this guy was someone I cared a lot about. I was very saddened to hear he was in prison, and when I found out the reason I was even more upset since I did not think he’d do anything like what he was convicted of. I felt a real compassion for him since I felt is was an injustice–there’s no way he did what they said he did in my mind and now he was doing time for a crime I really could not think he’d be capable of doing.
This really bothered me and I told another friend , a man, about hearing about this happening to person from my past. He told me, “Well, now he is with people who understand.” His fellow prisoners.
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When I had thought about that group session and the memory of what my Dr had asked me how I felt about it Monday morning it hit me. I DID belong there. I had an eating disorder, I was messed up. The eating disorder was a symptom of a problem not even CLOSE to the real problem I had. I was abused by myself. My abuser was inside me. I did it to myself. I made myself feel like I was worthless, I made myself feel like I didn’t deserve to eat–it was ME. That is another thing I have wrote about before in the past, so insert that bit here to explain that part.
It wasn’t wacky brain chemistry–it was ME.
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Also this week I have been feeling very proud. Things have been coming together. Like i wrote before, I was very proud of how far I had come. Today I was thinking of all the things I had been able to identity as bad behaviors and frames of thought that I had been so happy to see shed the last few years/months.
The main theme of my thoughts were : How having had dealt with trouble I brought onto myself to myself and having gotten over them, how it was even better then if I had never had the problems in the first place. Like the achievement of conquering something, or being finally free after being locked up , how fresh the air is when had it been that I was never a prisoner, I’d take it for granted how good it feels to be free.
I thought I should write a letter to myself and write down some of the stuff I used to think so I will remember what I used to be. Writing has always helped me focus my thoughts, re-reading my stuff I sent to myself has helped a lot in the past.
Then instantly after thinking that…I wrestled with the the though, “Do I even want to document this? Would documenting it be in a way like holding on to those behaviors I had worked so hard to drop?” Then there was the other thought of " Well, documenting the behavior would help me be sure that I knew that at one point I was really bad off, and now I was not, as in have something to compare it to so I’d see how far I’d come. NEVER FORGET kinda thing. The stuff I was contemplating writing about were very specific things, very specific thoughts.
I deiced to think about it on it and sit on it and took Malibu out. While I was walking I was SO full of elation! I kept thinking, you know, I really feel so secure now and this is why…listing the stuff I had been able to work on in my mind etc etc. Basically waking around with my girl in nature feeling very good about myself and pride of what I’d been able to achieve and why.
The last leg of the walk back, about 6 minutes from my house I started to think again about whether or not I to write that email to myself about the list of behaviors/thoughts I felt were going away from my day to day thinking. I started to think pro and cons, pros for documenting theses things, and the cons.
The cons were in a bit of metaphoric thought: " Why keep old used tissues around the house? Did I need to be reminded that I was once sick?" The pro’s being “It’d be like keeping old notebooks you used to take notes in a class , so to be sure you that if you ever needed them or had a question you could go back and see the answer, see the truth and your mistakes.”
The next thought was like a hand on my shoulder by the Devil himself. I stopped in my tracks. I don’t know a way to frame this without sounding crazy. I’ll do my best. The thought that stopped me in my tracks was this, as if the Devil came up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear,
“You still are not confident in yourself. You still don’t think you’ve learned. You still think you’ll need those thoughts.”
The devil ( me abusing me, me being the worst, strongest, enemy I have ever had) was saying to me—"I’m still her "
My personal Devil let me know, he’s still there. Still there. And he’ll be back if I don’t pull up my socks, if I don’t have constant vigilance. He’ll be back to take over my life and send me to the hell I have put myself into so many times before. The spider waiting in the PEEP HOLE!!!
I decided not to write myself that email. I won’t document those thoughts I’ve been able to drop out of my head.–
