[surviving15]

Hello:

Yesterday was my first appointment and the Dr. diagnose anorexia nervosa. She refered me to a nutritionist and to a psychiatrist. Now I'm in denial for treatment I haven't call to make the appointments. She also said that I have obssesive compulsive disorder because I have a routine I eat the same thing everyday and nobody can change that. This is awful I thought that I will start to see things differently and after the appointment I'm restricting food more.

Thanks for reading!!!

[Overmars]

Denial is part of the problem. First step might be to face that fact. Hope you do well.

[aalazhe]

i have been struggling with anorexia nervosa for 5 months. we all know it sucks. only my doctor and my mom know. otherwise i feel ashamed and im scared to tell my family fearing they will judge me. let me know if you can relate to any of this. thank you so much.

[aalazhe]

we may not know eachother but we can conqour this together !!!!
we can do this with the support if others and having hope.

*if you stay strong you can conqour anything*

Ok, well that's good news actually, because now you are taking steps to get better. I know it isn't going to feel that way. Also, you saw a GP right. GP's are not always the beat at diagnosing mental illness. Take the OCD dx as one opinion, think about if it truly fits, and discuss this with the psychiatrist who will probably be better equipped to make actual mental health diagnosis.

Now it's just one step at a time. Try not to get to overwhelmed or look too far ahead. All you need to do now is call and make the appointments. All you have to do after that is show up at the appointments. Break it down into just what you need to do at this moment. Hopefully that will help you get started. Don't stress too much on what will happen at the app. Because you don't know yet right?

I'm really glad you talked to your dr about this. That's a huge step in itself!! You are doing the right thing. Just one step at a time. You can do it

[Overmars]

I am curious about this problem you are having.
1. What do you think started you going anorexic? I ones heard that TV images and exposing young people to very thin looking people is the source. Do you think that is true?
2. What are you told to do about it ones diagnosed?

I have no interest in being cold hearted and I am not asking in that fashion. I have interest in this because I have a person in my life that does worry me.
Stay strong.

[Aslan]

get the help you need, life can get back to normal for you. goodluck

[surviving15]

Originally Posted by Overmars

I am curious about this problem you are having.
1. What do you think started you going anorexic? I ones heard that TV images and exposing young people to very thin looking people is the source. Do you think that is true?
2. What are you told to do about it ones diagnosed?

I have no interest in being cold hearted and I am not asking in that fashion. I have interest in this because I have a person in my life that does worry me.
Stay strong.

Before I got married for the 2nd time I used to be thin like 145lbs after my first child. Then I got pregnant again and a lot of problems with my husband I gain a lot of weight 70lbs aprox. and been in there for almost 7 yrs. A situation in my life put me in deppression and dropped few pounds and motivated me to start dieting and excercising. In the middle of something I lost control. I wanted to loose weight very fast so I restrict food and still restricting more. It's a mental battle all the time when I have to eat.

[Overmars]

Originally Posted by surviving15

Before I got married for the 2nd time I used to be thin like 145lbs after my first child. Then I got pregnant again and a lot of problems with my husband I gain a lot of weight 70lbs aprox. and been in there for almost 7 yrs. A situation in my life put me in deppression and dropped few pounds and motivated me to start dieting and excercising. In the middle of something I lost control. I wanted to loose weight very fast so I restrict food and still restricting more. It's a mental battle all the time when I have to eat.

So it just slowly got out of hand. Was it like a presure to be thin from you husband or fear of loosing him or his attention?

[Overmars]

Originally Posted by Anika

Ok, well that's good news actually, because now you are taking steps to get better. I know it isn't going to feel that way. Also, you saw a GP right. GP's are not always the beat at diagnosing mental illness. Take the OCD dx as one opinion, think about if it truly fits, and discuss this with the psychiatrist who will probably be better equipped to make actual mental health diagnosis.

Now it's just one step at a time. Try not to get to overwhelmed or look too far ahead. All you need to do now is call and make the appointments. All you have to do after that is show up at the appointments. Break it down into just what you need to do at this moment. Hopefully that will help you get started. Don't stress too much on what will happen at the app. Because you don't know yet right?

I'm really glad you talked to your dr about this. That's a huge step in itself!! You are doing the right thing. Just one step at a time. You can do it

Yea, go for it and it will get better.

[surviving15]

Originally Posted by Overmars

So it just slowly got out of hand. Was it like a presure to be thin from you husband or fear of loosing him or his attention?

No I did it for myself I always wanted to look great and be skinny. And spend a lot of years overweight and then loss pounds and look great. The thing is that for me I'm still fat and need keep loosing weight, feel great.

[eskielover]

Surviving.....I can relate to what you are saying about when you start loosing the weight & just can't stop. The first time I dealt with anorexia was at the age of 43 after loosing my career as a firmware design engineer (15 years). My career was also my hiding place from a bad marriage that I hadn't bother to get out of for 19 years.

Stress or being physically sick had always caused me to loose excessive amounts of weight. In college, during finals, I could loose a huge amount of weight & then once the stress was gone, I would put the weight back on safely. Even when I was pregnant & the last month I found out I was going to have to have a c-section.....I lost 10 pounds from the stress of knowing I was going to have to have surgery. I had not gained much when I was pregnant in the first place because of all the exercise I was doing (mostly swimming).

I don't know really how I survived that period.....it could only have been God keeping me alive between the anorexia & all the su attempts. I managed to not only survive, but to gain back the weight that took me to the anorexia state & more......then asthma from a forest fire smoke & the trauma surrounding my mother's dying of cancer & the abuse by the home care person caused stress induced anorexia to hit me again. I didn't get as low as the first time, but was admitted to the medical hospital & had to have another central line & IV nutrition. The hospital pdoc (they didn't have a psych ward) tried to put me on a hold rather than allow me to leave the hospital so I could go to my mother's funeral.....but my medical Dr looked the other way & allowed me to go AMA (against medical authorization) with the promise that after the funeral I would come back to the hosptial & allow them to do the central line & IV nutrition. That hole period of my life is like a nightmare & I don't have a lot of memory except for what I remembered for the police report against the home care person.

Stress levels are definitely key to my weight loss & then when I start loosing, it feels like such an accomplishment.....that I can't even force myself to eat even to keep myself alive. It's definitely NOT all about body image because without the stress inducing the weight loss in the first place, it's not something that I would do otherwise. Medical Dr's Dx of anorexia is all about a certain level of weight loss no matter what the cause......where the Dx of anorexia nervosia by a pdoc has to fit the DSM requirements. The Pdoc I was seeing in California for many years before I left, initially was only treating me for anxiety & depression but knew about the anorexia treatment I had gone through with my previous pdoc.....so he kept an eye on how I was doing with my weight. What completely invalidated the horrible trauma that I went through with the home care person was that my pdoc blamed my not seeing things clearly on my weight loss & never recognized the horrible things I went through until the PTSD hit me from the trauma I went through & all the nightmares that kept me from sleeping.

I know I never wanted to be overweight like my mother & grandmother were. They weren't obese but they were overweight & I always thought....wow, you get married, catch the guy then let yourself go....I don't ever want to live like that.....so I always exercised & played hard games of racquettball with the GUYS at work....not the girls because they didn't play hard enough.....but any time I started to loose weight for any reason.....it wasn't easy to stop the weight loss & there wasn't the desire to stop it once I got it going because I always thought I looked that much better at the lower weight. Most of the time, my stress periods would end soon enough so that my eating would get more back to normal.....but when those stress periods extended unending.....so did the weight loss

[surviving15]

Originally Posted by eskielover

Surviving.....I can relate to what you are saying about when you start loosing the weight & just can't stop. The first time I dealt with anorexia was at the age of 43 after loosing my career as a firmware design engineer (15 years). My career was also my hiding place from a bad marriage that I hadn't bother to get out of for 19 years.

Stress or being physically sick had always caused me to loose excessive amounts of weight. In college, during finals, I could loose a huge amount of weight & then once the stress was gone, I would put the weight back on safely. Even when I was pregnant & the last month I found out I was going to have to have a c-section.....I lost 10 pounds from the stress of knowing I was going to have to have surgery. I had not gained much when I was pregnant in the first place because of all the exercise I was doing (mostly swimming).

I don't know really how I survived that period.....it could only have been God keeping me alive between the anorexia & all the su attempts. I managed to not only survive, but to gain back the weight that took me to the anorexia state & more......then asthma from a forest fire smoke & the trauma surrounding my mother's dying of cancer & the abuse by the home care person caused stress induced anorexia to hit me again. I didn't get as low as the first time, but was admitted to the medical hospital & had to have another central line & IV nutrition. The hospital pdoc (they didn't have a psych ward) tried to put me on a hold rather than allow me to leave the hospital so I could go to my mother's funeral.....but my medical Dr looked the other way & allowed me to go AMA (against medical authorization) with the promise that after the funeral I would come back to the hosptial & allow them to do the central line & IV nutrition. That hole period of my life is like a nightmare & I don't have a lot of memory except for what I remembered for the police report against the home care person.

Stress levels are definitely key to my weight loss & then when I start loosing, it feels like such an accomplishment.....that I can't even force myself to eat even to keep myself alive. It's definitely NOT all about body image because without the stress inducing the weight loss in the first place, it's not something that I would do otherwise. Medical Dr's Dx of anorexia is all about a certain level of weight loss no matter what the cause......where the Dx of anorexia nervosia by a pdoc has to fit the DSM requirements. The Pdoc I was seeing in California for many years before I left, initially was only treating me for anxiety & depression but knew about the anorexia treatment I had gone through with my previous pdoc.....so he kept an eye on how I was doing with my weight. What completely invalidated the horrible trauma that I went through with the home care person was that my pdoc blamed my not seeing things clearly on my weight loss & never recognized the horrible things I went through until the PTSD hit me from the trauma I went through & all the nightmares that kept me from sleeping.

I know I never wanted to be overweight like my mother & grandmother were. They weren't obese but they were overweight & I always thought....wow, you get married, catch the guy then let yourself go....I don't ever want to live like that.....so I always exercised & played hard games of racquettball with the GUYS at work....not the girls because they didn't play hard enough.....but any time I started to loose weight for any reason.....it wasn't easy to stop the weight loss & there wasn't the desire to stop it once I got it going because I always thought I looked that much better at the lower weight. Most of the time, my stress periods would end soon enough so that my eating would get more back to normal.....but when those stress periods extended unending.....so did the weight loss

Wao, you've been through a lot, and I admire your strenght. I have a lot of issues too, my therapist told me that because of that I'm punish myself. I want to leave my husband because I don't love him and don't know how to do it I take refuge in the anorexia. I really don't think so, yes I want to leave my husband but I'm happy with my severe exercise and eating routine and want to keep doing it. Thanks for your reply.

[eskielover]

It may not be so much punishing but maybe that you have been able to hide yourself away from your marriage through the anorexia. Putting your focus & energy that you would normally want to put into a good marriage, get's put into the exercise. I graduated from college & got into a wonderful firmware engineering career. Since my marriage was bad from the beginning, I put all my energy & all myself into my career. When I lost my career 15 years later when the aerospace industry went downhill, & I then felt trapped in the marriage, that was when depression & the anorexia hit & provided good reasons to keep at a distance from my husband & he even might have been a little concerned about how I was. Also gave me something to focus on since I no longer had a demanding career to focus on any longer & that focus filled a need that I had so I was happy with it also.

Can understand what you say:

yes I want to leave my husband but I'm happy with my severe exercise and eating routine and want to keep doing it.

Your exercise & eating routine is probably filling a void in your life that would otherwise be filled with a happy marriage. However, I do know of people who have a happy marriage, but got into the ED behavior & it became a habit. Think it's even harder to control when not only is it a behavioral habit, but also filling the void of unhappiness......just a thought.