First let me say i love this site, it has saved my life before, im hoping it can again. I have been battling bulemia for 1.5 yrs. about 6 months ago i discovered raw food and was able to fight what seemed like a mind controlling disease that i have. I felt great and was healthy again. However, The past few weeks school has started and stress levels have gone through the roof. Needless to say old habits have started again, but worse than before. I know im killing myself but can only make myself stop for a day or two at a time. I believe if i can keep myself raw and prove to myself i wont become obese with food in my stomach, i can overcome this. I was wondering if anyone else outthere has or has overcome something like this and has any advice.
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I’ve ALWAYS been very weight concious and I know it’s not a great feeling. Constantly thinking about what you just ate and if you should or shouldn’t have is really annoying!
What’s helped me is to think about all the other people out there who are morbidly obese and KNOW that I will NEVER end up like that, pretty much just because that is one of my biggest fears. I know it’s really superfiscial to think like this, but it’s what helped me to live normally. I was never diagnosed with anorexia and never had to go to the hospital or anything like that, but I could go for days just eating apples or nothing at all, weighing very little whilst standing very tall, and I definately had a strained relationship with food.
I’m 21 now and I’m quite slender and happy with who I am and what I look like. I understand that it’s hard because I’ve been there myself, but you really got to think that there are worse things out there… There really are…
Good luck, and holler if you need anything ;)
My thoughts are with you.
“I believe if i can keep myself raw and prove to myself i wont become obese with food in my stomach, i can overcome this.”
Now, I don’t mean this negatively, but please be careful that you’re not using raw as another way of (negatively) controlling your food intake—ie. masking ED symptoms by rationalising that you’re eating healthily so it is okay. I only say this because I know one or two people who are ana / mia, and have progressed from it to raw food but in a very negative way. Their disorder is still controlling them.
I would, if I were you, seek professional help … somebody to talk to about how you’re feeling would really help, and ensure that you’re approaching food in the right way.
Good luck.
I second the suggestions to seek a therapist or a group. It is a wonderful thing to be able to be honest and to know that you aren’t alone!
Also, don’t beat yourself up. I can guarantee you that everyone struggling with eating disorders, past or present, finds events like school starting incredibly difficult and triggering. If this has traditionally been a way you’ve dealt with emotions in the past, of course it will be tempting to go that way again when life gets shaken up!
Give yourself credit for the progress you have made, remember that “keeping yourself raw”, though amazing for you physically, is mentally just another facet of the same disease. What you really need is a better and healthier form of emotional identification and expression.
I have definitely been there before, AllNatural, and I struggled for eight years and have been in long-term hospitalization. But I have overcome it, not With raw foods but happily to raw foods. Please feel free to talk to me more about this whenever you want to. I understand.
Thank you all so much. The support has helped alot. I havent binged/purged in three days. I keep telling myself my body wants this and needs this. Its making more beutiful and more attractive. I know its only been three days, but i already feel better. Now instead of purging i have energy and “life” in me.
Hi AllNatural, I too have an eating disorder too. Raw food is really helping me tackle my demons. I now feel good about eating. My eye colour has changed from a muddy hazel to a deep rainforest green! I highly recommend lots of green smoothies, they are very healing for the body.
I still am a bit fearful of eating lots of nuts and seeds – I eat some but probably not quite enough.Hence if there is a recipe that contains a lot of nuts or seeds then I generally don’t make it.
Does anybody have any thoughts on this – or some info to help?
Well done AllNatural! That’s great progress. Also, remember that raw is all about making you beautiful and attractive on the inside & that this is the most important thing to focus on (the outside being beautiful too is just a nice benefit).
radish_man, I think you’re experience with nuts / seeds is what I was trying to get across about being mindful (which you clearly are) of not letting a raw diet just become another kind of eating disorder. How great that you can own up in public to being afraid … that takes so much courage :-) Can you articulate what it is that you fear about nuts / seeds? Is it perhaps because they are not considered a “safe” or healthy food generally, and particularly not in ED communities, from my experiece. I think it would help if you could write down in words what you feel about nuts / seeds.
radish_man im sorry to hear that others feel the same pain i do. But everyone here has helped so much. For example today I had sushi with my boyfriend (who has no idea i ever had a disease) but instead of feeling gross i was like okay true it was calorie loaded and was white rice and fish but my body needs food…even if it isnt raw or the healthiest thing. Instead of throwing it up, i came home looked at some of the posts and overcame the urge. I had the energy (b/c i have been raw for 3 days not counting sushi) to lace up my tennis shoes and go for a run, something i havent been able to for a long time. Thank you again everyone—for helping save my life
You all have been so good to me. Your words mean so much. Which is why i feel so horrible now. I have turned back to purging as a stress outlit i know. I still eat completely healthy, but i have been under an enourmous amount of stress lately (finals and precancerous issues). I need help but i know if i tell my fiance i would feel worse, like letting everyone i love down in some way. I know what i am doing is killing me. I am trying to get the courage to go to a help center. I was just wandering if anyone who has had a disorder did anything on their own to make it better…or might this go away when the stress does….i am so disappointed, i was doing so well. help.
i think it’s really sad that the individualistic attitude perpetuated (especially here in the u.s.) is this idea that we shouldn’t need people, we shouldn’t rely on people, while i think the total opposite is true: we were made for community, we were made to rely on and help each other! it might be scary to ask for help, but it is necessary and a GOOD thing to do. i believe in God, and i believe he calls us to love and help one another. and i also believe in the devil, and i think he tries to get us to fail and fall by telling us we can handle things on our own or by convincing us that we are too much of an imposition on other people. God wants us to join together, he wants to make peace, and he wants healing. The devil wants derisiveness and separation among people—he wants us to separate ourselves emotionally, physically, and relationally and live in isolation where we are most vulnerable.
that’s my thought. whether or not you believe in what i’m saying about God and the devil, i think anyone can agree that healing is greatly assisted by support and encouragement from those around us. so don’t be afraid to ask those people to help you!
If only i would have read these responses when i woke up this mornin it might have been a successful day. I had an early exam (stress trigger) Came home and saw that my roomate had left some fresh brownies…any other purgers know baked goods can be the hardest thing to purge because i guess they (settle) in the your stomach. But i couldnt help myself. I purged until i could anymore, and cried during because i felt so guilty doing it. Still sitting here 15 minutes later, drinking a glass of water i feel like i need to purge again. I thank god for this wonderful group of people and their support. Because of you i am refraining from a round 2 episode. Im am overflowing with emotion and tears.
i never noticed before either but—yeah—i do crave nuts…alot of them,
When a person is aware that these inordinate “disorderly” eating desires occur in relation to certain stresses in their life, it would appear that the problem is not the binging & purging, but the thing which is creating the sense of stress. Being stressed means that the person is being overwhelmed by the requirements of whatever it is which is placing demands on their resources: on time, money, abilities, knowledge, etc. – demands that the person (currently) feels theirself unable to meet, but nevertheless also feel compelled to accomplish, regardless – regardless of their judgement on the matter.
Would it not make sense that it is the thing which produces the stress, the thing which should be removed, rather than to cause oneself to suffer more, exacerbating the situation by the additional physical stress of the binging/purging, plus the negative psychological effect upon one’s self-esteem?
It seems that the urge to eat has to do with the feeling of comfort & pleasure that it brings; the relief from the rest of one’s life when is not so happy. But why would one then throw out (so crudely) everything which one has just been so happy to take in? It must be that the person really only wants the experience of the pleasure they receive (and whatever other associations come with what is being eaten), but not the nutrition or the calories – it is like a subconscious communication to the self: “I want something which makes me happy in the same way as this food does, which is available to me, in comparison to the rest of my situation, which really sucks, and over which I have no influence; where I’m not allowing myself any authority in the important decision of either accepting or rejecting it”.
I’m curious if those of you who feel motivated to do this binging & purging are aware of what you are thinking/feeling when you are compelled to binge, and more importantly later when you want to purge (why you want to take it all back out again). Do you feel yourself stuck in this mode, unable to seek other places to go, things to do?
Lovingraw, after eating (to excess) something you really liked, did you feel guilt for having allowed yourself to indulge in that pleasure? Did you deny yourself other pleasures as well, or only with food?
Oh, my goodness. This was really punishing!
It is such a phenomena, however, that everyone who suffers from bulimia arrives at this same conclusion: that if they upchuck their food they will achieve some kind of satisfactory mental/emotional state. Would you mind describing how, at some point in your time of stress, the idea occurred to you that this would be the thing to do, how you decided that this would accomplish relief or somesuch?
(I was going over my own experiences of having to puke, and it has never been pleasant; I hate it. It is very unsettling just prior to the event, because I will be in a slight fever, I will know that in a few seconds my stomach’s reflexes will be taking over and the rest of me will absolutely be “letting go” in order for the stuff to come out, and I will be in a very un-pretty position with my mouth wide open and undigested stuff spewing out (euwww). Of course it is a relief overall when it’s finally over, but it is not something that I ever look forward to, and I would be loath to intentionally induce it even once, not to mention several times a day, every day.)
Well, I can see where the calm after the storm would be the appealing, attractive feature in purging. That’s really what ‘raw foodists’ are going for when they fast, is it not: to relax their system and give it a rest, allowing it to do its thing, catching up with unfinished business (conducive to a healing restoration), and experience the cleanliness and calm which comes from this.
I can appreciate a mind under extreme stress desperately searching for relief and seeking a strong dose of what is most immediately available, even if later the ‘relief’ really only compounds the problem. We’re hardly educated on how to deal intelligently with the problems which come with life on Earth, especially the really overwhelming ones, and are often left to our own devices, trying to deal with them with but little knowledge or resources. Especially when one is very young, it can break a person emotionally. Especially if they’ve been eating crap all their life!
I recently read an article written by Karen Knowler, a raw food coach in the UK. It’s addressed to those who struggle to stay 100% raw, who play yo-yo and then feel guilty at succumbing to the desire for those cooked enticements. But it has some inspiring, very nice bits of insight very applicable to this thread:
http://karenknowler.typepad.com/living_in_the_r…
To what she says I would add that ‘giving in’ to this kind of (harmless) temptation is not necessarily a bad thing. Like the scientific statement that ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’, it is well known that attempts to prevent oneself from a pleasure only increases the desire to pursue it. You get better a better state of mind when dedicated to learning from it than trying to resist, failing, and then beating oneself up over it later. It also good to have equally pleasing but healthier alternatives to choose from, to broaden one’s involvement with what life offers, building a broad base of happiness from which to evaluate stressful problems.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s useful in clearing up the mystery of this seemingly perplexing malady.
mygreenmojo, I would argue that seeking perfection in your life is not an “obsession”. It is how our minds work. We need precision in our life, because our success depends upon it. It is what we use to navigate the physical, geometric aspects of existence. It is how we can determine where things are, how fast they are going, what the consequences will be of events which connect or coincide, a way of distinguishing the precise difference between what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We evaluate things often by their degree of orderliness or disarray (in science they even measure the disorder in system and call it ‘entropy’). The only thing we need to add to all this activity is an examination of the propriety of the degree of precision we’re demanding or imposing.
It is a good thing to exercise judgement on the time it takes to do all that calculating; as you said, you may come to the realization that some of it is more wasteful than practical, more trivial than productive, and refine your decision on the time spent attending to the orderliness of certain things. Because we calculate we have only 24 hours each day. :(
In homes such as are featured in magazines for home interiors, we marvel at their beauty and how well everything goes together. The designers and decorators who create these beautiful scenes spend a lot of time putting things together which “fit” or “go with” each other and look just right. (One difference with those beautiful home interiors and ours is that the owners have enough money to pay somebody else to keep everything in perfect order!)
It i the same with clothing designers and graphic artists – they can spend inordinate amounts of time on tiny little details, making sure these meet that artists’ exacting standards. No one would argue with this “obsession” when their work is successful and they make a very lucrative living from it.
mygreenmojo: This reminds me of a statement by Maria Montessori (a researcher of childhood development, originator of the Montessori Method of education):
“The mind that works by itself, independently of truth, works in a void. Its creative power is a means for working upon reality. But if it confuses the means with the end, it is lost.”
Comparing it to bulimia, a few questions come to mind: when the obsessive thoughts & behaviors began to “take over” were you under extra stress at the time? Did the impuluse to do certain things unendingly just come upon you suddenly, then begin recurring, or was it a slow development?
It appears that you followed the driving impulses when they started, and as you said, continue to do so now, still struggling against them. Do they affect you in the workplace as well, do they affect your ability to be productive and on time with expected results, or is it only at home that they will afflict you?
Thank you again, and i have seen a therapist, i am temporarly “talking” regularly and on medication. I hope to stop the meds within a few weeks, but they are helping to control myself again. Im not boasting meds. But i do encourage people who have had the same problem as me, to go ahead and make the call for help.
Well, mygreenmojo, I hope the raw eating lifestyle will be of some help to you in getting beyond this compulsion. [I wonder what happens when you take a long vacation where you have no arranging to do! :) ]
But here is what Montessori had to say about the sensitivity to order during childhood:
“A very important and mysterious period is the one which makes a child extremely sensitive to order. This sensitiveness appears in a child’s first year and continues through the second. It may seem slightly fantastic that children should have a sensitive period with respect to external order, since it is a common opinion that children are disorderly by their very nature.
When a child lives in a city, in a closed environment full of various objects which adults move around and arrange for reasons which he does not understand, it is difficult to form a judgement about such a delicate attitude in the child. If he passes through a period sensitive to order, the disorder he perceives can be an obstacle to this development and a cause of abnormalities.”
Montessori then provides some examples of situations she had witnessed or been told of, where a child’s tantrum was cleared as soon as a certain arrangement of objects in the child’s life was restored.
“These examples indicate the intensity of this instinct. What is perhaps surprising is its extreme precocity. In a child of two years the need for order manifests itself in a tranquil fashion. It is at this time that the need becomes a principle of activity and provides one of the most interesting phenomena to be observed in our schools. When an object is out of place it is a child who perceives it and sets about putting it where it belongs. A child of this age notices a lack of order in the least details which escape the notice of adults and even older children. If, for example a piece of soap is lying on a washstand and not in the soap-dish, if a chair is out of place, it is a child of two who suddenly notices it and puts it in order.
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Obviously the ‘love of order’ in children is not the same as that of adults. Order provides an adult with a certain amount of external pleasure. But for the small children it is something quite different. It is like the land upon which animals walk or the water in which fish swim. In their first year they derive their principles of orientation from their environment which they must later master. And since a child is formed by his environment he has need of precise and determined guides and not simply some vague constructive formulae.” —from her book “The Secret of Childhood”