When a mental disorder takes over your life

When a mental disorder takes over your life, you just simply got to fight to get it back, because eventually it will take your life away. Maybe in the moment you are depressed that sounds pretty great. The thought of something taking your life away seems relieving. But in the moment you are NOT depressed, you can´t think of not being alive. Depression is like most other mental disorders, a disorder which you can recover from.  If you try hard enough, you will recover and learn to love life again. And when you’re recovered you will be thankful for being alive, I can promise you that.

When I was at my worst, I had pre-heart attack symptoms. I had chest pains and felt like there was a ton lying on my chest. I had constant back pain in my upper back, toothache and pain in my left arm, which are all known as pre-heart attack symptoms. I got help in time. Thankfully! I can‘t believe if I had gotten a heart attack, only 17 years old! 17 year old and a heart attack don‘t simply fit with each other.

An eating disorder CAN take your life away. No, you are not allowed to think that „nope, that won‘t happen to me, I‘m not sick enough“ because that´s bullshit. If you don‘t fight back, it WILL take your life away! And once it does, you can‘t get it back because, well, you´re dead. Everyone has their own struggles and have to fight through the day. If you want to live, you have got to fight twice as hard as them, because here we are talking about life or death.

 If you restrict, you can lose your life, even though you are categorized as “normal weighted”. If your body lacks nutrients and food in general over a long time, you can get serious complications which can lead to a tragic death. Reports of the 1981 hunger strike by political prisoners against the British presence in Northeast Ireland indicate that 10 individuals died after periods of between 46 and 73 days without food. Think! 46-73 days, that’s a pretty short time! You won’t survive much longer than that, and chances are that you won’t even survive that long!

My mom told me about a woman who worked out at her gym. She was there 24/7, usually on the skiing machine or the treadmill. She was thin, but not as thin as the pictures that come up on Google when you search for Anorexia (apropos, very few people who suffer from anorexia look that way). Nobody was fascinated or admired her of her stamina for running for hours. They looked at her and thought “poor lady”. Eventually they had to ban her from the gym. She was forced into several treatments, but once she was “better”, she came to the gym and was back to where she began, running or skiing for hours. Few months later, she died. She wasn't as thin as the anorexia pictures on the internet, but her body couldn't bare the restriction and over exercise any more. It gave up.  

That could be you. Think about it. Is this disorder gonna win, or are YOU going to win this fight? I bet on you.

You don't have to weigh 0 lbs to have a problem

I found this quote from the book Hope with eating disorders written by Lynn Crilly, on tumblr and I just HAD to post it here. It is so true! You don't have to weigh 0 lbs to have anorexia. You don't even have to be underweight to have it either! Your problem matters, no matter how much you weigh. Eating disorders are phsycological, not physical.

"The trend for ‘poorly pictures’, (which were advised against in a set of guidelines issued by Beat, the UK’s largest eating disorder charity, in 2010), can in reality prevent sufferers from seeking the help they need. We have been led to believe that if someone is a ‘normal’ weight, they cannot, by definition, have an eating disorder. Again, this isn’t always true.
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We have all seen the headlines which scream ‘I weighed just 4 1/2 stone!’ These stories are usually accompanied by a picture of the subject, looking shockingly skeletal, in their underwear. As a result, many people believe that the most important symptom of anorexia is weight loss, and that the lower the sufferer’s weight, the more severe their issue. This isn’t necessarily true. Again, it is always crucial for you to bear in mind that anorexia is a mental illness, not a physical one.

What truly categorizes anorexia is obsession. To reach astonishingly low weights which are reported in the press, a sufferer would have required time, not to mention a fairly small frame and a high metabolic rate to begin with. Some people starve for years without physically reaching a weight which is perceived as an urgent problem by the medical community. Are they still anorexic? The answer is a resounding yes.

Using weight to diagnose anorexia is like seeing how far someone can walk before determining if they have a broken leg. It simply doesn’t take into account the issues at the source of the disorder.

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—	‘Hope with Eating Disorders’, Lynn Crilly

Reasons

I've been reading some articles about phases and how to succeed in recovery. After reading them I understand much more about my disorder. I might say that I "discover" it in a whole new way. I'm closer to accepting my problems, but still not quite there. I mean, I don't look like an anorexic person, not at all! But the disease is in my brain, where no one can see it. Not even me. That's what makes it so hard to accept. You can't go to a doctor, and just by one look he can give you a diagnosis. It isn't that easy. It's a looooooong process, which seems to never end.

Here is a really good article, which explains pretty much everything about restrictive eating disorders, but mainly focuses on recovery in general. There are really good tips and information about the different phases, causes, and how to get the best possible results of your recovery. Highly recommended! 

-M