Eating Disorders Recovery Blog

The time has come again! Another amazing therapist in the Eating Disorder field will be faciliting a meeting at The Victorian House this Sunday!
Chandra Chalkin will be discussing the Psychology of Women and doing some Movement Therapy. To learn more about Chandra Chalkin and her services visit her website here. Otherwise I look forward to seeing your beautiful self:
Sunday, March 28th
7pm - 8pm
The Victorian 505 29th Street
Newport Beach, CA 92663

Ciao Bellas!
 Irvina

Labels: Anorexia information, Anorexia rehab, Bulimia treatment, Compulsive Overeating Treatment, Eating Disorder Meetings in Newport Beach, Eating Disorder Treatment

A friend of mine emailed me recently in regards to an article he read about Eating Disorders on DiscoveryNews.com The article discusses the misunderstanding that Eating Disorders root from the media images of emaciated models. R.A. Botta, who is the writer of the 1999 study, “Television Images and Adolescent Girls’ Body Image Disturbance” states that the media doesn’t make one Anorexic. Anorexia is a psychological disorder that is found to be a genetic disposition from birth.

The reason I bring this up is I think it’s quite poignant that my friend and others would be surprised to hear that Anorexia and other Eating Disorders are not rooted from our medias expectations on the human figure, but really are psychological. What bothers me is that I have found people outside of the Eating Disorder field to refer to Eating Disorders as a “phase” or “vanity” and “self absorption.” Those statements themselves are myths.

Eating Disorders are intricate and deep rooted Psychological disorders. Anyone who has worked in the field or has experienced an Eating Disorder themselves can attest to that.

I think the best way to describe it is the difference between an Anorexic and woman who diets is that the Anorexic has no threshold with dieting and starving. Women who are not Anorexic will diet, but then get hungry, blow their diet and just eat. An anorexic will keep going even after she is told how ill she is, how brittle her bones are and how close she is to a heart attack….she has no self-preservation...which makes it a mental illness.

I remember this study that polled 10,000 women about body image and dieting. They asked the women "If I gave you a pill that guaranteed you would be skinny, but taking the pill had a side affect of you possibly dying would you take it?"...10% of those women said, "Yes." That 10% is the group of Anorexics/Bulimic/Eating Disordered women. Willing to die to be thin is an illness.

If you still aren’t convinced take a read at the article from DicoveryNews.com yourself by clicking here. Education is the key to destroying these myths that block the women who are truly sick with this disease from getting help while they wait for this “phase” to pass and end up dying. Blog soon! Irvina

Labels: Anorexia rehab, Bulimia treatment, Compulsive Overeating, Eating Disorder, eating disorder myths, Rehab for Eating Disorders

A wider understanding of Eating Disorders has sky rocketed in recent years. Much of the credit goes to organizations like http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/ They sponsor advertisements in magazines for recovery, they offer support for Eating Disorder suffererers and their parents AND they host the National Eating Disoarder Awareness week each Spring! Heck Yeah!

 This year all 50 of the United States and over 20 different countries came together and hosted speaking panels from Eating Disorder survivors, Fundraisers for treatment, Awareness booths on college campuses and Candle Light Vigils for those we have lost from this disease. Check out the pictures from the site by clicking here. It is truly inspiring to see people rallying together to work for change for all women! xoxo Irvina

Labels: Anorexia rehab, Bulimia treatment, compulsive overeating help, Eating Disorder Blog, Eating disorder recovery, Eating Disorder Rehab, Eating Disorder Treatment

Sunday nights are my favorites at The Victorian...where else can you meet up with amazing women, do a book study and/or get group therapy from a professional in the field of Eating Disorders? Hello...Jackpot! And the jackpot it is this weekend cause we are having the lovely Dr. Roxanee Cherry PhD coming to do Guided Meditation and Art Therapy with our women, Alumni, friends and friends of friends-sisters-baristas- dog-sitter! Our motto is "The more the women IN- the more the Eating Disorder - OUT!" So mark your calendar:

Meditation and Art Therapy at
The Victorian
505 29th Street
Newport Beach, CA 92660
7pm to 8pm

*To learn more about Dr.Cherry and her practice please click here.
Otherwise...see you on Sunday!

xoxo
Irvina

Labels: Anorexia rehab, Art Therapy for Eating Disorders, Bulimia treatment, Compulsive Overeating Treatment, Eating Disorder Blog, Eating Disorder Treatment, Meditation for Eating Disorders

Happy Monday beauties! Last night we kicked off a great Book Study at the Victorian Recovery Rocks Meeting. We just started reading Life Doesn't Begin 5 Pounds From Now by Jessica Weiner. The meeting runs for an hour. We read for the first half hour, then reflected as a group on the reading for the last half hour. The thoughts from the women were a unanymous, "This book is AMAZING!" and "My Eating Disorder is evil." In the book Weiner highlights how utterly bizarre it is how much easier it is for a woman to say, "I'm Fat" rather than, "I'm lonely." It's also more acceptable for a woman to say, "I'm on a diet" rather than "I need time to take care of myself." Weiner points out the taboo's and ruffles the feathers of deciet. We are all so stoked to get back to this book in the weeks to come!

I actually went online and found some more info on Jessica Weiner. If you want to get involved in advocacy for Eating Disorder recovery her site is a great place to start, check it out: http://www.jessweiner.com/

Have a great day!

xoxo
Irvina

Labels: Anorexia rehab, books on Eating Disorders, Bulimia, compulsive overeating help, Eating Disorder Blog, Eating disorder recovery, Eating Disorder Treatment, Life Doesn't Begin 5 pounds from Now

Here’s a look at what Anorexic days look like…waking up to hunger pains which are numbed with appetite suppressants…. The ritual weighing in “How fat I am” happens right out of bed and periodically through out the day. Then there is a spin class at 5am followed by pinching her belly and arms after class to see how much more fat is still there…. Eating half an apple to calm the hunger and drinking 2 Venti Coffees with Splenda to fill up the stomach and give the appearance of energy. More complicated than dodging hunger pains is dodging “People”. They can be an obstacle with their invitations for lunch and offering a slice of a co –workers birthday cake…they just get in the way! For lunch she eats half a power bar for energy….making sure no one will see her eat it thinking that they will think shes “fat” for eating it. The rest of the day, she will research diets, calculate the calories in everything she has eaten since breakfast and order a 21 day detox program on –line…And that’s all before noon.

But, this Anorexic existence can only last for so long, until, the house of cards comes crashing down. Within the Eating Disorder recovery community we call this “The flip of the coin” where the Anorexic gets so nutrient deprived that she has lets say just one bite of ice cream….all of the sudden out of no where the full time Anorexic does a 180 and now instead of constantly focusing on staying away from food, she is now focused on getting as much food as she can and starts bingeing. Cyclically this can lead to purging behaviors like bulimia and laxatives. Like Alcoholism, Eating Disorders are progressive in nature. Try and think of the Alcoholic who drank all weekend, then just at night, then all week, then it lead to prescription pills and then to cocaine. Now, this person isn't just an embarassing "bar drunk" she's an Alcholic and a drug addict. But, it didn’t happen over night, it was progressive.

What many Anorexics and their parents don’t understand is how the behaviors of different eating disorders feed off of each other. To re-cap: Anorexia causes binging and compulsive overeating which then turns into purging. Now, just because a woman binges doesn’t mean that her “Anorexic phase” is over. Her binging will cause her to gain weight and then her Anorexic flag will go up and she starves again. The starving leads again to binging which then leads to purging and of course shame which takes us back to square one of the Anorexic thinking, “I’m not good enough. I don’t deserve to eat.” As well, now this woman isn’t just working full-time as an Anorexic, but she is now a slave for 3 eating disorders…Anorexia, Binging/Compulsive Overeating and Bulimia all compiled are more time consuming and mentally draining than you could ever imagine.

I know so many women who wish someone would have offered them help at the anorexic stage. In my own words I have said, “had someone told me how painful Compulsive Overeating was, I would have eaten those damn carbs as an Anorexic.” If you or someone you know has Anorexia, believe me, recovery is the hardest thing to do, but RECOVERY gets easier….ANOREXIA only gets worse and only lasts so long, until it turns into another Eating Disorder or death.

Xoxo Irvina

Labels: Anorexia rehab, Bulimia treatment, Compulsive Overeating Treatment, Eating Disorder Treatment, Rehab for Eating Disorders, Rehabs for Eating Disorders

Just this past week The Victorian Recovery Rocks – Alumni Group had, Lindsay Elliot PsYD, MFT come and be a guest speaker at our Sunday night meeting here at the Victorian House. Dr.Elliot chose to speak to the women about staying present and how that affects their recovery. She started by point blank asking the woman, “Who doesn’t want to be here?” Three raised their hands, Dr.Elliott then spoke to each one and asked them, “What would you rather be doing?” she then went on to ask them, “How does wanting to be somewhere else affect what you are doing now?” The point of this exercise was to have those women observe their thoughts of feelings.


This detachment from their feelings makes it easier to engage in harmful eating disorder behaviors because they have no thought connection to the binging and starving. They think, I want to be thin…don’t eat…exercise…don’t eat…exercise…” They never get the opportunity to pause and say, “Hey what is going on in this moment in my life. WHY do I want to be thin?” Eventually clients find that the lack of food or excess means something greater than their feeling at the moment.

After living in the NOW is used daily to combat eating disorder thoughts in can also be used to help clients discover who they really are. Many clients come in to Eating Disorder treatment and discover that they are a completely different person than they thought they were. Sometimes they have a new favorite color or favorite band, some even dabble with the thought of a new occupation. It’s the act of being still, listening to their inner dialogue that they are able to discover themselves and heal.

Staying in the NOW allows an Eating Disorder patient to be mindful of her feelings. To center herself and find what kind of role she want to play in the world she lives in.

xoxo Irvina

Labels: Anorexia rehab, Bulimia treatment, compulsive overeating help, Eating Disorder Help, Eating Disorder Treatment