eating disorder

This week the Clinical Director of The Victorian, Dr. Michele Lob sent me a poem written by one of the current clients living at The Victorian, an Eating Disorder Rehab in Newport Beach. She said the client would like the opportunity to share her poem with others who might be currently in the clutches of "ED". The following poem is her reality, painful and graphic. For me the most poignant thing about this poem is knowing the girl who wrote it....if you met her you would see a gorgeous, smart, witty, funny, creative, intelligent and caring girl. Besides her svelte appearance one would never have an inkling of the nightmare that lives inside her mind, like many women with Eating Disorders she masks it well. I wonder how many more women there are out there masking their pain? I wonder how many women you know? - Irvina

EDs Curse

ED's Curse
By: Victorian Client, March 2010




So, you want to be skinny?


Well, you risk running into me.


My initials are E.D.


Everything is fine you see.


You tell yourself: "I just want to look like the girls on T.V"


You will start by cutting out food here and there.


One day the hunger, you won't be able to bear.


You will eat your kitchen away and what luck.....


you can throw your food up.


You make up excuses as to why you have gotten deathly thin.


You start to tell yourself I'll never throw up again.


But the second you feel pain, misery, and sorrow,


You through up again to feel empty and hollow.


I'm now your crutch, your release!


Do you think your mind will be at peace?


Well, not with me in your head,


My self-loathing thoughts will make you wish you were dead.


You're tired of throwing up stomach acid and blood,


You're tired of fainting everytime you get up,


Your teeth are rotting and you bones are thin and weak


You search for a hand to help you out of this mess


Until then, it's E.D. who has control of your stress!!!

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 sufferers 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

Meditation and Art Therapy

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

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!

5 Pounds from Now

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/

Anorexia is a Nightmare

Try and imagine a slave working in a sweat shop, 24 hours a day in the blistering heat with no food, just coffee to suppress her appetite. Yep, that’s us, Anorexics…blistering and starving with a smile! Seriously though, a sweat shop may sound kind of harsh, but Anorexia is an experience beyond any hellacious 24-7 job and as the Eating Disorder progresses the demands of the day escalate even more. Keeping master “ED” happy with a gaunt body yet appear to be sound and healthy to everyone else is time consuming.

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

Like Alcoholism an Eating Disorder is a disease of the mind and Impulse Control Disorder goes hand in hand with Anorexia, Bulimia and Compulsive Overeating. An Impulse Control Disorder is defined as: A psychological disorders characterized by the repeated inability to refrain from performing a particular action that is harmful either to oneself or others.
Causes of Impulse Control disorder are thought to come from 4 possible areas.

ED Suffers Struggle With Impulse Control

1.) Traumatic Brain Injury – Particularly true when the damage has been done to the frontal cortex area. (Jentsch & Taylor, 1999.)

2.) Substance Abuse – Research shows that those who abuse multiple substances show more impulsive behavior than those who abuse single substances. (O’Boyle & Baratt, 1993).

3.) Major Mental Disorders - Often associated with impulsivity while the individual is in a psychotic state. This is particularly true of Bipolar Disorder where the impulsive behavior is most often associated with the manic phase.

4.) Personality Disorders - Primarily borderline, anti-social, narcissistic, and histrionic. Impulsivity in the form of risk-tasking behaviors, sexual promiscuity, gestures and threats of self-harm and other attention-seeking behaviors.

“So what is the treatment for someone with Impulse Control Disorder AND an Eating Disorder?” I’m so glad you asked! … At The Victorian the program is structured to battle Eating Disorders from 3 angles. Mental, Physical and Spiritual. Here is how we do it.

1.) MENTAL - Therapy – We teach our clients the life long tool of how to be their own therapist. Our therapist don’t preach they challenge the clients ….“Ask yourself, what am I feeling right now before I do this impulsive act? Now, play it through…what am I going to do, how am I going to do it and how will I feel afterward?” Through therapy we give clients tools to take care of themselves and eventually heal.

2.) PHYSICAL - Medication – Within the first few days of arrival at The Victorian an appointment is set up with a trusted and outstanding Psychiatrist who assesses the client and prescribes medication if needed.

3.) SPIRITUAL - Supportive Living Environment – When it comes to Eating Disorders and Impulse Control Disorder, recovery is a life long process. It starts with the individual being held accountable for their actions by staff. At The Victorian we don’t lock the cupboards or kitchen and we allow clients to prepare their own food with staff present. The only job of the client is to be honest, to ask for support when their impulses feel out of control and to speak up when their ED (Eating Disorder) is chattering eating disordered thoughts to them. Together staff and client can battle this disease together.

I hope this answered some of your questions about Impulse Control Disorder and Eating Disorders! Have a great weekend and Happy Recovery! Xoxo Irvina

Eating Disorders are not a disease of vanity, self absorption or an aversion to food, they are a disease of the mind. For a person without an Eating Disorder addiction it is normal to have some feelings of insecurity when "Keeping up with Jones'" It's the human condition to look around and ask, "Where do I measure up?" "Where can I improve?" But, for a woman or man with an Eating Disorder the question isn't "Where do I measure up?" It's "Am I the BEST?" If we are not the BEST, we honestly, hate ourselves and we cope with putting the focus and attention on our bodies.

Research has proven that women with Anorexia Nervosa have IQ scores between 120 and 140 (Thats pretty stinkin' high) Obviously it is in the genetic disposition of these clients to be naturally high achievers. The goal in Eating Disorder treatment is to take that drive for perfection and channel it into a healthy avenue that looks like a "Perfectly Imperfect Life." Now, to you, maybe you're a parent or a concerned loved one you think, "Well duh. Life isn't perfect. That sounds simple. I'll teach my girl that myself." If that's your stance then I have two words for you: "Good Luck." I have worked in the Eating Disorder field for about 2 years now and I have experienced an ED myself. If there is something I know about "us" it's that this relinquishing of perfection and constant comparing takes a lifetime of recovery work.

At the Victorian we talk about being the best "Phoebe, Chloe, Liz and Irvina you can be." Doing our personal best each day and being patient with ourselves. More times than not this new way of thinking sounds repulsive to clients, I remember one client insisting, "NO! I have to be the BEST! I won't settle for the best me! I want to be THE BEST!" As she broke down in sobs.

As a woman in recovery, the thing that I have to remember about being the "BEST" is that because I have a voice in my head called "ED" my best will never be good enough. Once I accomplish straight A's, I'll be told "Anyone can do that. Wheres your 7 figure job?" Once I have the job I'll be told, "Everyone can make money. Wheres your husband?" Then I'll have him and I'll be told, "He's not much....she has a better husband...you should get a new one." The comparing, the achieving, the having never lets up with an ED. Thats why it takes a lifetime of recovery, meetings, a support group of friends who understand and periodic therapy.

I think that because Eating Disorders are so taboo in the media and not many people know that they are indeed an addiction, it seems as if a woman should just learn to "eat again and move on with her life." Hmmm...the women I know who have done that have come back after 8 years asking for help again because they thought the bulimia and starvation was gone. This disease is stuck in between the crevices and the corners of our brain. It's always waiting to pounce on us and take us down and kill us, like drugs and alcohol. That is the nature of the disease to kill us. I'm not trying to sound dark and dramatic, I guess I'm just trying to relate how something as simple as the act of comparing my body to your body can send me into a tail spin. That if I let myself look at how awesome your job and boyfriend are and then look at my single self I might come up short and then want to starve over my feelings of insecurity. So whats the solution? 1.) Meetings: Where I can say, "Hey I think I suck cause she looks cute in that dress. Is that normal?" 2.) A new way of thinking: Remembering that I am on my path and you are on yours. Sometimes I'll be in a sunnier spot and sometimes you will be, but it's my job to focus on my path, not yours.

I pray that whoever you are who is reading this blog that you learn to not compare yourself to others. That you appreciate yourself and explore your uniqueness and gifts and utilize them to the best of YOUR ability.

Much love,

Irvina

The coolest thing happened to me this week I received an email from another woman in Overeaters Anonymous who is living outside the US, in an area where there are no OA meetings to attend. She reached out to me for support. What a rock star she is huh? We have been emailing a bit. The other day she asked me a great question, “What does your God look like and how did you find him/her/it?' I would love to hear about your Higher Power if you wouldn’t mind sharing!” I was taken back, by such a deep and profound question than many people new to Eating Disorder Treatment have. I wanted to take some time to think about it and share it with all of you too.

How did you find your higher power?

For me, my Higher Power is what I call “God.” I consider God the foundation for my recovery and my life. He’s like, I guess you would say, “The man of the house” (well, my house anyway.) I believe that I can’t change jobs, date this guy, not that guy, not eat dinner or eat a pint of ice cream and not return phone calls without consulting God, “The man of the house” first. I am an artist and by nature a very visual person. So I need to have a visual of what my God looks like and does, envisioning someone I share my life with and have to check in with works for me.

How did I find my Higher Power?
When I came into treatment for my eating disorder I did Step One of the 12 Steps which is “We admitted we were powerless over food and that our live had become unmanageable.” Which was completely true in my case, but you have to read my book for the details ;) My whole life including my food was one big terrifying mess and it was my management of my life that got me there. Doing Step1 helped me to do Step 2 which is, “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Doing step 2 is a huge leap of faith for anyone. If you’re anything like me you tried to do everything in your power to stop your eating disorder yourself, you spent thousands of dollars on meds, doctors, dieticians and rehab, but when it came down to it the bridge between recovery and addiction was surrendering your life to God and BELIEVING that He could fix you. Sound a bit freaky? Yeah, I’m with you. It is freaky, but oddly…it works. Being humbled enough to say, “Show me a different way of thinking, being and living and show me how to do it.” Is a hard thing for someone with an addiction, but it also the most valuable tool needed to stop diseased behaviors.

What does it look like to have a Higher Power?
At first it’s very difficult to have a higher power. I found that I couldn’t do everything that I wanted, whenever I wanted and that was HARD! When I surrendered my whole life to God I surrender my meals, my time, my food, my faith, my friends, my family and my job to Him. My whole life is under His discretion. If I don’t want to eat a meal, I have to ask my Higher Power, “What should I do?” and my Higher Power usually says, “You need to nourish your body on a regular basis. Now lets go eat dinner.” If I’m dating a guy who I just feel awkward and stupid around, I ask God, “What do you think of him?” and God will say, “I think you deserve to be around someone who makes you shine.”God is the healthy and protective voice of self preservation that I wasn’t born with. He is a voice that I would be dead in a gutter without.

What is your Higher Power like?
My sponsor is a smart woman. She wanted to make sure I would be able to recognize Gods voice when He spoke, so she asked me to write and draw what my God is like. This is the God of my understating. My God….

1.) Thinks I am beautiful no matter what size I am.
2.) Never yells or gets angry with me. He is patient and kind to me.
3.) Thinks I am really funny and cute.
4.) Likes chocolate.
5.) Wears flip flops and kind of looks like a wise hippie.
6.) Is always really relaxed and calm and calms me down when I am overwhelmed.
7.) Wants me to marry a man who respects me and himself.
8.) Thinks I am smart and intelligent.
9.) Likes it when I help out other women suffering from Eating Disorders.
10.) Thinks all women are beautiful just the way they are.
11.) Listens to people share their stories and troubles.
12.) Stays in the moment.
13.) Wants me to use my talents for good.

For me, I wouldn’t have recovery if it wasn’t for my higher power. I do rely on a group of women when I feel anxious about food, I do consult a therapist when I am having trouble in life and I do journal and take care of myself, but none of that would be possible unless I had my higher power telling me to do those things. Before I was in recovery or had a Higher Power I did things according to my rules. It’s so much easier to follow God’s rules and live in God’s world. Because in God’s world, everyone is beautiful, everyone is smart and everyone is worthy of kindness and love no matter what their size. I prefer that world and that thinking over my own diseased thinking any day.

 The time that the patient is cancer free is called “remission”. However, all cancer patients have been told that the growth could come back at any time; it’s kind of the luck of the draw. Eating Disorders are very much like cancer in the way that someone with an Eating Disorder can go inpatient, have extensive therapy and eat healthy balanced meals for 365 days straight, but at any time the Eating Disorder behaviors could flare up and relapse could happen. Eating Disorder Behaviors can take over the body out of nowhere, just like cancer.

Eating Disorders are Like Cancer

The only way that it has been proven to keep women abstaining from their Eating Disorder behaviors is through weekly support groups like Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous and ANAD. Just like a cancer patient who would weekly try to exercise, eat right and remove stress from their life an Eating Disordered woman in recovery has to not only exercise, eat right and remove stress, but she also must…

· Work with a Sponsor to keep her accountable


· Maintain a support group of women that she trusts and is close to, to lean on for guidance when she struggles with food or the stress of life.


· Be of service to a women who has less recovery than her so she can cultivate an attitude of empathy and altruism


· Attend weekly recovery meetings so she can share her stress and struggles


· Periodically visit a therapist to keep her honest with herself and focused on recovery

In my time in recovery and working in the Eating Disorder field I have met quite a few clients, parents and spouses who think that 90 days of intensive Eating Disorder in-patient treatment should do the trick. That all it takes is for their daughter or wife to just “learn how to eat” or “get that dark cloud away from her” and then she’ll be fine. I wish I could share with those loving family members how many women I see return to the rooms of Overeaters Anonymous and Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous after they had 5 or 10 years of recovery and just stopped participating in their recovery. They thought they could do it on their own and that they didn’t need to attend meeting or work with a sponsor to keep their behaviors in check. They were “cured.” Many, many, many women return to the rooms of OA and ABA in tears saying, “I thought it was gone.” “I thought I was cured.” “Why is it back?”

In all honesty, I was not a fan of the idea that I would need to make my recovery my top priority for the rest of my life. I said, “I don’t want some Sponsor telling me what to do and I have enough supportive friends, thank you very much.” But after a year of stomping my feet against the process I found that the people with the healthiest lives, with the smiles on their faces who actually liked themselves were the people who were dedicated to daily recovery.

Today, I know that my Eating Disorder if very much like cancer if not worse. I say that not to put cancer patients down in anyway, but just that I think in society if a cancer patient says, “My cancer came back” Most people think “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” Where when someone with an Eating Disorder relapses people tend to think, “Well what did YOU do wrong.” I know that there is a whole world out there of diets, detoxes, ads of under weight models; skinny celebrities and accepted eating disordered behaviors. I know that if I don’t keep my mind focused on recovery I can very easily be sucked back into a disease that will invade my whole body like cancer.

Recovery is a ton of work, but it is worth it to be Eating Disorder free and when we are Eating Disorder free we can help another woman struggling to join us as well.

Happy Recovery and Healing,

Irvina

Eating Disorder Triggers are Everywhere

Last night I met with one of my Sponsee’s at Alta Coffee in Newport Beach. She was telling me about a difficult visit from her mom. She found it triggering to stick to her meal plan and eat nutritiously while her mom barely ate and restricted her food. I can’t blame her, if the person who is supporting her treatment and recovery from her eating disorder displays Eating Disordered behavior why would she want to stick to her meal plan?

Unfortunately this one trigger is just one of the millions of triggers that lay ahead of my sponsee on here road to recovery. The facts are that we live in a very “Pro-Eating Disorder Society” where dieting, cutting carbs and over exercising is not only acceptable, but praised. So the question is “How does one maintain and grow away from their eating disorder when everyone around them is pushing them back towards it?

The answer I had for my sponsee was fairly simple, “You could very well toss out your meal plan and just go back to not eating. And if you did eat you could always purge it. There’s no one physically stopping you so why wouldn’t you do it? I’ll tell you why, because you know where the road of starvation takes you. Starving, binging and purging leaves you out of control without a job, a college drop-out, a victim of rape, depressed, angry and alone. The people around us who are active in their eating disorders are not happy people. They are terribly frightened that they aren’t good enough so they starve themselves to be good enough, but unfortunately it is never enough. If starving, binging and purging was the answer to happiness than there would be no rehabs or eating disordered therapist. No one who starves, restricts, binges and purges is a happy person. It’s your choice. You can participate in your eating disorder and compete with people in theirs or you can start taking care of your body and having integrity over it.”

There is a saying in the recovery world, “You can spot it, if you got it.” It means that you can see other peoples eating disorders because you yourself have an eating disorder. I am all too aware of peoples behavior around food and exercise and it does a lot of the time make me angry to see people active in an Eating Disorder. I see the anger as a good thing though, I’m not angry that I choose not to participate in their disease, I am angry that there is a disease controlling the people around me and they don’t know it. They don’t know how dangerous an eating disorder is. How small and lonely your life can become with it. When I think about that I then feel a bit of sympathy for the people struggling and still trying to figure it out. I say a little prayer that they’ll figure out soon that a size zero won’t guarantee you a husband, awesome friends or a six figure job and that I pray that I remember that too. Xoxo, Irvina

Some of these women won’t tolerate weight gain, but they also won’t give up binge drinking behaviors – and so these women are combining eating disordered and alcohol abuse behaviors into one dangerous package known popularly as ‘drunkorexia’ which lets them get drunk at night and still stay thin.

Some behavioral variations of drunkorexia include:

• Abstaining from food all day to compensate for the calories consumed in a binge drinking session at night

• Drinking alcohol and eating in binge quantities and then purging

• Using alcohol to suppress appetite

Health workers at eating disorder treatment programs say they’re seeing a rise in the number of young women admitted that have both an alcohol abuse problem and an eating disorder. At the Eating Disorder Center of Denver, doctors say that 75% of college aged women coming in for treatment also meet the criteria for alcohol abuse.

Drunkorexia

This disturbing co-occurrence doesn’t surprise Dr. Douglass Bunell, the past president of the National Easting Disorders Association, who says, “Both disorders are behaviors that are glorified and reinforced. Binge drinking is almost cool and hip, and losing weight and being thin is a cultural imperative for young women in America. Mixing both is not surprising, and it has reached a tipping point in terms of public awareness.”

And that is exactly what its like for us, breathing under water. It is physically impossible, no? You bet it is. The second you try to breathe your lungs are filled with water and you suffocate to death. The same happens to an anorexic when she tries to eat food. Her body starts to react as if she was drowning. Her adrenaline starts to rise. She goes into sensory overload and fills up with fear, she feels nauseous, anxious, angry, her pulse starts to race. She'll do anything in order to not allow that food into her body because if she does she believes she just might die. The same way you believe breathing under water just might kill you.

I bring this up today because it seems that relapses are the topic of discussion lately. Relapses are pretty common with eating disorders. Yet, are still looked upon with dissapointment and shame. I find that odd considering how that it is rare for any ED client to have a clean path from an eating disorder to a treatment facility and then to recovery. The majority of clients need to first learn how to even sit in the uncomfortable waters of recovery before they can even tread the water of it. But, for some reason everyone thinks that they should be able to go into treatment and miraculously be healed? Did you ride a two-wheel bike perfectly the first time you picked it up? Did you walk the tight rope without falling the first time you placed your foot on the rope? Did you surf a 20 foot wave the first time you picked up a board? Exactly. So why on earth would you expect to be able to eat like a normal person the first time you tried?

Eating Disorders are not like alcohol or drugs where you, "Just don't drink" and "Don't use." You have to see food EVERYDAY for the rest of your life. So mathematically there are millions of more opportunities to mess up. It is my personal opinion that relapses are common in the first year of recovery. Adopting a new way of life, a new way of thinking a new way of reacting is not easy, it is not fun, but one thing it is a ton of WORK!

Whether or not you're in your first year or first 4 years of recovery and are still having trouble relapsing I would say, "Recovery is a process." Try, try, try, pray, pray, pray, be honest, honest, honest and keep giving it up and it will eventually happen for you. It took me a full year of relapsing before I got a solid year of recovery. I learned just as much from my relapses as I did in my abstinence. The trick is to stay in meetings, stay connected to your treatment facility, keep calling your sponsor and never stop working the 12 steps. Abstinence does happen and it will happen for you too! I promise.

Keep swimming!

Irvina