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8/31/2010

Getting Your Body Back or Losing It? Some ABC's

You will pretty much feel like this.
Battered and out of control and, yes, naked.
As you go through weight gain, self-appointed or supervised, the semiotics of weight rears its Gorgonian head in a serpentine dance with your eating disorder, which appoints itself boa constrictor of your brain.  Low weight and weight loss are celebrated and idolized in our culture.  Especially as you near the point of officially not being underweight anymore, letting your weight inch up can provoke any or all of the following feelings and behaviors:

Anger:  You want to strangle not only yourself, but also anyone who has the gall to notice that you have a body and that it looks good/bad/okay/like a body.  You will want to dump a crock pot of lava down their throats until they shut up.  Even if, say, they're a therapist or nutritionist who's following CBT techniques for treating an eating disorder and not actually talking about your body.

Buffoonery:  You will burst out in public tears over some piece of some kind of food or drink.  Trust me.  It will happen.  Maybe more than once.

Chagrin:  All those people who have watched you lose weight and stay at a low weight are going to wonder what's going on, why you're losing control.  Even if they don't, you're going to remember every compliment they gave your low weight every time you see them or anyone you associate with them.

Defeat:  You are sacrificing achievement by choosing a higher weight.  You are giving up the accomplishment you present to the world, and to yourself.

Ephecticism:  You will totally suspend judgment and the ability to make a decision.  Should I eat the Goldfish?  Should I not?  Am I hungry?  Am I not?  Should I just go back to eating only xyz food?  Every piece of food, every twitch of physical activity will take on innumerable meanings, and you will be on your own as far as picking out the correct one.  Your brain will be a whirlpool, nay, a maelstrom of decisions you are expected to make all the time, WTF?

Fear:  You feel trapped, like you've lost your brakes, totally out of control of where this stops, and fairly certain that no matter what you do, your weight is going to keep going up, and up, and up, and up, and...

You could definitely go through the whole alphabet, and probably the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, too. And Thai, just for good measure.

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Hi DM,

    As I've said before, you're welcome to comment here if the comments are relevant to the post, and not rude. It says very clearly above the comment form, "Get rude, get deleted." Get a clue. I mean it.

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  3. Have you heard of http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia? it's a support group.

    Also I found these tips really useful for recovery:
    http://www.moritherapy.org/article/10-things-anorexia-recovery/

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Get rude, get deleted.