My usual magazine rack railway rage was diverted to the Daily Mail. Generally I try not to get annoyed at the Daily Fail. It is the Frankie Boyle of the media world spouting bile and prejudice hoping to gain attention. But today, I cracked. At this headline:
Doctors Let Former Private School Girl Die of Anorexia
Accompanied by a suitably winsome picture of a beautiful girl, in a white dress.
Take myself for example. I'm one of those 'welfare brats' who has never had a job and lives off the taxpayer - after growing up in a poor single parent family also subsidized by the taxpayer. We went without a lot, and I learnt to appreciate every single thing I had. Not only that, but I didn't care about fashion (beyond just wishing I had a clean and untorn outfit to wear on free dress day to school, a clean uniform that fit, or shoes that weren't falling to bits). I didn't lust after models or read magazines. I rarely watched TV, and I certainly didn't want to look like those people.
And I have anorexia.
Another faulty belief is that where the sufferers are seen as 'spoilt' and it's assumed that if they knew what it was like to struggle and not know where your next meal came from, or even if you would eat this week, and people were dying all around you - you wouldn't be so selfish with your food. But people in these very situations DO also get eating disorders. Not just that, but thinking of the starving children in Africa never cured anyone's eating disorder, in fact many people with eating disorders are very active in their community volunteering and trying to help those less fortunate in every way they can.
This is right on! ED’s don’t discriminate AT ALL! I’ve heard EVEN worse stories about women who lived in the USSR when it was splitting apart. People were desperate for food (war all around) and this woman ate her family’s rations and vomited it. Can you imagine? Even I remember thinking: WOW, this is some powerful disease.
Thanks for sharing as usual my wise and wonderful friend.
OH, and I LOVE your saying about “imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, etc.” SO much better than boring, boring, boring. LOVE! Big love from the snowy Midwest! MWAH! Love, Melis
Mel, big hugs!! It’s been a while. I’ve been thinking of you!
I remember you saying something about that woman, Mel, quite a while back. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her.. the guilt and self recrimination we heap on ourselves already living with the ed are just huge – let alone knowing you were putting your family’s whole life at risk by eating their precious rations for a binge.
I read recently in Carrie Arnold’s latest book that people with ED’s particularly those who have restricting type disorders could have become that way through evolution and genetics in that during times of famine or shortage of food, they were the ones who were primed to go without food easily and to be able to keep on going beyond the point where others collapsed, in order to seek food. They were the ones who kept the others from dying because of these traits. maybe that’s why we are also so deeply caring and giving to others rather than ourselves. But the body always bites back, and emotional hurts will manifest in ways too that can overpower us – as in bingeing and purging when it’s literally deadly.
I love that saying too, I think it’s Marilyn Monroe who is famous for saying it.
Big love back to you!!! xxx
So wonderful to read your wise comments!!!! Wise and wonderful!!! Big love, my friend!! Missing you!!
That Monroe quote also just caught my eye! It’s so incredibly true! Physical imperfections always make me so much more attracted to a man because it makes them unique, and to me, that is SO beautiful! (And as we both know, mine is also absolutely ridiculous! I am NEVER BORED!)
I also know with 100% certainty that this disease does not discriminate. I never in a million years thought that I would come down with it. I remember watching after school specials about bulimia when I was a teenager, one in particular still sticks in my head to this day, and I COULD NOT COMPREHEND how someone could do that. Now that I’ve been there, I realize that eating disorders can hit anyone for any number of reasons. It does not follow any type of pattern. You don’t even have to believe it exists for it to ensnare you. It’s so fucking sneaky that you yourself don’t even realize you have it until you are WELL into the middle of it. It sucks. I’ve known men with it. Children with it. It doesn’t matter how much you make or what color your skin is or what country you live in or how much food you have access to. And it’s terrible.
I so relate to what you said about not being able to comprehend having an eating disorder. I was that way too. I remember watching the girls on the current affairs show around that time, heart breaking for them but at the same time, not really understanding how they could do that to themselves or why. I truly believed the spoilt rich brat myths! And when there were whispers or even accusations that I had anorexia, I was FURIOUS. I did NOT have anorexia, I raged at them – I would NEVER do something like that. I wasn’t that vain, I wasn’t that stupid. I didn’t care about being thin or fashionable. And so forth.
So when I was diagnosed and then hospitalised for anorexia it just blew my mind, it actually took me weeks to come around to the fact that yes, I DID have anorexia after I’d been already admitted to the ED ward. It’s just so hard to take in hey? We didn’t go after it or want it, but it happened to us. Definitely an illness. You are right that it takes us unawares. And I’ve known people too from every walk of life – it definitely doesn’t discriminate. I just hope and pray that better and more hopeful treatments are close on the horizon – and early intervention, I think that would save a LOT of loss and heartache xx
We take on so much within ourselves from when we were growing up.. We form opinions about ourselves or how we perceive ourselves…based on how we are treated or affirmed (or not)…It leaves many with scars and ED is one of the remnants of these scars…Diane
You are so right, Diane, and so insightful. I wish people could all see as clearly as you do just how we are affected by the things that happen and the blows and words of those around us.
It’s true about the scars and ED being one. I also think that we are left viewing ourselves, the world around us, other people and LIFE through ‘lenses’ tinted with our experience. Like the ‘rose coloured glasses’ thing where people see the world as much better than it is? I guess this is our sadness tinged glasses, or our trauma-tinged glasses etc. It affects every aspect of our lives that way.
But we can learn to take the glasses off and replace them with clear lenses xxx
what a great point. in fact i would think that being reminded of starving children would make one feel even guiltier for eating anything. also if you you’ve struggled like you have, you might eat less to ration…
You are SO RIGHT, so right. It does actually make us feel more guilty (at least, myself and those I have spoken to). also having struggled with ed can affect your relationship with food forever more, for eg, I struggle with hoarding because of the starvation by myself, and by my own mother – and I have read this is also common in those who have lived through the depression, in concentration camps, or as prisoners of war.
i’m sorry for all the abuse you went through at the hands of your mother and sister that caused you to have this battle. i hate that you suffer so.
i worked as a care aid with seniors that had been through the depression and i saw a lot of hoarding.
the father lived through poverty and he hoards food.
((((((Hugs))))))
xo
Well said..I do feel very upset when STILL there’s a perception of non-understanding and no compassion! I’ve been myself in hospital with people, with NOTHING in common except their anorexia! That encludes boys, older people, people with lots of money and people living on the poverty line! Sadly it can affect ANYONE at any time..thanks for post, I hope you are traveling ok…lol
It upsets me too, but sadly we still have a long way to go with mental health awareness in general. So many stigmas still held today, and so many instances in which people are still just put out of mind and out of sight instead of acknowledged and helped.
I’m with you on being in hospital with people from ALL walks of life with anorexia. There have been ladies in their 70′s, including one who developed it for the first time in her 60′s by it being triggered by extreme family stress. There have been plenty of males. And not on my ward, but in childrens, there have been kids as young as 5, perhaps even younger. It’s heartbreaking. I hope YOU are travelling okay too, I’m hanging in here as always xxx
You’re absolutely right, Fi, eating disorders are never simple enough that they can be blamed upon a single cause. Stereotypes are what the healthy individuals like to think of people with ED, so they can make sense of something that may seem bizarre to them.
Fi I’m so glad you brought this topic to the forefront. You are really good at scouting out these posts that really set things straight. I like Carrie Arnold’s site as well. I haven’t read the article you referred to in a comment above. But I think it is really helpful to be able to look at the broadest perspective, historically, evolutionarily etc…to try to gain more understanding for what the deepest roots and meanings of the eating disorders are. It’s helpful to me anyway, to understand what the purpose might be or what needs the eating disorder might be trying to serve…even if it is not succeeding. I hope that makes sense.
So what is the title of the book you were referring to above?
On the personal level it is so devastating what the misunderstandings and the contempt from others does to those of us with the eating disorders. The disorder itself is devastating enough, but to have all that crap added on top of it seems so cruel, when what we need to recover is the opposite….we need understanding and compassion.
Love to you dear lady!
Very enlightening post and reblog. Thank you, Fiona.
Thank you Hook