Stella's Cracked Looking Glass *** Trigger Warning ED ***

Life in Recovery
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I have decided to document this journey in a thread. After entering my meal on the foodie’s thread and then sitting down and mindfully eating through tears, many thoughts and feelings were coming up. I think sharing this could be valuable to others, and if not, then at least therapeutic for me.

Anyways I will start with a bit of a back story…
I grew up in a family of women with disordered eating. It has been passed down through the generations. From my grandmother to my mother to me. Maybe even before that, I don’t know. All I know is that calorie counting, food weighing, dieting, scales, complaining about weight, binging, and obsession with body appearance have been the norm. Hell, we even buy clothing a size too small, so we have a goal outfit. I know we aren’t the only ones…
I remember being very young, probably 4, and watching my mom get ready to go out on a date with my dad. I remember vividly sitting behind her on the bed as she put her earrings on. We were both looking at her reflection in the mirror. I was awe-struck by her, but she taught me very early on that what we see in the mirror is never good enough.

I started experimenting with purging when I was about 7. It, of course, escalated in my teens when I was introduced to the modeling industry.
While I was doing meth, my weight plummeted to 117 lbs on my 6-foot frame, and I had never been booked more in my career. This, of course, only fed my diseased brain. So when I cleaned up, was put on anti-depressants, and gained 100 lbs during my pregnancy, I lost my mind. Since then, it has been a constant battle of not eating so that I could drink my calories in alcohol. Manipulating Drs to give me medication to make me lose weight or give me a specific one that wouldn’t make me gain weight. Spending countless hours at the gym over-exercising, doing back-to-back spin classes, then going for a run, and adding in a hot core yoga class at night. I mean, if I went into details about the insanity of it… well, you’d all think I was insane.

Why do I do this to myself, one might ask…
I feel fear, legitimate fear.

A fear I will be judged.
A fear I won’t be accepted.
A fear I won’t be good enough.
A fear I won’t be liked.

While I ate today, the reason I cried was I thought about how much my body deserved to be fed, and it broke my heart. I have so much damage psychologically around this that I honestly don’t know if what I am doing is correct, but anything is worth trying. It would be beneficial if I work hard on my self-acceptance and self-love and let go of perfectionism. But, like the NA literature says, “That seems like a big order and we didn’t become addicts in one day, so easy does it.”

I am currently seeing an addiction specialist weekly for the next 8 weeks who knows about my eating disorder. She is not focusing on it instead we are talking more about how to eat to help my chronic pain. Also it is almost my turn for the 28 week DBT group so I think that everything is happening maybe at the right time, I will have some supports around if I need them. I feel strong in my substance recovery, I have an alarm set for my cycle so that does not sneak up on me anymore. I just really feel like I owe it to myself and my daughter to stop this generational disease if I can, so I will start, one friggen day at a time.

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I can really understand and empathise with this thread. In the end, food is fuel for our bodies, and we (you!) are worthy of fueling our bodies properly. And sometimes, we can enjoy a treat because of some occasion, or whatever, without guilt. But when we start treating alcohol like a drug or something to control just for the sake of controlling, there are problems. But that is easy to understand in the head, but difficult to carry out. I hope this thread helps you and I give you all my support. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I think this is a great idea Stella. This and joining us on the foodies thread when you feel like it.
:pray:t2::heart:

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Looking forward to this thread and want to be supportive of your journey in this tricky, not to say fucked up field.

You deserve to appreciate and love yourself as you are. And if you’re anything like me, your first response to this sentence will be sth like: yeaaaah, right! But not as I am right now! :confounded:

You are alluding it with your mum: do you have experience with perceiving your body very differently depending on how you are feeling and different to how others perceive you? I regularly have the strong belief I look like my mother (I do not). I will then feel like I’m in a massively overweight, unhealthy, old and uncared-for body. It’s unreal.

How wonderful to see you dedicate yourself to this. I’m sure it’ll help. :heart:

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See the beauty in your food… like your beautiful :avocado: avocado, nectarines and eggs… each a piece of art to behold and enjoy when you eat them and see the beauty in you :hibiscus:

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Thank you so much for sharing, you may feel like you are in the trenches but you’re not alone in this. I’m proud of your efforts and resolve to work on this part of your recovery. You can do this!
I’m almost one year into my eating disorder recovery/therapy and if you need anything let me know if I can support you in any way.

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I don’t have anything to contribute here, Cap - but I just want to put a marker down saying that I support you in anything you do. I hope that documenting things in this thread helps and that you get the support you are looking for.
One thing it does do is make me think about how we interact with our kids.
I take it you just copied your mum and learned her behaviors? My wife is a bit of a perfectionist and I’m sure she’s hard to live up to for our girls. Something to think about.

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I see you and hear you. Thanks so much for sharing your stuff. We’re in this together.

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I love you to bits, my dear! I hope it helps to share here.

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Yesterday in typical “Stella fashion,” I invested a lot of time and energy into this whole topic. I spent a good portion of my day flustered, unfocused but scrolling through recipes, saving recipes and ideas for foods I might find appealing from the Nutritionist my new Dr has suggested I base my meals off. Her name is Julie Daniuk for anyone interested in food that heals inflammation. I started to obsess rather heavily on gathering information, and instead of berating myself, I just accepted it for what it was and turned my computer off. “Thank you” to 19 months of recovery for that one.

As I lay in bed doing my Step 10 before falling asleep, the question of " Did I take care of my body" arose.
:white_check_mark: I didn’t use
:white_check_mark: I showered
:white_check_mark: I was going to bed at a decent time
:white_check_mark: I didn’t overexert myself
and
:white_check_mark: I ate healthy food

The question was what, though.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is a member of the forum, and we are new Fitbit friends. They suggested I try tracking my food on my Fitbit, and I quickly shut that idea down, saying that monitoring food and calories was a huge trigger. However, I am not sure I should have been so hasty in saying that was a bad idea. I think there are two ways to look at things. I can look at it from the view of restriction and not wanting to eat more than a certain amount of calories, or I can look at it from the perspective of trying to get my calories up ( which is what I think they were thinking, but my sick head, of course, went the other way.) So I tried it and was surprised. I entered my food intake for yesterday, a day that I had put a lot of effort into eating and being mindful around food. All that effort and I still had only managed to get 721 calories into myself. It was a rude awakening, I had thought I was eating about 600 calories a day, but I am pretty sure that is not the case. The effect that entering my food had on me was not harmful yet; this morning, I added 1/2 scoop of protein powder to my oatmeal.

Honesty, open-mindedness and willingness if you have these three spiritual principles you are well on your way. :heart:

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Though I do not understand your addiction at all as I just eat whatever the fuck I want, I do want you to know that I find this thread very interesting and I’m glad to be a spectator on your journey :smiley: and I look forward to your progress which I’m sure will come

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Do u have a minimum number of calories u want to hit each day? Do u feel comfortable with it?

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You know just being open is the first step to healing…

This is why you are amazing, this is why I admire you and this is why I hope you begin to heal as you deserve life x

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Not right now, maybe one day.
:orange_heart:

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OK, so the calorie counting is a way to track, and maybe slowly increase calories? Certainly understanding what the situation is now is the first step to improving. Remember you are worth putting nourishing food into your body.

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I’m glad youve been helping yourself , you really deserve the best life for you, you’ve gone through so much in your life, to reward yourself by working on yourself constantly, there are always uphill battles at times but you’re learning and getting better.

I’m proud of you that you’ve been able to open up more and more about the things that are holding you back, keep working on yourself lady you got this :metal:

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So here for this girl. It’s going to be really hard and I honestly think right now that tracking calories will be triggering. Maybe start with baby steps. Set small goals at first. Maybe eat one thing daily that’s good for you, but you might have some fear of. For me that’s peanut butter or sunflower butter.

You’ve kicked so many addictions. We both know that ED’s are just brutal. No way in hell we are controlling alcohol or meth. Oh, just control your intake of drugs or alcohol. Mmmhmmmm ok, is t that thought what got us all here, wanting to control our addictions? But dammit if that’s not exactly what we have to do with our earring disorders.

I love you and I believe in you. I think this thread is a great idea. I 100% understand where your coming from as we paddle in the same boat my sweet friend. Let’s get this done, one day at a time, one minute at a time, screaming, crying, whatever it takes. :white_heart:

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I found for me that counting calories is no good in any way for me. I remember 1997 when I was told to do so for my diabetes. This was the beginning. It took me some years to lose all the numbers in my head that were present in my head, counting. I now check that I eat regularly in order to get enough and prevent binging.

Now, I see, I gotta leave here. Numbers are no good for me. It is good you started the thread here. Hope it’ll help you.

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I want to give you a big hug. :hugs: I almost feel like I need to be careful what I say so that I don’t hurt your feelings, trigger something w your problem areas etcetera.
Apologies should I say something that upsets you. It’s from me caring for you … and not knowing enough …

wonderful that you are w someone that will help you w food that will help your medical problems.
I have a friend w awful psoriasis who instead of 3000 a month for a medicine has opted for functional medicine that began with what she’s eating. It has almost reversed her psoriasis.
Each situation is different.

You’re not wanting to gain tooooo toooo much weight I understand that. And the hope that food will help your inflammation and pain. This sounds good. ( great).

I admire your physical strength. You did the 5 min plank!. And you’re eating 700 calories some days which is in a starvation/ severe diet area.

My hope is that you’ll find nutritious foods and calorie dense foods that will help you get your food intake/ calorie count up and help your
problem Med stuff that sometimes debilitates you.

Food is life.

As you know when low calories are consumed the body begins shutting the metabolism down in defense of starvation.

I’m not being critical. I feel like you know all this bc it’s been a lifelong challenge for you.

Your calories can be increased and increased some more esp w activity. I feel yes, count the calories and get the number up w foods that will help you.

Count your activity w the friend and keep it in a reasonable range, increasing food w substantial increase w activity.

You will always be beautiful and always be that model, just in a very different, more important way, which is a good thing. ( A model for your daughter, breaking and modifying this handed down behavior.)

Lots of love to you. And best wishes through this.

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We are faced with daily challenges through recovery, and when we are new to recovery as I am right now and raw, those challenges can be brutal. It’s as if I am at the beginning of an even more complex maze this time but I know there is an end. It’s just someone has put a blindfold on me, spun me around a billion times, played a high-pitched noise in my ears super loud, and then shoved me against the prickly brambles telling me to find my way.

I had to mute my thread yesterday.

Part of the conversation that I will not mention became too focused, which sent my mind into hyper fixation, and well, we all know how that goes. One addiction is no different from the other, except I need to find a way to moderate, whereas moderation is not the answer to any of my other addictions. (Can’t cut myself a little, smoke a little meth and drink a little wine like Beth said…) Moderation and I are not friends. I have never been able to maintain moderation, I am all or nothing. ( insert big sigh here)

Anyways I almost shut this shit down yesterday, but I won’t. I will breathe, and when it gets too much, I have tools I can use. I can reach out to many people who know that I am on this journey and can help me let stuff go.

Thank you so, so much for your support.
:heart:

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