Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Au Naturale

I don't even want to talk about what happened yesterday for classes but I will post this later. Right now I have another topic that I want to run by you all and get your individual opinions on.

My ED has partially stemmed from a desire to be healthy, and from being deceived into believing that I was eating too much. I also have extreme body image issues. While I was in the hospital I slowly learned to overcome my fear of foods, and could eat fairly normally again. But then once I was discharged from the hospital, I began to feel anxious about my food intake once again and started to take back control. For the life of me I cannot keep weight on my frame, no matter how hard or how many times I try.

Anyways, after being discharged I began to develop new fears regarding food, which mostly took place in the form of sodium and preservatives. So I cut those out. Sometimes I find that I restrict foods because I am afraid that they will not be healthy for my body, which will in turn make me fat. This might sound very extreme but right now I am on a strict all-natural (no preservatives, no chemicals, no additives, nothing) kind of diet. I am scared to eat "normal people" foods because of their unhealthy content and the fear that they will make me fat. Also note that my family has had a history of medical problems like diabetes and heart attacks which just add more fuel to my fear.

My question to you is, is this normal? Does anyone else struggle with this? Sometimes I feel like I don't even have an eating disorder because of this new issue with food, or maybe I have a multitude of EDs which could include orthorexia on top of the anorexia. I don't know. My brain is so confused right now, and I am really tired. Can anyone help me?

1 comments:

Kiki January 22, 2009 at 5:22 PM  

I do struggle with this, but not to the extent that you do. I'd say that I'm mindful of eating foods with preservatives, etc. and avoid them as much as possible. Every so often though, I'm okay with letting myself have something a bit processed. I'm so sorry ED has found another way to ram his ugly head into your life. Just think though- Almost every other woman your age eats a far more processed, preservative- and sodium-laden diet than you do. They're are all healthy, and none of them get fat from eating that food! ED may tell you that "if you eat that ____ then you'll gain tons of weight", but it's simply not true. Your body works the same way as every other person's, and you won't gain weight just because ED has convinced you that you're a special case. Hope you had a lovely day!