“Honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms; all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of this.” (Whyte, D. 2015. Consolations. Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington). I attended an AA meeting last Sunday morning where the subject of the meeting was honesty. Interesting questions were posed such as: “What is honesty?” “Did you have a time in your life when honesty was completely
Category: eating disorders
Sacred Listening-Intuitive readings for you
Sacred listening is a new term I’m using. It’s very related to living in your Intuitive Body, getting the guidance you’re meant to hear, that’s only for you in that very moment, and then trusting what you KNOW so that you’re living in connection, with meaning and love and intentions that support you. It’s a gentle way of being that connects you to each moment in ways that support you. This can be your greatest power. Trust me on this. I wanted to also let you in on something that’s coming that feels like everything I love about springtime (I’m a spring-born and it’s definitely my time). New projects and ideas are flowing in~ I have a 7
I had anorexia – but not because I wanted to look like a fashion model | Hadley Freeman
A French plan to ban skinny women from the catwalk ignores the fact that anorexia is an illness. We need to look at the causes not outcomes of self-loathingNobody ever asks me what it felt like. They never ask what it was like to spend three of my teenage years in secure psychiatric units for severe anorexia nervosa; how it felt to be so undernourished I could hardly walk; how it feels now to be able to picture the doctors’ and nurses’ faces more clearly than I can those of my late grandparents; how it feels to have spent my formative years with young women who are now, in so many cases, dead; how this experience changed my personality for ever. No, no one asks that.
Skills, Not Pills to Treat Binge Eating Disorder
You may have already seen the ads for Vyvanse, the new FDA-approved drug for the treatment of binge eating disorder. Vyvanse was originally marketed for the treatment of ADHD, but Shire Pharmaceuticals, the drug’s manufacturer, is now promoting it as “an effective option to help curb episodes of binge eating.” Binge eating disorder (BED) is the most widespread of all eating disorders and affects 1{c754d8f4a6af077a182a96e5a5e47e38ce50ff83c235579d09299c097124e52d} to 5{c754d8f4a6af077a182a96e5a5e47e38ce50ff83c235579d09299c097124e52d} of Americans. For years it was classified as a medical condition. But in 2013 the authors of DSM-V saw the light and classified BED as an eating disorder. Psychological variables such as low self-esteem, depression and anxiety can trigger BED. Genetic predisposition, a close relative with an eating disorder or drug addiction or the metabolic disturbances caused
Recovering Around a "Backdrop of Disorder"
Check out my latest NEDA blog about recovering around a backdrop of disorder – thanks NEDA for publishing my words!
Lost and Found
Yesterday, I took my daughter to church for the first time to see (or rather to sleep through) her sweet friend’s baptism. At the party afterwards I found myself choking back tears as I watched family friends parading Marjorie around. We were out of the house and doing something normal. I was finally able to […]
Self-Soothing Techniques when Feeling Traumatized
Written by Cristina Smugala, LPC When a person experiences trauma, their body decrease the ability to control their emotions. As Mollon’s research suggested, the experience of trauma deregulates the individual’s ability to regulate emotional experience and manage physical arousal (Mollon, 2005). This process may leave the trauma survivor very attune and vulnerable to any emotional, physical, and sensory cues that remind the individual of the trauma. When a trauma cue is present, the mind and the body become activated similarly to being exposed to the actual threat (Van der Kolk, 2002). This experience of hyperarousal makes it important for trauma survivors to build skills that will strengthen their ability to not only regulate emotions, but increase their ability to experience safety in the present moment. Grounding Skills
Eating Disorders, Body Image and the Women’s Rights Movement
Twenty years after the Beijing conference on women’s rights and gender equality, we still have work to do.
The Best Worst Question of All
I was recently etroduced to the work of Dana Shavin. Her memoir, The Body Tourist, chronicles her experiences following her recovery from anorexia. I asked her for any insights she might have for my readers about illness and recovery. Here’s what she had to say:The Best Worst Question of AllIt’s a great question. And a terrible one.“What’s the most important thing you learned in your recovery from anorexia?”I was asked this not long after I left the hospital, by a friend of a friend who wasstruggling with depression. It was a great question, because it made me think hard aboutwhat things had really helped, and why and how they helped. And it was a terriblequestion, because it asked that I hang my recovery on
People with anorexia and body dysmorphic disorder have similar brain anomalies
People with anorexia nervosa and with body dysmorphic disorder have similar abnormalities in their brains that affect their ability to process visual information, a new UCLA study reveals.
Are Arizona teen eating disorders caused by climate?
A recent article in the February 28, 2015, edition of the Arizona Daily Star calls much-needed attention to the high incidence of eating disorders among southern Arizona teens. Arizona ranks second in the United States for teens who have purged as a method of weight control and has twice the incidence than the U.S. average, according to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, I must take issue with two of the article’s conclusions. Firstly, the article attributes the prevalence of eating disorders to Tucson’s climate. It quotes Dr. Nia Sipp, medical director for Sierra Tucson’s eating disorders program, as saying, “Arizona has a lot of sunny, warm days and summer clothing is more revealing, which leads to more body