So, I’m not going to lie. I am not proud of the time
left in between my last post and this one. No excuses, I know, but I will give
you the down ‘lo on just why I’ve been so absent lately (it actually
corresponds with this week’s topic!).
These past ten to fourteen days have been quite…
Interesting. I’ve down and backed to New Brunswick a couple of times, have been
poked with more needles (not just blood work needles this time!), have had my
blood stolen from me (yes, stolen. Blood work people are vampires, I just know
it), have had to go to several appointments and weigh-ins (which are stressful, unpleasant, and happen on a weekly basis), and have spent much time on the phone with various support
systems trying to get even more into motion for my recovery. I was also
finishing up my application for my Masters of Arts in Sociology. That was sent
in and supporting documents were mailed a few days ago… I am a very happy (and
tired) camper!
Yes, all very eventful…But I said that the past ten
to fourteen days have been interesting.
I should have said “interesting”.
My body is proving to be the most stubborn mother
fucker on the face of the planet. Now, today is not one of those “having
Anorexia Nervosa sucks, so come hug my poor frail body” sort of days. It’s more
like a “what the fuck are you doing to me, asshole!? I am trying to get better
here!” kind of situation. Fists and blunt objects are thrown, feelings are
hurt, I am left imagining a Spartan battle to the death between myself and my
eating disorder (I will have you know, ED does not look as good in period
Spartan war gear as I do). Over the past 48 hours especially I have experienced
the shakes, the sweats (which is sort of a nice change from freezing all the
time, I will admit… Though It does get annoying), nausea, A LOT of pain in my muscles,
joints, chest, kidneys, etc (well, there is always pain, just more than usual),
and some other not so pleasant experiences I will not share here, for I value
decency (psh) and not driving you away on account of my body’s rebelliousness. All of
this bullshit, however, is being brought on by my own actions…
And lucky me,
it’s going to be like this for a while.
You see, my last appointment with the good doctor
gave me a good kick in the arse. I was given an ultimatum, gain weight or die. Now, I
really don’t feel like dying, so, I guess I only really have one other option.
This option, to gain weight… It’s the scariest motherfucking thing anyone could
ever say to me or have me do. First of all, I have spent the greater majority
of my life trying to reduce my size. All of a sudden I’m being told I need to
increase it. See how fucked up that is? It’s really confusing, but I understand
that what I’ve got going for me is unhealthy and most definitely unsexy (though
that doesn’t make it unscary). I’ve had some positive news recently – my
bloodwork (thanks to my taking a plethora of nasty-ass supplements every
morning) is just about tip top. This means that I can concentrate on this whole
weight gain journey thing without having to worry about “my levels” too much.
So, don’t for one second think that natural health supplements don’t work.
Anyway. I had a point. I might as well get back to
it.
So, my body is being a motherfucker – yes, we have
established this. This is all well and good. What is interesting about it,
however, is the reason why my body is
being a motherfucker. To be completely honest, my body’s reaction to my weight
gain plan has been the most interesting part of my anorexia (I’ll let you know
how I’m planning to achieve gaining weight in a healthy way a little later on).
To see the human body work at the absolute base level has been a journey (and
it’s only day 5) and an eye opener not only to how resilient we are at a
mechanical level, but at how absolutely important it is to finally aknowledge
the biology of this disorder. I have been concentrating on culture lately,
culture and society. Now, I am not all of a sudden saying that blaming society
isn’t the way to go. For the record, I never throught blaming society was the way to go. Recall
that I believe that culture has fueled the prevalence of eaing disorders, not
caused them. Looking at raw statistic shows us that the prevalence of eating
disorders corresponds with changing ideals surrounding the body as well as
outside pressure to achieve these ideals above all else. I mentioned briefly
the medical and psychological roots of this disorder, and I would very much
like to go back to that. The bottom line here is that the triggers of disordered eating are changing, but the base cause?
That, my friends, has not changed.
Friends, readers, I give to you, chapter four of A Love Affair…
Built on biology.
So, to put this at the most basic level, I am
essentially a drug addict. There are these lovely little things that float
around our brains called endorphins. They make us feel good. These little bits
of fairy dust are released within the brain when we do things like eat, get
sleep, smile, listen to a song we really like – that sort of thing. Now,
endorphins are an important part of evolution as well. They are released when
we are in pain in order to counter the effects of pain. Think about working
out. You are tearing muscles with every movement you make, and that shit hurts.
Your body releases endorphins to mask the pain so you can keep going. That’s
why you hurt more the next day – the endorphins aren’t bouncing around your
brain like jumping beans. The same thing basically happens when you starve.
Think about it – if your body gave into the side effects of starvation and did
not mask them somehow, how would you continue to migrate across the dessert in
the middle of Africa? Now, endorphins make us feel realllllllllllly good (really good).
That’s sort of the downside. Your body craves them, so we partake in things
that give us access to these endorphins. When it comes to starving, the only
way to reach that level of feeling good is to refrain from eating or eat
very little. Your body goes into starvation mode and the neural pathway is open
again. It’s kind of like taking a hit of a drug. You become addicted to the endorphin
rush and bam, you end up with anorexia, or something similar.
That’s sort of the basic explanation. There’s a lot
more to it, obviously, like the involvement of the hypothalamus and pituitary
gland – but I didn’t want you getting into this shit without a bit of a
background.
I almost feel as if I should apologize in advance.
The research to put this post together was quite heavy and brought me back to
my biological psychology days (days I don’t really want to remember, but hey,
I’ll take one for the team). The necessity to explore these disorders inside
and out is just another part in understanding the sociology of it all. By
looking at things like psychology, biology, evolution, medicine, history, and
exploring cultural aspects, changing ideals, prevalence rates, co-morbid issues/problems and looking to the future and trying to predict where we as a
society are headed we can better understand exactly what disorders like
Anorexia, Bulimia, EDNOS, Binge Eating Disorder, etc are actually made up of.
They didn’t appear, they have always been there. They are multi-layered and
multi-leveled, and their triggers change and shape with the society around
them. Understanding (or at least discussing) the constants within this curse
(e.g.: what’s going on in the brains of people suffering from disordered eating
patterns) makes us better sociologists and overall more knowledgeable about a
VERY big issue in society today that spans cultures, races, ages, religions
that just doesn’t get the air time it deserves… which is airtime that should be
devoted to education and putting a stop to this, not the slander that makes up
the information the majority of modern society has access to.
So, what’s “caused” eating disorders have been the
hot topic within research for a bajillion years. It makes me feel as if people
are more pre-occupied with where this shit comes from rather than focusing on
help (yes, I know that in order to help, we need to know the root causes, just
let me have my moment). Anyway, there were these psychiatrists in 1987 who
wrote a very compelling paper about the biological aspects of Ana and Mia. Their
research is pretty close to the basics still in circulation today, and I liked
the way they presented their information, so a peer reviewed source from the
80’s is what you’re gonna get (I am shaking my fist threateningly at all of you
as I type this, just so you know). Now, Kaplan and Woodside (1987) did a pretty
in depth study on the biology behind the “big two” including medical
complications associated with the disorders as well as the cognitive
consequences and what they figured would be good potential treatment routes and
tied it up into a nice little package published in the the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. For a while, people
though hormonal changes were the base causes of eating disorcers. Yes, hormones
had something to do with it, but they aren’t the be all end all.
I mentioned the hypothalamus earlier. Now, this
teensy little brain part is in charge of nearly everything food. Essentially,
as it’s understood today, this is where the base root of the brain issues
start. Because the hypothalamus is being a bit of a flake(as it’s been affected
by all of those lovely endorphins) its ability to sense hunger, decide what is
appropriate for eating and what is enough goes all to shit (hence why some
people may restrict while others eat uncontrollably). This, in effect, screws
with the pituitary gland, which is the boss man of the hormonal releasing and
stimulating factors within our heads. This is where hormones come in.
Essentially, because of the starvation (in the case of anorexia), we end up
with loads of screw-ups in hormone production and release. This causes a lot of
crankiness and snappiness from the individuals affected, lack of sex drive
(severe lack of sex drive…), leads to lack of menstruation, and lowers
reproductive ability through severe reduction in testosterone and estrogen for
both men and women. And those are just some of the biological complications, you wait
until I get into the physiological shit!
In the end, the stimulation of the opioid release in
your brain and the havoc endorphin release is wreaking on your pituitary tips us
on to the fact that the reaction is simply the body’s defense mechanism to
starvation. Endorphins, as I’ve mentioned, are key in pain control (but also
addictive behaviors) and as well in the control of eating! Now, starvation has
been known to increase the release of these opioids and you – the addict –
can’t get enough of it (hence why I’m sitting here at 119 pounds having eaten
less than 1000 calories today and am feeling no pain. In fact, I feel great,
and that’s where the problem lies, because I feel the opposite when I eat…
those are the opiate withdrawal symptoms– and that’s fucking scary). All of
this stuff affects your metabolism. Essentially, with the way I eat at the
present moment, I should be dropping weight at an alarming rate. I, however, am
losing weight quite slowly… Now why is that?
Here’s a hint: metabolism has just about everything to do with
it. Metabolism is controlled by yout thyroid mostly, which is driven by
hormones from the pituitary gland which are triggered by signals within the
hypothalamus! Such a perfect connection, and all it takes is one little fuck up
to screw everything else in the body straight to hell. Luckily, this is all
reversible. Most of the shit I discuss begins to regulate itself upon getting
the proper nutrients. This is a relief to me, because I really don’t want to be
like this for life.
Anyway, metabolism.
So, I’m not losing weight like
at a crazy fast pace because these starvation signals my body is giving… My
brain realizes that I’m not giving into the endorphin rushes I get when I
restrict and starve, so it’s fighting back in the only way it can. It has
consumed my fat, it’s eating my muscles (including my heart, the fat around my
organs and the fatty myelin surrounding my brain), and it really wants to do
this as little as possible. Remember, your body just wants to keep you alive (how nice of it)…
Essentially what happens is that the metabolism slows in order to conserve
energy. Systems that aren’t necessarily “needed” at the time are silenced
(e.g.: hormone production and release, sex drive, having a period). This is why
I tire easily and I want to sleep all the time. My body just wants to conserve
every little ounce of energy, because I don’t give it enough through food.
How mean of me...
So I’ve dabbled in the side effects of all this
shit. They were mostly internal. This includes the screwed up hormone and nutrient
levels, the heart problems and chest pain, the pain felt while
eating/digesting… All of that. Other more visible side effects of this include
hair loss (which is the sole reason I cut all of mine off), possible visible
emaciation (remember, some people with eating disorders hold very suitable
weights for their body types), stumbling or dizziness, jaundice, being cold ALL
the time (very visible in the summer time when you’re like me – going to the
beach in August wearing pants and a sweater in 30 degree heat), extreme
irritability, developing habits such as smoking or chewing multiple packs of
gum per day (guilty as charged), lack of sexual interest, increased obsessive
behaviors… The list goes on and on. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s a reality, and
it all begins in our amazing (albeit scary complicated) brain parts.
You know, I had mentioned earlier that there was a
newer theory that had immerged regarding this whole “why the fuck do people get
eating disorders” issue. Evolution. To me, it makes sense. As stated by
Guisinger (2003) it’s
“psychological and societal factors [that] account
for the decision to diet but not for the phenomenology of the disorder…[there
is] evidence that AN’s distinctive symptoms of restricting food, denial of
starvation, and hyperactivity are likely to be evolved adaptive mechanisms that
facilitated ancestral nomadic foragers leaving depleted environments”
The above simply means that as an anorexic, I am the
way I am because of some sort of evolutionary mechanism within me that was
triggered by my starvation and it relates to my African ancestors who had to
move and migrate with the food, potentially risking weeks of starvation! How
else would they go on without this evolutionary mechanism? It’s pretty
interesting once you think about it.
Disclaimer: Guisinger does, of course, acknowledge the
fact that disordered eating is not simply caused by evolutionary factors, but
is a combination of psychopathology and societal influences that effect people
with certain biological vulnerability. They just prefer to concentrate on the
idea that there could be an evolutionary link, which is totally cool.
Throughout this report, many interesting points are
raised. Some of the highlights of this research include psychoanalytic theories
that discuss the struggles food triggers within an anorexic’s mind and how it
connects to autonomy and control or lack there of), the fact that to many this
refusal may appear to be an act of sheer will but is more of a “morbid fear” of
fatness, or the food itself. There is paranoia surrounding the person’s
self-image and the finding that despite what many people may think, many people
with anorexia really do want to get better – desperately. It has been reported
that people in this condition feel something within them controlling their
conscious decisions – even if they want to eat, they cannot (which is very true
in my situation).
Social theories are also discussed such as anorexia
symbolizing the restraint on women’s desires, praise surrounding thinness, the
importance of a thin body to fashion and entertainment industries, distorted
standards of beauty… essentially some stuff that’s already been covered by
yours truly.
That’s when we get into the biomedical side of
things – some anorexic symptomology as an adaptive mechanism to migration. They
go on to discuss the reasoning behind how some people with anorexia still have
the amazing ability to be physically active (as slowing the metabolism would be
necessary to conserve the energy needed when a food source was actually present).
Essentially, in order to adequately migrate, our bodies needed to shut off certain
triggers that are caused by starving such as immediate depression and lethargy
(that comes later, promise). Instead, those lovely endorphins are relaeased,
and we all know what that leads to! This couples with the evolutionary
mechanism that denies the fact that the body may be starving, which in modern
day leads us into distorted body-image and a slippery slope into avoiding
eating even when food is readily available. What ends up happening is an
obsession with food, but a fear attached with indulging as if it is a shameful
act (keeping the cycle going). That’s where all of this evolutionary, biology, psychological, media shit
gets into a head on collision. You don’t know what to do when presented with
food, you don’t know how to plan your day, and when you actually do plan meals
and make them, you’ve often thought about it so much you don’t want it any
more. Trust me, your body comes up with all kinds of tricks that act as ways to distract you from eating. There are so many factors at play with all this that it’s hard to know
what to make of it anymore. I do know, however, that the adrenaline that kicks
in in order to keep you going to a few more hours (also mentioned in the
article) is a blessing and a curse. You’re tired, but you don’t sleep, but then
again, if you fell asleep, you’d probably never get up and just give in to the
fatigue caused by starving. It’s as if what the author is talking about is that
this little evolutionary mechanism is supposed to be temporary, but then it
takes over, and a whole ‘nother can of worms is opened. This leads to all sorts
of other issues. It’s like a domino effect, and it sucks.
So, there you have it. Just a little bit of a peek
into something other than ranting and raving about Twiggy and society and
beauty ideals. I didn’t want you to forget that these disorders are based
within biology and start in the brain. That’s why you see cases of anorexia and
bulimia hundreds of years ago when there weren’t many outside societal
influences that pressured women to be twig ladies. Just the rise in the
prevalence of disordered eating over the past 50 years ago alone shows us the
influence culture has over this sort of thing. What I wanted to explore here
was the fact that there had to be something in place first, something that gets
triggered by those cultural and societal influences. This sort of explains why
some are more apt to develop eating disorders over others. Predispositions to
many disorders exist, it just depends on which disorder hidden away in your
brain has the smallest tipping point and the environment around you that
provides those triggers.
Of course, it’s the discrepancies between the
triggers and causes and the combinations of issues that go along with
developing eating disorders that are more often than not misconstrued and
misunderstood because of A) lack of education regarding the topic and B) the
fact that much media portrayal upholds myths and stereotypes regarding eating
disorders that can tend to be a little far fetched. That’s a whole other
chapter, however… The next chapter, actually! Myths and misconceptions
surrounding eating disorders, how fun! I am actually quite excited for this
one, because it means I get closer and closer to writing my fat blog post!
Just a couple of things before I leave you
- I know I sometimes use the term “anorexics” when talking about people with anorexia. I don’t really like doing that, but for the sake of ease I will throw it in there every so often. It just makes me feel as if you are defining a person by their disorder.
- I have been trying to gain weight this week and have failed miserably, but I’m determined! I had a lot of bad days this past while. By a lot I mean most days were horrid. The depression was really fucking bad, the pain that came with refeeding and introducing new foods really beat me down. I was tempted to stop, but really where is that going to get me? I just can’t figure out how to get past my own fear. Gaining weight does not mean becoming fat, it means life… Wow, that’s so much easier to type than it is to adopt. Fuck.
a. Speaking
of gaining weight, my diet plan is consisting of eating as much protein and
starch as possible. By starch I don’t mean a lot of bread or pasta, in fact,
I’m avoiding a lot of this stuff. The plan is to gain weight using healthy
vegetable starch, lean protein and whole grains. You see, a lot of starchy food has a lot of added shit in it
that act as appetite stimulants. Now, hunger is scary enough. These appetite
stimulants put me at risk for binge eating, developing bulimia on top of my
anorexia, or developing binge eating disorder. That’s just not something I want
to deal with. So, I will be limiting anything white flour, fake, or deep fried
(which is something I already do religiously). Whole grains, proteins and
starch are the way to go. I’m getting there… I mean, I’ve encorporated oatmeal
and egg whites as well as squash into the safe zone. I even had shrimp last
week! So… It’s coming… And it’s going to be one slow fucking process. My weight
is going to zigzag drastically as my body is going to be concerned with holding
water weight in order to repair my innards. I’m going to gain organ weight too,
which is sort of interesting. Either way, I dunno if I’m ready for this, but I
haven’t much of a choice.
3. Halloween
was last week. I was a skeleton. I thought the irony was appropriate.
4. I
GOT MY RECOVERY TATTOO
I
have written far too much here for any of this to be interesting anymore. So,
I’m going to wrap this the fuck up. Thank you for reading, thank you for being
there. I don’t know where I’d be without the support I’ve received (well… I
have some idea, but I’m not going to think about it).
So, stay tuned for chapter 5. I’m pretty stoked with
where this blog is going. I’m glad you’re all along for the ride. Until next
time, keep your chin up, keep on truckin’, and burn all of your Cosmopolitan magazines =).
Guisinger, S. (2003). Adapted to flee famine: Adding
an evolutionary perspective on anorexia nervosa. Psychological Review, 110, 745-761.
Kaplan, A.S., & Woodside, D.B. (1987).
Biological aspects of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 35, 645-653.
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