Anorexia Nervosa – Michelle Sparkes

I have just received the news that a friend’s niece has passed from medical complications after a long battle with anorexia. My heart breaks…I have no words….for you who loved her…and for she whom you loved. But I want to stand with you in this moment. In silence more than anything. To acknowledge your immense pain and suffering. To acknowledge her immense pain and suffering. To honour the life of she who has passed. She who struggled so strenuously and for so long against such an incredibly difficult dis-ease and insidiously destructive dis-order. I stand with you in acknowledgment…and in solidarity. I grieve with you, and for you, in your loss. I hold onto a hope that I accept you may not feel or even want to entertain in this moment. That death is not the end. That Love never fails. I hold onto that hope for you and for your loved one. Despite all. I stand with you. I see you…but not nearly as well or as compassionately or as helpfully as He who created you and your loved one…He who knows each hair of your head and hers, and every breath that you and she breathed, He who loves you both in a way beyond description. May He fill you with a hope for yourself and for your loved one in a way that seems impossible in the darkness. I am so deeply sorry for your loss.

I traveled through an eating disorder in my teen and early adult years (as illustrated) and lost ~ 15 years of my life spinning my wheels on the eating disorder treadmill because I couldn’t SEE what I was dealing with or why I was struggling and I didn’t have the knowledge, skills or support to get free or get through that territory more quickly. I lost a lot of time, health and opportunity as a result and it’s made me passionate and committed to helping others not do the same. Food is the symptom not the heart of an eating disorder. If you need help get on touch : [email protected]

In the last episode I was saying that in my experience of anorexia prior to my hospital admission, I had become enmeshed, hyper-vigilant and ‘trigger-happy’ in my family environment. I was physically and emotionally starving but could not receive the nurture that existed in the relationships around me. Admission to hospital was the beginning of a shift for me. I experienced myself in new relationships in a new way. The anorectic defence began to loosen and as it did I began to binge. This horrified me. But the reaction of the hospital staff to my binges, so different to my own, started to challenge the lie that my worth and value (and right to take up space) was based purely upon my ability to exercise perfect self control . It was a seismic shift and it allowed other little specks of light and truth to penetrate the layered mesh of lies that had become entrenched with my anorexia.

You can read more about this experience in Illuminating Anorexia.

Questions and feedback welcome.

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes

When you have fallen for, and are isolated by the lie that you are not worthy or good enough you need to reach out…to connections that can affirm, nurture, and encourage YOU. It’s important to say here that anorexia itself isolates a person and lies to them about their worth and value in such a way that they cannot receive the nurture that may in fact be available in the relationships closest to them. To mums and dads and other caretakers who are watching on I did not mean to imply in the last episode that your lack of care is the reason your son or daughter is struggling. The journey into the web of anorexia is not that simple or linear. One of the main reasons I wrote Illuminating Anorexia in 2012 was to underscore this fact and to highlight the way anorexia itself lies to, and isolates a person.

Roger Slade says “Starvation has the effect of removing people psychologically and physiologically from the situation in which they first decided to control their food intake.”[1]

This is important to understand. The more entrenched my anorexia became the less able I was to accurately perceive and judge situations. My thinking became increasingly polarised and irrational (a known consequence of starvation). It was like I was looking out at my world (and particularly my family) through layer upon layer of misperception. The slightest hint of disapproval in a gesture or expression from my parents could elicit in me feelings of extreme guilt and fear for my failure to…WHATEVER! Every problem found its root and cause in me… “if only I had done this or not done that.” I had become hyper-vigilant (easily ‘triggered)’ in my home environment and needed time out.  It wasn’t my parents fault; it was largely a consequence of starvation and the altered relationship dynamics that ensued.

My point is, at this stage I could not receive nurture from those closest to me; I was completely reactive in my relationship with mum and dad. I needed time out in a different environment, with different relationships to experience myself in a new way to allow the tight bind of the anorectic defence to loosen. For me this happened in hospital. And it helped. It didn’t resolve the anorexia but it gave me a chance to catch my breath and experience myself in a new way…this was an important key for me in the recovery journey ahead. You can read more about this in Illuminating Anorexia.

If you or your loved one are in this place of reactive relationships, unable to give/receive nurture you need professional help. In addition, I recommend that you consider a change of environment (it could be as simple as engaging in a new weekly activity) and seek out new (nurturing) connections where you’re familiar anorectic defence is less likely to be triggered…

Questions and Feedback welcome.

[1] Roger Slade, The Anorexia Nervosa Reference Book, Harper & Row, 1984, p.72.

Gaining weight from a low weight may be possible in an outpatient setting if a person is not critically unwell. If a person can make progress with the support of a doctor, dietician and therapist in an outpatient setting, fantastic. If not it simply means more intensive support is required. (See previous podcast notes for further information and links).

Some helpful thoughts about gaining weight from a low weight

Accurate information is better than uninformed fear

Get information from your team as to what to expect as your body is rehydrated and renourished from a malnourished state.  Much will depend on the severity of your ED.  Fluid retention, bloating, wind, cramps etc can all be expected as the body readjusts. WHAT YOU NEED TO KEEP IN MIND is that ALL these changes are temporary and will settle as you continue along the path to recovery.

The sooner you seek help the better. 

EARLY INTERVENTION is the best anti-dote to extreme malnutrition and the psychological disturbance (FEAR) that goes with it in an eating disorder.

Remind yourself why you began recovery in the first place.

Keep choosing recovery (one day at a time).

Recovery really begins with a decision from you. The truth is to recover and sustain recovery YOU will need to choose to turn your back on fear and hunger and turn your face towards life and nurture. And, you will need to do this every day.

You will need skills to do this.

You deserve to live, to feel the wind at your back, the sun on your face, to smile at the future, to love and embrace. You.

I can help you with this. It would be my pleasure to do so.

Feedback and questions welcome.

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes

To recover from anorexia a person will need to confront their fear of food and eating; their fear of getting fat and losing control. It’s a huge challenge because the semi-starvation diet of an anorectic CREATES the food obsessions and inflexible, polarised thinking that make seeking recovery so difficult.

Fear drives anorexia; and the anorectic (semi-starvation) diet drives fear.

It’s a vicious cycle that can only be broken by feeding the body and conquering the fear.

When health risk becomes critical (as medically determined), inpatient care becomes essential.

Anorexia, basically self-starvation, carries with it serious health consequences and risks. Recovering from an emaciated weight (or from extreme malnutrition)* requires medical oversight. There are risks involved with refeeding.  For the severely malnourished this is likely to occur within an inpatient setting.

*It’s important to understand that ALL eating disorders carry risk and that risk cannot be determined by simply looking at a person and observing their weight. A large person may be starving and at risk. For this reason, ANY person who has, or thinks they may be developing an eating disorder, should seek medical help and get a professional assessment and diagnosis.

Eating Disorder First Aid Guidelines is a wonderful Australian publication providing clear and essential information on eating disorders for sufferers and carers. I highly recommend this publication to everyBODY. It could save a life, and that life could be your own.

Gaining weight from a low weight may be possible in an outpatient setting if a person is not critically unwell. If a person can make progress with the support of a doctor, dietician and therapist in an outpatient setting, fantastic. If not it simply means more intensive support is required.

Some helpful thoughts about gaining weight from a low weight

Accurate information is better than uninformed fear

Get information from your team as to what to expect as your body is rehydrated and renourished from a malnourished state.  Much will depend on the severity of your ED.  Fluid retention, bloating, wind, cramps etc can all be expected as the body readjusts. WHAT YOU NEED TO KEEP IN MIND is that ALL these changes are temporary and will settle as you continue along the path to recovery.

The sooner you seek help the better. 

EARLY INTERVENTION is the best anti-dote to extreme malnutrition and the psychological disturbance (FEAR) that goes with it in an eating disorder.

Remind yourself why you began recovery in the first place.

Keep choosing recovery (one day at a time).

Recovery really begins with a decision from you. Even if you feel like you are in hospital against your choice, the truth is to sustain recovery YOU will need to choose to turn your back on fear and hunger and turn your face towards life and nurture. You will need to do this every day.

You will need skills to do this.

You deserve to live, to feel the wind at your back, the sun on your face, to smile at the future, to love and embrace. You.

I can help you with this. It would be my pleasure to do so.

Feedback and questions welcome.

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes

When the ED voice (the bully in your head) is making it hard or impossible for you to take in the nurture you need to survive and thrive you need help.  You need other people to come alongside you and help you fight the lies and the fear that paralyses you SO THAT you can take in the food you need to survive and thrive. If you can’t do this on your own, you need help. A doctor, counselor and dietician at a minimum and if you’re still unable to make headway with this level of outpatient support, you will need more intensive inpatient support. There is no shame in this. This is how an ED operates. As you starve the body your ability to think clearly and rationally about your situation will be compromised. Your thinking will become more inflexible and polarised. As shades of grey are lost and rational thinking erodes, the fear and terror engendered by the ED voice grows. But that voice is a liar. It operates on falsehood. In this podcast, I simply want to be a voice in your ear that counters that lying voice and fear.  To give you a statement that you can fight back with. You will need more help than this. But I believe this will help…

Feedback and questions welcome.

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes

When you’re fighting anorexia, you become afraid to eat. The terror of losing control and getting fat is REAL and is created by the eating disorder itself.  I want to tell you, food is not your enemy; the fear of food and what it can do to you is your enemy.  The ED voice lies to you. It exaggerates and amplifies things from a black and white perspective that gets stronger the longer you buy into the ED (restrict food) ‘solution’.  You do not need to fear getting fat and losing control. AS you learn to look after your body your body will look after you. This is the truth. If you are struggling to eat enough good and nutritious food to survive and thrive you need HELP. One thing you can do right now is remember, you deserve to eat. Speak back to the ED voice and tell it, “You’re a liar. I deserve to eat. As I learn to look after my body, my body will look after me.” This really IS the truth. Feedback and questions welcome.

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes

AMBIVALENCE refers to the tug of war that exists inside us when we feel pulled in two directions. Perhaps we know that something is not quite right (or perhaps people around us are reflecting this to us by expressing their concern). Until we are aware that we have a problem and ready to do something about it, most of us will defend against people trying to ‘help’ us before we’re ready.  So what can YOU do (if you’re struggling right now), and what can the people around you do…that might be HELPFUL at these times.  Here’s some thoughts…

Questions and feedback welcome

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes

Are you believing a lie about your worth and value? As you journey out of your eating disorder (or any life consuming/life controlling problem) you will “hit” some of the deeper (painful) self experience that sits below the surface of your (disordered eating) behaviours. This is a difficult but necessary part of recovery. At such times, it will be incredibly helpful if you can “be” where you’re at in the presence of someone who genuinely cares for you. This may be a therapist or counsellor. It may be a parent or friend. One of the safest and most profoundly healing relationships I discovered in my recovery journey was with the God I did not know as a young person. A God who I discovered loved me unconditionally and wove me together in my mother’s womb with immeasurable worth and value. It’s one thing to speak about this; quite another to experience it which is why in this podcast, I invite you to step into the experience of this Love. No strings attached.  You can take it or leave it.  I know that lives hang in the balance this very moment because individuals do not their worth and value or may believe there is no hope for them. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This audio is stripped from the video teaching I do on this subject in the 4×4 Freedom Express. You can access the video here.

As always, I welcome your questions and feedback.

[email protected]

@mp_sparkes