Eating disorders awareness week 2022 (28th February to 5th of March)

 This week is eating disorders awareness week. 1 in 50 people in the UK suffer from eating disorders yet many people don't know the signs or symptoms of eating disorders and GPS only get 2 hours of training on eating disorders in med school in their whole training. 

When people think of eating disorders they think of a skeletal anorexic and think people with anorexia just don't eat and think people with bulimia just make themselves sick. People who are overweight or obese are often classed as lazy and just need to eat less and exercise more but binge eating disorder is also an eating disorder where a person over eats to deal with emotions and also being overweight can be caused by medical conditions or medications especially ones to treat mental health problems. Eating Disorders are mental health disorders not weight disorders therefore no one should ever be judged for their weight. There is anorexia where a person is scared of being overweight so maintains a low weight by starving and over exercising but also people with anorexia can make themselves sick or take laxatives to deal with the guilt of eating. People with bulimia binge eat then use compensatory behaviour to counteract the binge such as vomiting, laxatives, over exercise or fasting. There is a close connection to anorexia and bulimia as 50 percent of anorexics become bulimic because starvation leads to bingeing as the body and brain fight to survive by eating. There is another category of eating disorder called eating disorder not otherwise specified ( ednos) where sufferers have traits of anorexia or bulimia. So someone who was a high weight and then lost alot of weight with eating disorder behaviour but wasn't a low weight would be classed as having atypical anorexia, a type of ednos. So no 2 people with Eating Disorders are the same. I went on an overeaters anonymous meeting last year as they said they helped people with bulimia and anorexia not just overeating but the people there said they got comfort from eating so being sick meant they could comfort eat but then control their weight but they also ate normal meals. My bulimia/ ednos was always I was aiming for a low weight and felt guilty Eating so for many years I would avoid eating and plan to eat if I knew I could be sick after so I rarely ate at work or other places. Until about 2019 when I really got into being part of a choir, I was being sick alot. I had my gallbladder out in 2018 and the stitches took ages to heal due to me being sick. In 2007 I had to have a pacemaker for my heart as my bulimia had made a hereditary heart condition worse and I was told I was at risk of dying but even that didn't stop me. I can describe my eating disorder as a "voice" that constantly makes me feel guilty about food so I still often miss meals and end up eating late into an evening when I have to give in and eat as I often feel physically ill and i do sometimes make myself sick but I have good and bad weeks with it. I do set myself goals to try fight the eating disorder voice so if I'm driving or teaching horse riding or singing at choir I have to have food to be safe especially driving or teaching but I often end up sat crying in my car making myself eat it and get anxious eating with other people. I'm now overweight so I feel people will judge me when I say I have an eating disorder but it was mental health medication and water retention from heart failure made me gain alot of weight and I've not been able to lose a significant amount of weight since which makes me hate myself more. 

Early intervention is important for the treatment of eating disorders as recovery rates are better with early intervention and also eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness due to the health effects of the eating disorder or by suicide. People don't have to be a low weight to be at risk of dying either, sufferers have died at normal weights due to electrolyte imbalances causing heart arrhythmias which cause sudden death. Vomiting and laxatives cause low potassium which cause these heart problems and that is why I had to have my pacemaker and Defibrillator as bulimia made a hereditary heart condition worse and I was told I was at high risk of dying. 

At the beginning of this post I mentioned the theme of this eating disorders awareness week was that Dr's  need more training on eating disorders but often GPS have nowhere to refer patients to as eating disorder services often won't take a referral so its not the gp that isn't treating its specialist services. Often they will send people away if they are too high functioning ( i was sent away from mental health services as I was working) too complex with other mental health problems like personality disorders or self harm even though the self harm is often because of the eating disorder and also there is an overlap between eating disorder and personality disorder diagnosis.  Also often eating disorder services won't see patients if they aren't a low enough weight. Services have improved over the years and there are more specialist services. A teacher at school originally was worried about my eating, I was about 12 the first time I made myself sick and I was referred to camhs but they only saw me about 6 times, didn't even talk about eating and discharged me. For years I then didn't want help with it as was in denial it was a problem despite barely eating, making myself sick, being permanently cold, having blue fingers and constantly falling asleep. I would hide food and get upset if anyone confronted me about it. I don't know how I managed to work and study at college and uni especially as I was doing a practical course with horses. After uni I got a job away in Lancashire with rescue horses I told myself  I had to eat to be able to look after the horses but then I put on weight and the boss told me I was too heavy to ride a horse he told me to get on, I felt so guilty I told myself I couldn't eat and I tried to go back to not eating but I would go all day without eating then spend my nights bingeing and purging (being sick), I got into debt and was too ill to do the job so I moved back home with my parents.  I hid my bulimia for ages and would be sick into carrier bags in the garden or in the woods I hated it so I went to my gp and asked for help. But over the years then I saw various mental health professionals who had no training in eating disorders and just told me things like I was like a car and needed petrol. It was 2002 I went to my gp. In about 2004 I was self harming regularly but got no more mental health support just antidepressants off the gp which made me worse and was the first times I impulsively took any overdoses. In 2007 I had a pacemaker for my heart due to my bulimia making a hereditary heart condition worse but I still got no more mental health or eating disorder help. I found an eating disorder support group in Hull and they were really helpful and supportive and eventually in 2009 Marg who ran the support group Seed helped my dad complain about my lack of eating disorders help and I was referred to an eating disorder clinic in Leeds. I saw an outpatient nurse but I was classed as too severe so went inpatient for 2 months on a symptom interruption program but I got bed and food and no therapy and was told to get therapy when I went home but I went home to a care co ordinator who was off sick so I tried to focus on training to be a nurse and did an access to nursing course but I relapsed badly with my bulimia and self harm and eventually in 2012 I got some cbt therapy for my eating disorder. The therapist was lovely but I only got 20 sessions to deal with what then was a 10 year plus problem and then the therapist left. I lost any hope then and got caught in a cycle of self harm and suicide attempts until in 2015 I was sectioned and sent to a locked hospital for personality disorders where they said they didn't deal with eating disorders but my guilt around food was the biggest trigger for my self harm but I managed to stop my self harm and suicide attempts and got discharged to a mental health rehab who also couldn't help my eating disorder but they helped me practically to live independently in my own flat and now I have been in therapy for the last 2 years for personality disorders which has helped me manage other mental health problems I have and now a new service is being set up for people who have eating and personality disorders so I'm hoping it will help me finally get on top of it. For me I know my focus of recovery can't be weight loss but my eating disorder part to my brain wants me to lose weight.  I am overweight but also know diets trigger my eating disorder thinking and behaviour to get worse. Eating disorder services teach to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks, don't count calories and your body has a set point weight it will maintain if you do that. I know I can't do it on my own though, and it is so hard when everybody else in society seems to socialise with food but also judge people including themselves for eating " bad foods". You can't even go in a shop without seeing a magazine aisle full of diets and weight loss stories and celebrities criticised for putting on weight.

I know I have been very open in this blog post but the only way people will understand eating disorders is to hear from people who have suffered or been close to people who have. Eating Disorders aren't glamorous and I'm not proud I have one but I hope by sharing my story it might help someone. 

My weight has fluctuated over the years but I've had eating disorders at different weights. On alot of the pictures I looked happy but even at happy times I was struggling with my eating disorder.