Yes, I agree it's not just about the mind and I fully support your experience and what helped/helps you to overcome your disorder. This is just my personal experience and take on it and I'm in no way trying to prove my case or disprove yours, okay? :) But no thyroid or progesterone in the world was going to help me get over the powerlessness I felt well into adulthood due to what was stolen from me as a child.Lindsay said:I think that the psychological importance of understanding an ED IS very important (it's part of the process of realizing the route cause), but it's not how to control it, IMO. I can completely throw myself back into a bad place by not taking my thyroid or progesterone (these have really really helped me, I cannot tell you how much), isolating myself and commiserating alone about emotional moments in my life. That would put me in a bad place for sure. Doing that with a good girlfriend - well that would be different, because I can talk through it with her (and in fact I've done this before with my best friend and actually learned that she had also suffered from Anorexia/bulimia). I tend to shy away from the psychology of things because I grew up in a household constantly focused on psychology of everything - it was always, well this person is that way because of this that and the other thing. This is true, but biology and circumstances effects psychology more than people tend to realize. But I say that now completely understanding that I'm in a different place now than I was as a teenager - it could have been that nothing would have helped me at that point, I don't know.
I went to a psychologist who specialized in Eating disorders when I was 15 or 16 - my parents made me. I think it can be helpful, but you really have to be in a strong place and want to get better. People kept telling me I had to eat and get over the disorder, without ever explaining why (when the body is in survival mode, it's important to explain that it's not necessary to be in that mode - fight or flight is a very real part of it). And my fear about psychologists is that most of them will look at you and say you need to be on an antidepressant (mine prescribed me paxil and I quit taking it because it made me manic). I get the feeling that treatment centers are just going to be loaded with drugs to take and force-feeding.
Personally, I think the hump to get over is the stress - get the body out of stress and the mind can better process the psychological issues. In fact, for me, that's pretty much when I put the ED in the past. I knew all along its root cause, but it never helped me get past it. Because being able to think rationally about it is very important. For years it had been a spiritual and emotional struggle and the fact that I felt I needed to understand it and get over it stressed me out - it wasn't until I felt I needed to take care of my body that I was able to see other things fall into place. Also, the hormonal imbalance caused by an Eating disorder is really really important to consider - I would regularly get into fights with my spouse and good friends over stupid little things because of anxiety (again, stress). Taking progesterone was actually the first big step for me, because I was so deficient - I could actually feel the hormonal change in my body. Little things that used to cause me to go crazy mad just no longer mattered to me.
All the emotional baggage I've dumped has been because of me, not supplements I've taken. I give myself full credit for digging painfully deep and having the courage to do so. With that, I gained my power back. I never would of felt a sense of power if I had put all my eggs in the pill and metabolic disorder basket. I wasn't sick and had a perfectly normal metabolism before the sexual abuse. I had a voice, was happy and not at all the perfectionist trying to "make up for her past sin." I know for me, the sexual abuse set me up for a "need to control" eating disorder that created a messed up hormonal system.
Now, that's not to say that I think a phycologist will help or not. To be honest, I feel some, if not many of them though well intentioned, are "trained" in helping us get better, but don't actually have personal experience to be able to relate to how we feel. They can tell us how we should feel, the steps to take in order to feel better, but I honestly have made the most progress by talking with other women who have shared the same experience as I have. Women who have been molested by a female like I was. They understand how that adds a whole other layer of confusion and pain to an already cruel experience.
The biggest thing I realized is that I should not feel bad for feeling bad. I shouldn't judge myself for being frustrated, angry, sad, lonely, confused ect. I shouldn't try to force myself to get happy. There is nothing wrong with me if I feel all these negative emotions. I don't think of it as an excess of estrogen, but as being human with human emotions, the highs and lows that illuminate each other. For me, when I've hit my lowest point emotionally, that's where I find myself and my greatest resolve. I get to the heart of the matter and I find my feelings have complete validity, not just a chemical component.
By the way, I love your new avatar picture. That's one killer hat! :)