Outgrowing eating disorders...

My logic tells me so. I believe that we come to this life to live and live happily. Life with an ED is not the life we are supposed to live, but it is neither some sort of curse or burden we have to carry with for the rest of our lives.

If you suffer from an ED we are on the same boat. The purpose of this site is to share and learn recovery tips. The first one I could share, is to take overcoming your ED as a life test from which you have to learn. Everybody has obstacles to overcome in this life in order to grow. This is ours and we have similar lessons to learn.

It is said that eating disorders never leave you. And that is right. You are the one who has to leave them behind, as a result of growing up as a human being.

Some eating disorders include: Bulimia, anorexia and binge eating, and even they manifest differently in the outside, they are experimented quite similarly in the inside. They are three different symptoms of the same sickness. The sickness of having a poor self-image and not precisely a physical self-image.

Recovery...

...is about changing the way we think...

I believe that our life and feelings are determined by our thoughts. Therefore, I think that EDs are generated and persist by having a bunch of thoughts (mindset) that make us believe that there is something wrong with us or with our lives, and whatever it is, it will be better once we loose weight or eat a dozen doughnuts.

Most of the times this mindset makes us believe we are not good enough to love ourselves and to be loved or that we are not good enough to have a good life.

We start thinking..."Maybe if I lost some pounds everything would be better.." and then we get obsessed with perfection, weight, food, calories, etc, etc in the pursue of love or whatever we are pursuing.

... is about changing the way you feel about yourself, the world and food...

I write this site from the point of view that self-love, self-confidence and self-approval (or any variation of these) are the broken strings in a person with an eating disorder and this is where the focus in the recovery should be. On changing how you perceive yourself and ultimately, to LOVE yourself.

Once you change your opinion about yourself, you'll be able to treat yourself with love and respect.

... is about taking action regarding this new feelings and thoughts...

Your actions are a result of your thoughts and feelings to a great extent. Once you do your "homework" on consciously changing your thoughts and feelings, it is time to take action and transform your old self-destructive habits into new healthy ones.

Where do I start? What exactly do I have to change then?

Outgrowing an ED is a big goal. To get there, first you have to win many little battles to yourself. But it is possible!

After reading books, attending therapy group, reading websites, etc. I noticed that some of these "little battles" are common to many people with EDs, so I had this idea that if we share how we solved these battles, we can recover faster!

Some of these "battles" include:

• The relationship with oneself.
• Negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, depression and guilt.
• Perfectionism.
• Control "freakness"
• Social anxiety/fear to intimacy
• The feeling of never being good enough.
• Appearing happy and normal in the outside while feeling sad and lonely inside.
• The connection between the family life and the eating disorder.
• Parents role in the sickness.
• The battle between wanting to recover and holding to the sickness.
• Either or thinking/All or nothing, black and white thinking
• The seek for others approval.
• The relationship between eating disorders and society.
• Eating disorders related to growing up and broken homes
• The factors that lead to developing an eating disorder.
• The inner changes needed to leave an eating disorder behind.
• The way of thinking about food.
• Ways to relate to food like a "normal".
• The source of the self-destructive tendencies such as self-mutilation and suicide.
• The source of the urge to eat.

I think that by winning these and other battles we can go from a state of self-hate/unreliability to a state of self-love/self-reliance.

I used to cling from the toilet 4 or 6 times a day, I have felt the wish to die at the perspective of living the rest of my life being depressed, counting calories, hiding, vomiting, restricting and destroying myself.

I wanted to be thin to be liked by others so I could like myself. Being thin ("perfect") became the condition I set up to myself for being loved.

On the other side, ever since I was 16 I have been reading about philosophy, psychology, religion, self-development, PNL, etc, looking for an answer.

I share here with you what I learned from those books that has helped me to get better and I share it with the hope of being there for those who have felt the same way, and of getting better myself.

No complaints. No self-compassion. Let's outgrow or ED!

E-Zine

Outgrowing EDs is a lot about constantly thinking of recovery, of creating new habits and remembering new things you want to learn...So in case you forget, you can subscribe to the site's E-zine

Four times a year, you will receive it in to your mail. Just for you to know whats new in the site and to remind you that recovery IS POSSIBLE and that I am here. :)