Taking in high quality nourishment in a timely fashion and in amounts appropriate to body needs is basic to restoring and maintaining health of an anorexic person. If the person is you then you know you cannot or will not eat.
This lack of nourishment affects not only your weakening body but also the ability of your brain cells to function normally. Your perceptions are distorted. Your thinking, impaired by lack of nourishment, is based on distortions. Your conclusions are not reality based, but you believe your conclusions are obvious and make sense.
So out of the thin boney mouth of an emaciated person in the hospital on feeding tubes we hear the words, "Yes, I know I'm dying. Yes, I know I have to eat. But those doctors want to make me fat. If I eat I'll get fat. Please help me."
I've had patients who run for hours on treadmills in desperation, truly running as if wolves were at their heels. They will run on broken bones, twisted ankles, and dislocated knees. Anyone who suggests that they pause for a few weeks to give their bodies a chance to heal are met with, "Oh no. I'll get fat if I don't run." or, "You just want me to get fat."
Providing nourishment is essential to people suffering from anorexia to help establish healthy brain cells so they can think more clearly and cooperate with their own recovery process. But they resist eating.
Giving people information about the physical consequences of their behavior can help inhibit risky or dangerous behavior IF they are clear headed enough to understand the validity of the information. If their brains are starved they will discount the information or not hear it at all or be certain it doesn't relate to them (It can't happen here or to me syndrome). Or they will believe that the information is not true and that the message is part of a ploy being used by someone who wants them to get fat.
How to intervene effectively in this tenacious pattern is the challenge of parents, siblings, spouses, children and all of us in the mental health professions who sincerely want to help the anorexic person be well.
It seems so simple. Stop starving and running. Eat and be kind and appropriate to your body.
I think most of us touched by this disorder in some way know that the simple path to health - appropriate food and appropriate exercise - is far beyond the grasp of an anorexic person. In fact, if she does move in this healthy direction it is evidence that she has done considerable healing and is well on her path to recovery.
Getting on that path is the challenge. Creating as many open gates, doorways, tunnels, flight decks, crawl holes that might give an anorexic person a glimpse of her way to her recovery path is what we in the field of eating disorder recovery do as much and as well as we possibly can.
The anorexic woman needs to feel she’s in a "wolf free" environment so she doesn't feel she must run as if the pack were on her heels. She needs to feel safe and loved in a trustworthy environment so she can take one bite more of nourishment, swallow it and allow herself to digest and use the nutrients. Yes, she needs to take in and digest food. She also needs to take in and digest love.
She may have people in her life who care about her and love her. They may want the best for her, and try to help her. But she can't take in their love and caring. She doesn't want them to see her or comment on her appearance.Â
She doesn't understand that when caring people comment on her thinness they are not necessarily talking about her aesthetic appearance alone. They are worried about what is happening to her organs, her blood, her bones and her life force.Â
The anorexic person doesn't want to know about her body beneath her skin. She wants the thin and boney look. She doesn't seem to appreciate that the workings of the body beneath the skin keeps us alive, healthy and functional. Nor does she appreciate that the caring and loving people in our lives also strive to keep us alive, healthy and functional.
The anorexic woman needs to feel safe and loved in a trustworthy environment so she can take one bite more of nourishment, swallow it and allow herself to digest and use the nutrients. Yes, she needs to take in and digest food. She also needs to take in and digest love. Both are extremely difficult for her.
How we accomplish creating a "wolf free" environment for her where she can feel safe, loved and willing to learn to care for herself is the great challenge that must be met for anorexia recovery to take hold.
If you are or ever have been anorexic, please write in and let us know what you believe might help us help you. What worked or is working for you?
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Last Updated on Monday, 21 December 2009 21:11 |
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