Dear Charlotte:

About my disordered eating: I am 54 and still dealing with it every single… hour, so far. I don’t think ..no, I know not a single hour goes by that I don’t think about food and eating. But I am healing. Healing as a process. Regarding the behaviors I have done: overeating, severe overeating from a very young age. Then binge eating since 2011, that is eating until i bend over in pain and for hours I can’t or couldn’t stand straight, sometimes vomiting. I ate thousands of extra calories in a couple of hours, food after food, going from one fast food or store to another getting this and that and this and that on and on, driven, on autopilot, excited, heart racing… and the misery following. For years I restricted and over exercised. At 5’5” I got as low as 103. For years I kept an average of 108. Every time the scale showed higher- higher than any number, i felt distress. I recorded my weight on a graph for months and months, and a record of what I ate, ounces and calories, months at a time. I went over the calories in the afternoons, tormented by the day’s overeating. I pick up food from anywhere in fear it will go to waste. I have been avoiding picking it from the floor. Have been picking food from trash, wiping every pan, every plate. The misery is unspeakable. There is more, what I wrote here is only some. Oh, and I am so anxious I no longer go to restaurants and attending social party, pot luck occasions is a big problem.

Anyway, I am healing. I have so much to share because I have been dealing with it for so very long. It is very much a personal journey. I wonder if you think some of the behaviors i listed, like eating from the garbage, if you think it is disgusting and you say to yourself: Oh, I do not do THAT so she (the writer here) is crazy.”

In any case, this is a loaded topic. I have a lot to say. I don’t even know where to start and what could possibly be helpful to you. If you think I can be helpful to you, please ask me any questions you would like.

One thing: All or Nothing thinking plays a lot in this and lack of self empathy does as well. That Toxic Inner Critic in YOU is strong as it has been in me and your lack of self empathy is evident as well- and I believe is the key. Only it is a process and not anything that can be taught or passed on by my written word here- it has to be experienced. And it is a long process, I started it in 2011 so I have a bit more of 4 years of therapy.

Ask, if you would like, and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.
anita