Dear Edoardo:

I didn’t understand this part: “As for the fullness- once it’s decided that it is meal time.. my jaws go into snake mode, even if I’m not hungry”- what do you mean by “snake mode”?

Regarding having been forced fed when you were very young- I did not mean that your parents intended to harm you when they forced fed you. But think of that: the baby, when forced fed, is not thinking: this is unpleasant but my parents are doing their best, not wanting me to die of starvation. The baby is not thinking but feeling great distress that is caused by the parent force feeding him.

Regarding power and anorexia or anorexic tendencies, it is the desire to successfully create results in your life, and when you succeed in achieving the result that you want, you feel that intoxicating feeling. What I suggested  to you  is to think of other results that you are interested in, other than no- cravings, or no-fat on your body, something else. And then go about successfully achieve that other result.

anita

Dear Edoardo:

Not to eat like a snake then, to not be snake mode, mindful is key. There are articles and books on Mindful Eating, for example “Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food”, paper back, you can order it online. I didn’t read it myself but I bet there are very helpful parts in it.

anita

Hi Edoardo,

If you truly want to overcome your eating disorder then you have to be committed to it 100%.

Currently, all that you have absorbed through your life is sitting there like a dark cloud waiting to burst.  This is showing up in the fear that all the negative messages might be right.  These fears creep up on you and stick around waiting for the day when they are told to leave because they are no longer needed. You could try taking a Bach Flower Remedy which helps deal with “fear of known things”.  I think its Mimulus but you’ll need to check that out.  All I can say is that it’s worked for me in the past.

How we eat is almost as important as what we eat.  Chewing food sufficiently gives our digestive system less work to do and also gives the body more time to send out signals that we are full.

You might also like to investigate Kinesiology.  Now why would I think that you might study that one day?

I hope you can find your way through this.

Peggy

Dear Edoardo:

Regarding the first part of your recent post:  Mindful and Moderation (M&M, I suppose…)  is key. Reads like small portions is what works for you, so small portions it is- that is Moderation. Fasting is not moderation and it takes you to the extremes of fasting and binging.

You asked me: “do you think that this all could be sparked by needs for attention? I’m thinking about this too, what is your experience with that side of eating disorders?”-

– I don’t know what attention, specifically, you are referring to, or whose attention, so I will give you a list of the reasons or motivations of my disordered eating lifetime, and I hope that the answer of what you asked me is somewhere in the following list:

1. As a baby/ toddler, I refused to eat because my mother, when pregnant, ate very little or binged and purged (she purged into my teen years), her pregnancy hardly showed. So my body was used to little food. I was born bridge and underweight and remained underweight (and under-developed) through high school. My mother significantly and even severely over fed me throughout my life (except when pregnant with me), so I figure, as a baby, she pushed a lot of food into me, more than a well fed pre-birth baby before would be able to take in willingly.

2. Lifetime, I felt the pressure to eat more, to eat food before it spoils or as prevention of it being spoiled, just as my mother pressured me to do, and so a lifetime of overeating was established. To this very day I feel distress at the thought of any amount of food being spoiled in the frig.

From early on, the emptiness in the stomach/the feeling of hunger became uncomfortable and the tendency was to overeat and feel very full, so to avoid the empty feeling.

3. As a child I experienced a whole lot of misery living with my mother, so eating was a source of pleasure or distraction, and to this very day I am motivated to eat because it feels better, or distracts me from sadness, I suppose.

Also, the only persistent form of love I received from my mother, was her offering me food. She also offered neighbors and strangers food and that made me very angry, especially because she worked hard physically to earn money (she was divorced and received no financial help from my father or from any any other source and complained a whole lot about how hard she worked and how people used her), so what I did, when sitting with neighbors and strangers who were eating her food, was I competed, I tried to eat more than they did. Somewhere in there was possessiveness of my mother’s love, I didn’t want others to get her love, I mean, food was the only love I received from her and could count on it.

4. I was thin, very thin and then just thin my whole life until after 35. At 40 I realized that I was.. for the first time in my life, overweight. It was then that I started getting interested in losing weight for the first time. It was after 40 that I started counting calories-in and calories- out for the first time. As well as fasting (ten days straight was my record), binge eating and over-exercising.

5. As I lost weight, I noticed that if I look at my body, not in the mirror, so I don’t see  my face, if I look at my arms, legs, etc., I look like a girl, a young person, a thin girl and that was very attractive to me, I bought young clothes, jeans with holes and such and just felt.. young.

I felt a sense of pride for being thin, for having no visible fat on my body, it felt…  good. On the other hand, any appearance of fat or bloating, let’s say, made me feel great distress.

– this is all I can think of. Regarding attention as in- I am sick and need mother’s attention or a doctor’s attention or the like, because I have this or that eating disorder- no, that was not a motivation.

Let me know if what you asked has been answered somewhere in this post.

anita

Dear Edoardo:

You are an exceptional 19 year old, very intelligent and complex, therefore, not simple or easy for me to understand. For me to adequately understand you, it will take more back and forth communication with you over time. If you are interested in that, have patience and eventually I will understand enough.

For that purpose, of adequately understanding you, I will ask three questions in this post, take your time answering the following, if you do choose to answer:

1. “people tend to really annoy me, mostly because of various immature behaviors”- what are those behaviors and what are the thoughts you have about people you are annoyed with?

2. “I’m also a very extrovert person, with good leadership skills”- where did you learn those leadership skills, what are they and in what context or contexts to you practice them?

3. Do you feel superior to your peers/ other people/ everyone? If so, tell me about it.

anita