Posts Tagged ‘causes’

Existential Depression? Another Piece of the Puzzle

Monday, June 14th, 2010

I have been trying, for years, to make sense of my illness. To gain some sort of understanding of why and where it all began. It has been like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle when you’re not quite sure what the end image is, nor when the next piece will come.

Most of them have emerged during my recovery. It was hard, before then, to see beyond the food. Now, I follow the clashes, and the discussion and the flashes of insight; and the puzzle is coming steadily along.

I no longer expect it to be completed.
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Posted in Difficult Feelings | 4 Comments »

The Science

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

For someone who is quick to argue that eating disorders are complex conditions and responds, scathingly, to over-simplification and assumptions; I have left a great, gaping hole in my consideration.

It is otherwise known as science.

Whether it started as a defence mechanism (Doctors, what do they know?); or was jumbled up with the health – social – emotional – personal – cultural contexts that eating disorders fall into; or, is just down to the fact that my science education stopped 14 years ago… I seem to have neglected a key area of sense making, and forgotten to factor an understanding of genetics or biology in.

They have proved unexpectedly relevant.
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Posted in Causes | 2 Comments »

“Good” Food

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

In 1993, I gave up fat for Lent.

In an attempt to be “good” (which I was a little hung up on), and to prove my self discipline (which seemed to be lapsing), and to convince myself, once and for all, that I could stick to my guns; I decided that a period of abstinence was a great way of putting myself on the straight and narrow -
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Shoulds, Buts, and the Need To Get it “Right”

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

For some time now, I have become a little anxious about the frequency with which the word “but” is creeping into my vocabulary.

“Should” has always been bit of a problem for me, but I’d kind of prided myself on my ability to problem solve and think creatively and take the initiative …

The realisation that I automatically see objections – rather than possibilities – is a little sore.
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The million dollar question

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Let’s start with the question that everyone asks: “what was the cause?”. It’s worth a million dollars and I don’t have an answer.

There’s lots of possible scenarios; lots of incredibly plausible reasons; lots of speculation: I’ve heard it all.

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Getting ill

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Time anaesthetises.

I’d forgotten how bad it felt.

I’d forgotten how many twists and turns an eating disorder can take.

8 years ago, I started looking at the whole process. My aide-memoire: captures the stuff that time heals; gives the whole process a bit of shape – from the first, fatal slip, to full blown subjugation; sheds a little light on how it happens.

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Posted in Anorexia, Getting Ill | No Comments »

No such thing as a stereo type?

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

As a stroppy teenager, I was above psychiatric boxing. I was, most definitely, not a stereo type.

As a grown up, I appreciate that definitions (not ‘labels’) make things a lot easier. That a checklist diagnostic is a SMART way of doing psychiatry. That even doctors need some guidelines.

Somewhere between these two points, I realised that I might not be as unique as I liked to think that I was. That I possibly shared some interesting similarities with the people that I met in eating disorder units. That there were, perhaps, some common traits that might – just might – have made me more susceptible to an eating disorder.

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Growing Up

Friday, May 1st, 2009

If the seasonal showings of Big are anything to go by, there is something fascinating about the idea of a child trapped in an adult’s body. The ‘what happens when a child’s mind finds itself in an adult’s form’ question has clearly occurred to other people. It evidently offers some enduring comic currency.

Unless, of course, you’re the one stuck in the wrong body.

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