Eating Disorders – the good, the bad and the ugly

Thank God it’s Friday. Here’s a treat for you – Ilona’s Guide to the ins and outs and highs and lows of Anorexia and Bulimia:

The Good

• You’re invincible (until you collapse in a heap or wind up on bedrest with a tube up your nose)
• You’re in control (of everything except your thoughts, relationships, health, oh hell, pretty much your whole life)
• You know best (the consultant psychiatrists who’ve specialised in EDs for years can’t possibly know what’s right for YOU – they’re not you after all)
• You proved that you can lose weight (which is far more important, of course, than proving you are good enough just as you are. Sure)
• You’ve done what you wanted to do (only remember that “losing weight will make me happier” thing – yeah, that didn’t happen)

The Bad

• You could weigh 5 stone or 12 stone. You’ll feel like a beached whale either way
• You spend half your life in supermarkets either staring at food or buying it all just to inhale and puke – the shop assistants will know you’re demented
• You will lie and lose the trust of your family and friends and it will take donkeys years to earn it back
• You will be congratulated for all your efforts with either a life of misery, a chunk of time in a hospital surrounded by zombies, bitches and other unfortunate men and women like you, wishing they had never let things get this far, or your own funeral and devastated friends and family

The Ugly

• Skin flakier than an eccles cake
• Hair like a Mr Potato head in his early days
• An attention span inferior to that of a goldfish
• It feels like you live in an igloo. With air conditioning
• Knuckle scars suggesting you enjoy punching walls
• Fur – and I aint talking vintage mink
• Oh, and then there’s the very real (but strangely easy to ignore) risk of Osteoporosis, edema, amenorrhoea, electrolyte imbalance, cavaties, tooth loss, osteopenia, hypothermia, isolation, depression, and DEATH.

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• http://www.facebook.com/GerryTierney Gerald Joseph Tierney

  What the fudge are you talking about? This is sheer quackery, never mind the fact that men and boys are affected by it, too.

• airmarshall

  Affectation!

  Affect is to act on; produce an effect or change in body or mind.

  This disease is certainly not an affectation, an affect is to give the appearance of; pretend or feign and whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.

  I’m fully aware that this disease effects both male and female, my point to Catherine was to question, how does she know it is not a pattern of inheritance from parent to offspring, where the gene distribution, produces variations and changes that reside in only the female sex?

• MelanieStJohn

  People who have eating disorders clearly aren’t thinking this are they! Thats why they are psychological problems, I wonder how many people would cope with obsessive thoughts about food, weight, trying to look attractive as everyone else around you is and you are the only ugly person you can see?
  It IS a psychological problem, seems most people don’t understand things can’t be helped, same with OCD, you can’t stop the obsessive thoughts, its very similar. You definitley won’t be thinking about all the bad and ugly stuff because everything you focus on – whether you can help it or not – will be tryin to get thinner or prettier or whatever the goal is.
  xxx

• MelanieStJohn

  It seems most people don’t understand. It can’t be helped…*

• http://twitter.com/sanabituranima Sanabitur Anima Mea

  You don’t need to be an authority to know that there are multiple documented cases of anorexia and bulimia in males.