You, Me, and ED

PARIS!

Check out this news from Paris!!!
Taken from a magazine called The Week.

Targeting anorexic images:
The lower house of the French parliament passed a bill a few weeks ago making it a crime to "incite extreme thinness" in magazines, ads, and websites. The bill, thought to be the first of its kind in the world, is intended to fight anorexia nervosa a disorder whose sufferers, mostly girls, starve themselves. "The waif-like, diaphanous, transparent bodies on the walls of our towns, in our magazines, and on our computer screens exert a power of harmful fascination on our society," said Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot. The law is specifically aimed at the Facebook and MySpace pages of girls in the "pro-anorexia" movement who post skeletal pictures and share weight-loss strategies. Violators would face fines up to $50,000 or even prison sentences. The Senate will consider the bill next month.

I love this idea! What do you think?
Lee

What you can learn from the Jayhawks!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk…KU…Rock Chalk JAYHAWK KU!

If you don’t know what this is, you haven’t been watching the Final Four Basketball Tournament!

Kansas University (my alma mater) took the Title back last Monday night after 20 years of "almosts".

What does this have to do with Eating Disorders?
A lot!
Here is what you can learn from KU Basketball and Eating Disorders

1. It takes teamwork.
Fighting an Eating Disorder cannot be done alone. It takes a team working together. Fighting an eating disorder is the same. You CANNOT do it alone. You need a team…therapist, psychiatrist, dietician etc.

2. Every little success deserves celebration!
They celebrated every point, every win, and every rebound.

3. Study your opponent!
Do you think the Jayhawks went into each game not knowing what their opponents were planning? No, they studied each team before they played them…then they made a battle plan of attack of how to handle each difficult situation. They were successful because they knew who they were fighting! (I.e.: learn Ed strategies, your triggers, when you feel weakest)

4. Listen to your coach!
Remember when you don’t feel like believing your therapist and or dietician say to yourself, “If I knew how to treat an eating disorder I wouldn’t have an eating disorder!” Listen to your coach!

5. Study the winners!
The Jayhawks coach learned some really cool strategies from other NCAA teams and adopted them as his own. When you had an eating disorder, my guess is you studied people with eating disorders, read articles on weight loss, and maybe even visited pro-Ana sites. So, now study and read up everything that you can on those who have recovered! Put the same energy you put into learning eating disorder tricks into studying those who have recovered! Learn the tricks about recovery…and study the winners!!

6. Every second counts!
Recovery is one step at a time. If you watched the final game…KU took over the game with 10 seconds left! Recovery is one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time. Sometimes you miss the goals and free throws, sometimes you have to go back into treatment for a tune-up, but that doesn’t mean you don’t get back on the court! You try and try again.

7. Practice practice practice.
No one wins a final four without a lot of practice. Recovering from an eating disorder is not over-night! It takes practice to change thought patterns, to learn new behaviors, to let your body recover, to break up with ED. But it can’t happen without practice!

8. Don’t listen to the negative voices!
Throughout the championship you could turn on any TV or read any article that would clearly speculate and judge players and the team. If a player missed a shot, the commentators were sure to judge it the next day. Lot’s of negative and sometimes positive things written about the players. But, the players couldn’t listen to those voices or the naysayers. They had to turn off the voices of the media and the world and listen to their coach and only their coach.

9. When you fall down, or miss a shot, you get back up again!
Need I say more!

10. Have FUN! You aren’t going to enjoy the destination if you don’t enjoy the journey?
Enjoy each celebration, each step along the way. Recovery is the same, you must celebrate each and every success, each and every time you learn or do something new, and each and every time you get back up again!

Happy Living!
LWB

More on helping ...

A girlfriend of mine gave me this quote recently.
I love it.
I hope you do too.
I think it relates well to those of you with family or friends struggling with an ED.

"When we honestly ask which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle tender hand. The friend that can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness...makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters."

Henri J.M. Nouwen

My sibling has an Eating Disorder...

Round and round I have been rolling the answers around in my head to this question I was asked to write about:

How do you help your sibling who has an eating disorder?

Your sister or your brother?

Well, I am not sure there is pat answer here, more of one that works for you and your family.

From my own experience, my sister was living thousands of miles away and up to her eyeballs in corporate world. It was so hard for to understand and she was trying to hold her own life together. Her way of coping was to just call and write saying how much she loved me.

My brother on the other hand was there in therapy with me, let me live with him, and tried everything from getting me to “just eat”, crying out of fear, and yelling at me.

Which one worked?

Both of my siblings helped me. They both supported me in the way they felt was right and what they both did was helpful.

So how would I recommend someone help a sibling?

The most important thing in my opinion is to not let ED become the main focus of the relationship. Continue to love them, continue to do fun things with them, ask them about things other than their eating disorder. If all you ever talk about is the eating disorder, than the rest of the relationship fails to grow. Don't ignore the eating disorder, but do what you can to help and then continue to grow the relationship with them.

I also recommend you read anything you can to educate yourself on ED! The more you read up on it, the more you will understand! If your brother or sister had cancer or diabetes you would read up on it ...right? And remember, it isn't your job to fix them. Let the treatment team do that. Your job is to support, encourage, and try to understand.

But the best way I believe a sibling can help is to ask the sufferer…what can I do that would best help you?
Ask them to tell YOU what would help! Then when you are following through with it ask them…is this helping you?

We tend to love others like we want to be loved. For years I would send cards and flowers to my husband. Until I realized, that is not what makes him feel loved. That is what makes me feel loved. He is auditory and just needs to hear the words, “I love you, I support you, I am here for you.” But me, I need cards and flowers and nice gifts.

So ask your sibling how they would feel most supported, my guess if you haven’t asked…you are supporting them like YOU would want to be supported…and you might be missing it! At the same time, they see it even when you do it wrong and appreciate it. They really do. But, to be most effective…have the conversation with them.
So,
1. Ask them, how can I help? Tell me how to help? Then do it.
2. Make sure you spend time talking to them about other things than just the ED too!
3. Read read read. Gurze sells oodles of helpful books and resources! READ UP!
4. Finally - continue to support and love them!

Hope this helps!

Happy Living!
LWB

Hopeless?

I am writing this in response to a comment from Erica regarding feeling hopeless.

Is there hope?

The question I am asked most often.
Is there hope after 16 inpatient treatments?
Is there hope after relapse?
Is there hope for a daughter who has been struggling for 20 years?

Peter Pan

Peter: Well I will not grow up! You cannot make me! I will banish you like Tinkerbell.
Wendy: I WILL NOT BE BANISHED!
Peter: Then go home. Go home and grow up. And take your feelings with you!

Peter Pan is one of my favorite musicals. And I am reminded of it often while working with patients with eating disorders.

Eggshells

Friend’s and Family of those struggling with Eating Disorders

Your feet hurt don’t they? You have been walking all over those eggshells haven’t you?

But why?
Because you are afraid you don’t know what to say to them?
Because anything you do say might set them off?

quotes

Two quotes I love ...especially how they relate to recovery!

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with the pain."

James Baldwin quoted in the Chicago Defender

"Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is!"

Christian N. Bernard, quoted in the New York Times

Triggers

Triggers.

I have a bone to pick with that word and anyone who knows me, knows how I feel about that word.

“That triggered me!” An Ed struggler will say.
“I can’t be around her because she is so triggering!”

Have you fed your banana lately?

After sharing my banana analogy with a few patients in the hospital we decided to start a campaign. We are going to make t-shirts and bumper stickers that say…

HAVE YOU FED YOUR BANANA TODAY?

What on earth you ask?
Ok...maybe we won't do that, but the analogy is important.

Have you fed your banana today?
How much time do you think about your banana peel and how much time do you think about your banana?