Eating disorder

[Guest guest]

Hi all. I joined this board a while ago at the suggestion of Katy

from the Warrior Diet group, though I have not been active on it. She

suggested I post my story about my unusual eating disorder here and

see if anyone has any advice. So here goes.

It started in 1994 when I got involved with a cult. A few weeks

later, due to certain circumstances requiring me to do some volunteer

work, I began spending all day at their local center, eating lunch and

dinner there. This meant the following: 1) I had suddenly switched to

eating a vegetarian (lacto, no ovo), high-carb, low-protein diet; 2) I

was eating all the time with a large group of people I wasn't very

comfortable with, which meant that I was eating under tension (which

got to be very distressing); 3) I was eating most of my food during

those two meals, with only a light breakfast, if any, and no

snacks—contrary to my usual inclination; and 4) I was absorbing a

lot of rules about how and what to eat and following them ompulsively.

After a few weeks, I began to have difficulty chewing and swallowing

my food normally. I began to get full on less and less food, so that

my hunger was not satisfied although I was full. Consequently, I ate

to the point of discomfort at every meal. I should add that the food

tasted very good to me; I liked it. However, a part of me also missed

the things I used to eat. Clearly (that is, clear to me now, but not

then), the food was not breaking down sufficiently in my mouth, which

made it hard to swallow.

After two months I stopped going to the center, though I still

practiced the teachings of the cult, and I resumed cooking for myself,

but the problems did not get any better. I began to get very

obsessive about what to eat and what not to eat. After a while I

tried to get very pure with my diet in an effort to increase my low

energy. The effect on me was immediate: I began to get full on less

and less food and to get cravings for cereal. Occasionally I tried

(gingerly) eating other foods, like meat, to see if that would help,

but it didn't. Finally even a single bite of the vegetarian stuff

made me full. That left me free to give in to my cravings, since I

literally couldn't eat anything else. I ate nothing but granola

and soy milk for a week or two. After that I relaxed my obsessions

with rules somewhat, but my symptoms did not return to the level I was

at prior to trying to get so dietetically pure. Eating was now a

permanent struggle. My eating problem was by now an obsession.

About six months later, while rooming with a friend who was very much

involved with the cult, I went through another period of eating only

cereal. After that I went to live in a town that was a center for the

cult in the United States. After a while, eating my meals in a

cafeteria, I began to develop a sensitivity about my eating

environment, getting easily irritated and uncomfortable around others

while eating which made it difficult to eat. My eating difficulties

got very bad again, and I also began to develop constipation problems.

Finally I gave in to my cravings and started eating nothing but

sweets: cakes, cookies, candy, donuts, and so on. I did that for two

weeks. Afterwards an herbal treatment and getting my own place where

I could eat in private enabled me to return to the vegetarian diet,

but I became locked into a pattern of eating a very narrow selection

of foods; essentially I had the same meal all the time.

When I lost my private eating space, my eating problems got very bad

again, and my sugar cravings returned. Now, however, I began to have

real digestive problems. I began to have trouble digesting fats. One

morning I ate a mound of greasy hash browns, and I felt like they

became stuck in my intestines or something; I couldn't eat for a

couple of days, and I couldn't pass them. Finally I took an herbal

laxative. But I never recovered from that, in the sense that from

then on I could only eat small amounts of food at a time. This

" digestive disaster " , as I called it, began to be a regular feature of

my eating experience. Finally it was back to sugar and cereal, which

I could at least eat a decent amount of, though quite a bit less than

before. I would have cakes, cookies and candy for the first part of

my meal, and then cereal with sugar. Cereal with milk or soy milk and

sugar have formed the basis of my diet since then (1997). When I was

on an all-cereal diet, sometimes I would have trouble swallowing,

sometimes not. Only an all-sweets diet would go smoothly all the

time, but eating that way became increasingly problematic as time went

on, to say nothing of my fears about what was happening and would

happen with my teeth (my dental bills were very large. Prior to this

whole business, I had had maybe three fillings in my teeth—all upper

jaw—at the age of 33 years old.)

I began to develop problems with low blood sugar. A few hours after

eating I would feel weak and irritable until I could eat again. So I

began the habit of eating every few hours. Also, constipation became

an ongoing and severe problem.

About a year and a half later, I began to add very large amounts of

sugar to my cereal. This enabled me to eat more, and gave me more

calories which, having just gone through an extended period of

particularly great difficulty eating food in any substantial quantity,

I was desperate for. However, it was very debilitating, especially

when I had trouble swallowing it, which was very frequently. I became

trapped in this way of eating. My eating environment sensitivities

began to worsen until I developed a full-blown obsessive-compulsive

disorder with regard to eating environment.

It took a long time for me to decrease the sugar to reasonable

amounts, and finally I was able to stop all added sugar and eat

low-sugar cereals for while. Eventually I did go back to adding some

sugar.

By this time there were some foods that I was chronically unable to

swallow. Starches were the hardest, unless they were accompanied by

protein and/or sugar. For example, plain bread wouldn't break

down in my mouth enough for me to swallow it.

At one point during these years someone turned me on to juicing, and

so I added some sweet juices (carrot/fruit) to my food repertoire.

Juice, soy milk and fruit have enabled me to get by when I haven't

been able to eat because of digestion or environment.

I struggled constantly to find some way of eating, some diet, some

treatment that would help, but nothing ever really did. Eventually I

became able to eat some more regular food (some meat, for example),

but it was tenuous.

In 2004 I came upon the Warrior diet, which espouses eating mainly one

meal a day. You eat very lightly during the day, mostly juices and

fruit (the " undereating phase " ), and then have a large meal at night

(the " overeating phase " ). This worked for me to a large extent, and I

was able to go back to eating regular food. Also the OCD problem was

much less acute when eating this way. I also discovered the

" Nourishing Traditions " book by Sally Fallon and began to implement

some of her ideas. I did have some swallowing difficulties, though,

and it would take a very long time to eat, and a great deal of

chewing. Immediately after eating I would fall asleep. This went on

for a few months I think, until I had a disaster with a supplement.

Then I was able to eat much less, and with less variety, and I had to

add a couple of sugary food feedings late at night. That was in

August of 2004.

An important thing in all of this has been a quality of willfulness.

That is, it's like there's a little child inside me that refuses to

eat anything but sugary stuff. Or if I can eat normal food, he'll

only eat a certain narrow range of things. During that first time

that I ate nothing but sweets, the child knew exactly what kind of

sweet he wanted at any particular time, and he wouldn't eat anything

else. If I ate something other than that particular thing, it

wouldn't break down well in my mouth, or it would just kind of sit in

my stomach, and I could hear the kid screaming inside me. He seems to

sabotage my conscious efforts at getting well. It's like having to

satisfy an extremely picky and unhappy child every time I eat

something. And a lot of the things that have happened don't really

make sense from a physical standpoint, like when I have some disaster

and then never really recover from it.

Katy from the Warrior Diet group thinks this can be completely

resolved nutritionally. Sometimes I think so, but more often, because

of that quality of willfullness, I doubt it. During the time last

summer when I was on the Warrior Diet, I really didn't experience any

improvement beyond the first days. Last night, having reached a point

of desperation, I went back and read some of the Warrior Diet posts,

and some of what Katy said sank in more than before. I've decided to

start over and try again. If anyone has any advice that they can

offer, I'd be grateful. Thanks.