I hate that word. I dont want to maintain my weight, i want to lose it. I dont see whats so wrong with that. I mean half the world is on some diet or another, and the government is always on about healthy lifestyles and BM-sodding-I, and i am overweight. I mean like obviously. so why wont they let me get to a normal weight, and then maintain it? Cos if i weighed less id be happier to eat and maintain that weight. Its just that i know im massive, and i hate it and it pisses me off that im going to get even heavier in the day unit from eating insane amounts of food ALL DAY LONG. And it droves me mad that whenever i try and say this to anyone, they go on and on about disordered thinking and giving in to the ED thoughts. yes, ok, but how can they miss the point that im really overweight, so it would be healthier for me to lose it anyway. ARG.
well, today was fun. I spent most of the day attatched to an ECG machine, and various other monitors, cos I had the most hideous chest pain in the world yesterday, everytime i moved, or did anything. I purged yesterday and i thought my heart was going to explode or something. everything hurt and went all weird and fuzzy.
im scared i cant do it. like, really scared.
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Vics, do you mind if I have a go at answering the implied question? I could just leave a hug but I feel like maybe if you had some solid reasons why the day unit is going to be taking this approach then it might help you cope with it a bit. Feel free to ignore this comment though, I'm going to give you a virtual hug first just in case you don't want to read the rest <3
The first reason I can think of that the unit will want you to eat enough to maintain is that it is impossible to stop eating disordered behaviours while you are undereating. I'm not saying that being malnourished or restricting caused your ED in the first place, but they do play a large part in keeping the ED going. Until you are eating a healthy intake it will be incredibly hard to stop b/ping, and that's what the unit wants to help you do.
Secondly, what you think of as a massive amount probably isn't all that much in objective terms. When people have EDs they can slow their metabolism down so much that some maintain their weight on just a few hundred calories a day. That doesn't mean that person only needs a few hundred calories a day though, and if they start eating more, although they might gain weight for the first week or two, they will begin maintaining or even LOSING on that much higher amount when their metabolism catches up. I tripled my intake in the first month of trying to gain weight, and lost half a pound. I maintain my weight now on well above the recommended intake for adult women.
While you could argue that bulimics might respond differently to anorexics when their intake is increased (I don't think the difference would be huge, I think your body will adapt just fine, but you could still argue that) one of the main arguments for the unit trying to get you to eat that much is to repair the internal damage. That is common to anorexics and bulimics. While you are keeping very little down you are adding to the damage, your body has no chance at all of repairing it. When you start digesting more the first thing your body will do with all that energy is use it to start repairing your organs. It takes a surprising amount of food to do that, and your body will prioritise that much more highly than storing it as "new" weight.
So you might gain some weight to begin with, especially if you stop purging completely, but it won't be real weight - it'll be water retention. Once that goes you will find that you can not only maintain but probably lose on a completely healthy intake. But the unit won't want you to lose because you won't have a chance of stopping the behaviours or healing the internal damage if you're not eating enough to stabilise your weight. That doesn't mean you have to stay this weight forever, just that at the moment it is more important that your organs are repaired than that you fit some arbitrary government ideal BMI that isn't even really a true indication of health.
Finally, you won't be doing this alone. You will have the staff at the unit, who will understand how difficult this is. You will also still have weirdos like me for support if you want me :)
xxx
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