Eating Disorders

Food and weight have turned into the center of life for you and cause you tremendous anxiety? Then it might be the case that you have one of the following eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, bigorexia, orthorexia, emotional eating.

Anorexia is when you avoid food at all costs and as a result you are already underweight according to the health norm. Relatives and friends often try to help you and even force you to eat, but this only makes things more complicated. You start isolating yourself, you start hiding and lying about how much and what exactly you've eaten. You also start to avoid social gatherings and especially having food with other people. Due to the low weight and the physical damage caused to the body, it is necessary to combine psychotherapy and regular visits to the doctor. This way body and mind can work together towards a better life for you.

When it comes to bulimia, you often eat a huge amount of food in one sitting within a very short time. Usually you indulge in high calorie foods, so that you calm down, even though you know it's a temporary relief. You eat compulsively without tasting the food. When you are in this episode, you don't really know how much you have eaten, the whole thing happens as if you are in a trance. You realize exactly how much you have eaten only after the food has finished and you suddenly start feeling guilty. You might try to even things out by self-induced vomiting, laxatives or excessive sports. Or you might simply pretend this never happened, until one day you realize you have become overweight.

Bigorexia is an eating disorder typical for men. It is also called reverse anorexia. A man suffering from bigorexia perceives himself as too skinny and with not enough muscles, although to people around him he looks really fit. There is a compulsive element to his training and eating. He would do anything to become bigger faster, the problem is, it is never enough. No matter how much he goes to the gym or how big he becomes, he is simply never happy with himself. All he could think of is training and diets, sometimes he keeps training even when he is sick or injured.

When it comes to orthorexia, you are really proud of yourself, because you only eat and live healthy. Taking care of yourself has turned into compulsiveness, which could lead to exactly the opposite result – making your health worse. Your life revolves around food and health, the other aspects of life often get neglected, because they don’t seem so important. Your social life suffers, you tend to isolate and withdraw from people around you. Just as you are proud of yourself and your healthy lifestyle, all of a sudden you start feeling extremely guilty and unworthy, because you have eaten a little bite of something unhealthy.

Emotional eating is when you reach for food, because you start feeling difficult emotions. Since those emotions are so heavy for you and you want to get rid of them, you use food to numb yourself. You are not necessarily compulsive when it comes to food or weight, but you still have anxiety around those topics. It is good for you to learn how to connect to your emotions and live them. It is also helpful to come up with other activities that help you relax in difficult times. Otherwise, if you keep on eating excessive amounts of calories, you might become overweight, which lowers the quality of life for you. Because of this people’s self-esteem goes down, they start feeling not good enough or even like a complete failure. Going shopping for clothes turns into a nightmare, because the usual size no longer fits and you need to take a bigger one.

All eating disorders are a coping mechanism. It helps you deal with something, however, at the same time it brings a lot of suffering. Eating disorders are a heavy burden to carry, do contact a therapist.

Eating Disorders

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