Tag Archive for 'Eating Disorders'

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My Steps to Recovery – Saying No to ED and Yes to Life!

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I have been asked numerous times over the last twenty years about HOW to recover from an eating disorder and IF it is REALLY possible.  I am here to tell you that Recovery is not only possible, but can become a reality for you, too.

In honor of Mental Health Month I wrote this post to answer that question and to give you some words of encouragement – I recovered from an eating disorder after suffering for over 8 years and now use that experience to help others recover.  My way was only my way and no indication of what will work for you, but my experience may give you some ideas for recovery, as it does contain things I often find useful in working with my clients.  Recovery is a very personal experience, so take what you can use and leave the rest.

What did it take to stop?  Honesty, openness, and willingness. And a lot of hard work and persistence.

Has it been worth it? Absolutely. Today I am free of being controlled by unconscious urges with food and compulsive exercise.  I know how to respond so I don’t have to engage in the behavior. I am more self-aware, healthy, and centered. I also realize that food is just food and weight is just a number on the scale.  Neither can bring me true happiness. And I have finally accepted people don’t like me or dislike me because of my body, but because of who I am as a person.

Is it perfect? No, because perfect doesn’t exist, and I live in a world where focus on body, diet, and perfection is idealized. I need to maintain a certain acceptance, willingness and awareness. But this is such a small price to pay for having freedom.

How did I do it? I am actually working on writing the story of my recovery, but to give you the shortened version, this is what I did and the steps I took.

1)     I accepted that I had an eating disorder and I needed help.  I also came to realize it was not my fault, and I had no need to feel ashamed. An eating disorder is a real medical condition. I didn’t ask to have one, I just developed it due to a combination of many factors; genetics, triggering events, family issues, and peer pressure.

2)     I retired my “Cinderella Complex” and came to accept and realize that no one was coming to save me.  I would have to develop responsibility for saving myself.  Looking outside myself was not the answer, I had to look within and discover my true self.

3)     I came to understand that although it was not my fault, it was my responsibility to do whatever it took to learn to control the urges I had and the actions I took. Thus, I needed to make a decision on how I was going to approach the problem and then begin to do it.

4)     I decided that I would do whatever it took to reach recovery and regain my life. I reached a point where I realized that living with an eating disorder was really no way to live. I could learn to eat in a healthy way, manage my urges, and learn to tolerate my feelings without necessarily acting on them. As Goethe once said, “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

5)     I took the time to educate myself and learned all I could about eating disorders and what was needed to live without one.  I fully accepted it wasn’t about the food or the weight. I accepted that I couldn’t do it alone and that I needed to practice humility and ask for help.  Being responsible for my recovery didn’t mean I had to do it on my own.  I could be vulnerable, admit my imperfections, and live to tell about it.  I could also allow people to help me.

6)     I did self-monitoring for 6 months, an average of five days a week. I learned SO much about myself, my patterns, and my responses to situations, whether I was tired, lonely, angry, or feeling anything else.

7)     I took medication to moderate my anxiety and depression – it didn’t help me to eat, but it enabled me to lift the depression and anxiety I had experienced since childhood, so I could stay motivated with my practice of all the tools I had learned from others, and developed on my own.

8)     I began to focus on the things in my life that were the most important to me and surrounded myself with positive and encouraging people. I learned to identify my true feelings, and noticed that if I expressed myself in appropriate ways, and set good boundaries, I was less likely to be triggered.  Self-care became a huge part of the process.  I learned how to put myself and my needs first and let go of feeling guilty when I said NO. I practiced  meditations, relaxation techniques and learned to enjoy exercise as a way to move my body rather than punish myself for what I had eaten.

9)     I decided that I was willing to accept that this might take a while, but what did I have to lose?  I could either keep living the way I was, which was in misery, or I could begin to practice all the things I was learning and take some risks.

10) I Learned not to beat myself up when I did slip. I came to realize that we DO slip on the road to recovery, or most of us do. So learning to be a little(or a lot)  more compassionate and accepting with myself was a big part of the process.

11) I Learned to measure my recovery not by the scale, but by how fast I got back on track with my life, how little I berated myself, how much I was able to congratulate myself and enjoy all of my accomplishments.

12) I kept a gratitude journal.  In the deepest darkest days of my depression, anxiety, and ed behaviors I didn’t think there was anything to be grateful for.  I was wrong.  When I began to focus on all that I was and everything that I had, a small light started to shine.  As Helen Keller said “Keep your face to the sunshine and you will not notice the shadows.”

13) Even after my symptoms subsided, I stayed in therapy to discover my true self, who I was without the eating disorder.  How could I be myself if I didn’t know who I was? Look for my upcoming book… How can I be myself when I don’t know who I am TM.

14)            I found a passion and purpose for being- my career and helping others recover and focusing on having my own family. Finding a reason to recover was important.

15) Today I live with the full understanding that yes, my eating disorder could come back at any time. However, this way of life has become an opportunity for self-growth, centeredness, awareness, and acceptance. Today, I have the tools I need and the commitment to use them.  Every day, I Say Yes to Life !

The good news is there really are pathways out of being controlled by ED and other compulsive behaviors. The challenge is that it takes time, commitment, awareness and practice. But then, to be good at anything usually does. I have lived many years free from Ed behavior and am lucky enough to work every day with amazing people who are also on this journey.  If you are on this path, struggling, or just need someone who really understands, give me a call.

To your success and happiness,

Kimberly

Kimberly Krueger, MSW, LCSW is a therapist and the founder and director of Southlake Counseling and The Center for Self Discovery in Davidson, NC. Kimberly may be reached at kkrueger@www.southlakecounseling.com

Southlake Counseling is Lake Norman’s leading behavioral health treatment center, providing a full range of clinical services to children, adolescents, and adults. Southlake services include therapy, psycho-educational and psycho-social assessment, consultations, health education, nutrition, wellness and coaching programs for those suffering emotional, behavioral, health, and educational challenges.


Published on Monday June 21, 2010 in Eating Disorders. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Your “Say Yes to Life” Monday Motivator: the H.O.W. of Recovery (Honesty-Openness-Willingness)

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I first came across this powerful principle many years ago in my own recovery from an eating disorder. Long credited to the Twelve Step communities, H.O.W. nevertheless feels like a universal recovery principle, applicable to any individual at any age and in any stage of their pursuit of recovery, health, and whole-person wellness.

In the course of my professional life, I am always delighted to find a new resource that outlines this fundamental recovery principle. On this week’s reading list is an innovative new book called Beating Ana: How to Outsmart Your Eating Disorder and Take Your Life Back. The author, Shannon Cutts, is herself a survivor of an eating disorder, and the book is structured to allow the reader glimpses into not just her own day-to-day hard work of recovery, but also into the recovery journeys of others she has mentored and encouraged along the way.

In Beating Ana, this is accomplished by structuring each chapter around a question from one of her mentees, her answer to that question, and then what she calls a “Recovery Workshop” that invites the reader to learn new recovery skills and tools to progress toward their recovery goals. Each chapter ends with a “Life Celebration Affirmation” which strengthens the reader’s awareness of the hard work they are doing and encourages them to continue doing the hard work of recovery.

In the chapter called “The H.O.W. of Recovery”, Ms. Cutts explains how easy it is to be bullied by the fast-moving train of an eating disorder as it progresses. She writes, “We convince ourselves that we are but spectators at our own funeral, powerless to do more than watch as events unfold to their logical conclusion….We do not yet see the truth. We do not yet perceive that, even as our inexplicable, indescribable self-torture escalates, and even when the eating disorder rolls out the big guns, we are still here.”

We accomplish this awareness and regain our inspiration, courage, and strength to keep fighting, she explains, through practicing the H.O.W. of Recovery – often better known as Honesty-Openness-Willingness. Beating Ana explains each of these principles as follows:

  1. Honesty: objectively looking at your life and seeing what is broken and who can fix it
  2. Openness: being open to believing that the way life has been doesn’t dictate the future
  3. Willingness: the “I will do whatever it takes” attitude that sustained recovery requires

Ms. Cutts then encourages readers to journal about each of these three core elements to any successful recovery process – in her words, “[to ask] yourself whether or not you feel that you have each quality and have it in sufficient measure to commit to healing and to your own life.”

It has been my experience as well that when we have the honesty to admit what is no longer working in our lives, the openness to believe that we have the power to change what isn’t working, and the willingness to do whatever it takes, that literally anything is possible. No dream is too unrealistic, no amount of work is too much, and no sacrifice is too great to achieve release and lasting freedom from the prison of an illness that claims body, mind, heart, and spirit without a backward glance.

I encourage all of you to examine H.O.W. you are approaching your own recovery, health, and wellness goals this week and thus far in 2010. If you find that you are struggling to connect with your awareness of your own Honesty-Openness-Willingness, we encourage you to tackle this challenge by being honest, open, and willing to ask for help. At Southlake Counseling, we have more than two decades of expertise and compassion invested in helping individuals just like you to achieve their dreams and realize their full potential. We are excited about sharing your journey as you reach for and even exceed your own potential! Contact us today at www.southlakecounseling.com – we look forward to hearing from you!

Be Well,

Kimberly

Published on Thursday March 25, 2010 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Your “Say Yes to Life” Monday Motivator: Food is My Friend…or is it?

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One of the areas of life that seems the most problematic in today’s society is the issue of food’s role and purpose in our lives. Is food fuel for the body? Is it an emotional warm blanket when we’re feeling down? Is it an expression of celebration that reinforces and even creates relationships? Is it a treat at the end of a long day?

To most of us, food is all of the above – and more. In past Monday Motivators, we have discussed how our attitudes towards and choices around food can and often do fluctuate frequently – sometimes even in the course of a single day – and how confusing and conflicting such fluctuations can be.

In the scientific principle known as Occum’s Razor, the “simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”  In the case of food, this principle would deduce that food is fuel for the body, plain and simple, no more and no less.

But try telling that to the part of us that wants chocolate cake when we’ve just experienced a breakup. Just try to explain that to the part of us that thinks the best way to motivate us to make healthier choices is to yell “good choice as usual, Lardo” when we are enjoying a bag of chips. Or how about when our date suggests sharing a decadent dessert as the perfect end to a romantic evening…how likely are we to explain to him or her, “Well, truffles aren’t an item my body really needs for nutrients so I’ll have to decline, but thanks anyway.”

Not at all likely, right?

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we might instead begin to assign names to these seemingly disagreeing parts of ourselves, and then to decode what their real message, purpose, and role is in our lives.

For instance, the Inner Controller is always going to tell us what we think we need, rather than want, to hear – declining that truffle, using self-disrespecting language, doing whatever it takes to keep us on the dietary straight and narrow.

The Inner Indulger, on the other hand, will eschew discipline for pleasure every time. The Indulger loves romantic truffles, sees nothing wrong with a delicious bag of chips, and wouldn’t think twice about offering its suffering self some chocolate cake in recompense for a bad day.

The small gap or vast expanse that exists between the Indulger and the Controller is what students of IFS learn to call the “Pleasure Polarity.”  Managing the pleasure polarity, and more than that, hearing, affirming, and guiding the Indulger and Controller to learn to (gasp) get along is what a student of IFS will become adept at.

IFS students understand that each voice comes to us with a desire not to harm, not to degrade, but to support and protect us. As we walk the guided path of IFS, we will understand what our parts already understand – that we have needs that food can provide for, and that each part thinks it knows best how to care for us and meet those needs. We will perceive with tremendous clarity and newfound hope how each voice, in its own weird and wonderful way, has our best interests at heart – and is often willing to fight to the death on our behalf against another voice with an opposing opinion.

So how do we help these parts of ourselves stop squabbling and get along as they each seek the same goal – our wellbeing?

We have to first understand that each voice has a point. In between the Indulger and the Controller we find not just the Pleasure Polarity, but the Support Polarity and the Power Polarity. In the Support Polarity, we must balance the Indulger’s neediness and the Controller’s need for denial. In the Power Polarity, we must recognize our tendency to people-please against our desire to rigidly control ourselves and others.

When you become a student of IFS, you begin to walk the path of balance and moderation with wisdom, confidence, and self-compassion. You “get” yourself – in all your various parts – in a new and deeper way. You can make better choices when you understand that all of these parts or facets of you are all you – all valid, all worthy of a voice, all worthy of respect, appreciation, and satisfaction. As this understanding becomes established within, you become better able to evaluate the choices before you and make a fair assessment of each part’s needs, the airtime you will allow each to have, and your need to make sure that one is not over-indulged while one is ostracized.

Or, to once again apply the principle of Occum’s Razor, we could simply say that you will begin to realize that when a part of you hurts, you hurt. And when a part of you heals, you heal.

If you are struggling to balance the competing needs, demands, and desires you feel inside of you when it comes to making healthy food choices, Internal Family Systems can help. At Southlake Counseling, we have more than two decades of experience guiding individuals to meet and exceed their food-related recovery, health, and wellness goals. Whether you are just seeking a tune-up in the New Year or part of your bigger picture for 2010 includes a complete overhaul in your nutritional lifestyle, we look forward to partnering with you to help you say “no” to inner conflict at the table and YES to your own healthy, happy, and whole life! Visit us at www.southlakecounseling.com today!

Be Well,

Kimberly

Published on Monday February 15, 2010 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Your “Say Yes to Life” Monday Motivator: The Helping Hand Mindfulness Extends

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Well, here it is – the first week of a brand new year!

Exciting, isn’t it!

Or maybe a little nerve-wracking….stressful….already packed full of resolutions, expectations, old memories of what not to do from the barely-departed previous year (aka baggage), and more than a bit of fear.

Enter “mindfulness”. Mindfulness is a powerful tool that can facilitate the kind of positive life change that resolutions seldom do. Best known as one of the four core tenets of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), mindfulness is commonly defined as “awareness without judgment of what is, via direct and immediate experience”1.

How can mindfulness help you in 2010?

While resolutions and expectations are born of past experiences, and thus are colored more by painful remembrances of how we did not measure up to our own standards or others’ in the past, mindfulness keeps us anchored here in the present, which is the only place where any true change is possible.

The first step to using mindfulness as a tool for positive change is to be able to distinguish it from what we normally do. So let’s take a common New Year’s resolution as an example – a resolution to adopt healthier eating habits.

Without mindfulness, here is what you might expect to happen on January 2nd, when, full of good intentions and steadfast resolution, you approach the refrigerator. You open the door and stare in at the new healthy selections you just purchased, sitting there on the shelf next to last night’s party leftovers. Your hand shoots resolutely towards the healthy side of the shelf. Your mind says, “You know you won’t be able to keep this up. You might do okay for a few days, but sooner or later you are going to break your resolution. You might as well just go ahead and eat those party leftovers anyway. They are going to spoil otherwise, and it is wasteful to let perfectly good food spoil just because you are trying to eat healthier. You can eat the healthy stuff you bought tomorrow.”

Does any of this self-sabotaging dialogue sound familiar?

With mindfulness, you do not waver between the past and the future, trying to predict the probability of an outcome that is only possible here, now, in the present moment – an outcome that you are in charge of and are perfectly well-equipped to determine.

So now let us take the same example, but apply the tool of mindfulness to achieve a different outcome. There you are, standing in front of the open refrigerator door. Your eyes fall on last night’s leftovers, and then on the new healthy items you have just purchased.  Your hand reaches toward the healthy side of the shelf, already anticipating the crunch of the sautéed bell peppers with chicken and seasoning that you are going to make for dinner. Your stomach grumbles. You begin gathering all the ingredients to make your meal. Happily, you unwrap your new sauté pan that you got for Christmas, add a little olive oil, and start chopping vegetables. Thirty minutes later, you sit down for a lovely, healthy meal that is both delicious and satisfying. You clean up, and head into the living room to catch your favorite television show.

What just happened here? With mindfulness, you sabotaged your saboteur by simply staying present. You didn’t allow your mind to wander back to the past, which is forever out of your control, or to the future, which is not yet within your control. You stayed true to the reason you visited the refrigerator in the first place – to fuel your body with delicious, healthy nutrients per your New Year’s intention NOW, in THIS moment, to offer yourself the gift of healthy eating habits. You chose tasty ingredients, enjoyed putting them together into a meal, ate them with gusto while you were hungry, stopped when you were full, cleaned up, and moved on to the next activity you had planned.

Mindfulness hands back on a silver platter your power to make new, self-affirming choices in the present moment. Mindfulness is your best friend in a season too often filled with recriminations, regrets, fears, self-doubts, and atoning resolutions. The past is in the past, right where it belongs. And the future depends on the choices that you make right now, today.

So take mindfulness by the hand, and walk confidently and positively forward together in the present moment to greet the New Year.

At Southlake Counseling, we understand how New Year’s resolutions can often collide with last year’s regrets. This is why our staff of trained and experienced clinicians have dedicated over two decades to the study and successful application of Dr. Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) treatment methods. If you are struggling with maintaining a positive outlook about making good choices in 2010, we are here to help.  If you would like to learn more about Mindfulness or our DBT program contact us today at www.southlakecounseling.com to learn more.

Be Well,

Kimberly 

1 Marsha Linehan, PhD, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Founder

Published on Monday January 4, 2010 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Your Say Yes to Life Monday Motivator: “Fat” is Not a Feeling But I FEEL Fat!

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We all have “fat days”. Even if you are a man reading this, you probably are not scratching your head wondering what a “fat day” is. You know.

We all know. 

Fat days are like cold-and-flu season, garden weeds, or your dog’s next teeth-cleaning appointment – they are going to come. Inevitably. There is no sense trying to run and hide.

But what can we do? If having “fat days” is more about management than elimination, and we are all going to “feel fat” from time to time, then where is the dividing line between the inevitable and its amount of influence over how we feel about ourselves, our bodies, and our lives?

Once again, it boils down to knowledge…and choice. First, we have to understand and decode where “feeling fat” comes from and what it means to us. Next, we have to decide if this business of “feeling fat” still works for us, or if we would prefer to make a new choice in how we understand and deal with fat feelings, and fat days, in our daily lives. 

So where do we start? We can begin by exploring where feeling fat even comes from, how it started, and why it is so much a part of our culture today that we often accept it without question – and even welcome it in as a helpful, rather than harmful, regular houseguest.

In 1995, the Discovery Channel reported the sad but fascinating results of the introduction of western television programming into the culture of the little island of Fiji. Prior to receiving access to westernized shows like “Melrose Place” and “90210”, only three percent of Fijian females suffered from eating disorders. Three years later, 74 percent of Fijian girls reported feeling “too big” and 62 percent had gone on a diet.

We may not think the environment around us gets under our skin, but we don’t have to look very far to see how much influence it actually has on our day-to-day routines and perceptions of ourselves and others. We feel fat because anti-fat messages are everywhere we are. Billboards, television and movies, advertisements, even our daily dialogues with each other are full of labels like “thin” and “fat”, “good” and “bad”, “healthy” and “unhealthy” – and almost none of it is backed up by actual scientific facts.

In fact, most of the steady diet of fat-bashing that we take in has one purpose and one purpose only – to induce dis-ease so that we will spend our hard-earned cash to fix a problem that is all in our heads!

Okay, so now we know. We have been told to feel fat, and we have – up until now at least – very obligingly obeyed. But now we really do feel fat – so what options do we have to extricate the word “fat” from the very real and valid feelings we are having underneath?

First, we can start to access our power of choice by working hard to understand what “feeling fat” means to us. We have to recognize that “fat” in and of itself is NOT a feeling . More accurately, “feeling fat” it is an edgy little ache that grabs our attention long enough so we will trace it back to its source and deal with the real root issue. So when we feel fat, we can instantly snap to attention and begin our sleuthing process – tracing it back, and back, and back, until we uncover what triggered the fat-feeling so we can deal with that and move on to recapture our sense of health, wellness, and balance.

If you are struggling with or in recovery from an eating disorder, you may already be familiar with the technique of naming your fat feelings. This is a very helpful approach that involves building your emotional vocabulary. There are five major emotions – anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and happiness – and about a million permutations of each. For instance, if we know it is not “fat” that we are really feeling, could it perhaps be “anger”? Or is it instead a permutation of anger – maybe “rage”, “annoyance”, “hostility”, “displeasure”? In this way you can take your power back by naming what you are really feeling, and investigating what your real emotions are trying to tell you so you can work through them and return to peace and equanimity again.

You might also want to try another code-breaking exercise to figure out what “fat” really stands for in your life. In this exercise, you will complete two sentences. First you will write down: “Thin =” and complete the sentence with appropriate descriptions of what “thin” means to you in that moment (examples might include: good , happy, desirable, successful, popular, attractive, etc). Next, you will write down “Fat =” and complete the sentence with your assessment of what fat feels like to you in that moment (examples could include: disgusting, irresponsible, lazy, unattractive, unacceptable, lonely, unsuccessful, etc.). In this way you can backtrack to discover what you are really feeling, and begin to deal with those feelings.

At Southlake Counseling, we understand how painful “feeling fat” can be – we have spent years honing our skills for battling back against our culture’s focus on the socially-acceptable prejudice of weight-ism and helping others to do the same. If you are having trouble completing the exercises above, or if you try your hand at them and find that strong emotions are coming up and you need support to work through them, visit us at www.southlakecounseling.com. Let us help you to start your New Year off on an empowered note by saying “no” to feeling fat in 2010 – and saying YES to feeling what you really feel, owning your right to have and express your true emotions, and doing what you need to do to live the life of your dreams!

Be Well,

Kimberly

Published on Monday December 21, 2009 in Eating Disorders and Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .