Eating Disorders; A growing epidemic

How one woman healed herself from a quarter of a century battle with an eating disorder by using Hypnosis
Have you ever been on a diet? Most of you probably said you have. Why is it that certain people develop eating disorders and others don’t?
When someone talks about eating disorders they are usually referring to anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating or some combination of the three.
What most people don’t understand is that an eating disorder is more than just a fad or a diet, it is a behavior that saturates all parts of the person’s life; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Focusing on food, weight, calories and exercise becomes a way to cope with feelings, emotions and life circumstances. The eating disorder is just a symptom that something is not right internally.
Imagine a young girl, who at the age of thirteen was told by her doctor to lose weight, and went from 140 pounds down to 80 pounds in just 6 months, and for the next 23 years of her life, was in and out of treatment centers and hospitals fighting a life and death battle with anorexia, bingeing, compulsive exercise and suicide.
My name is Debra, and I know first hand what it’s like to have an eating disorder; because that young girl was me, but today I am happy and healthy.

Here’s my story;
Growing up I felt very different from other people. I was never pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough, thin enough etc..I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere, school or home. In school all I would think about was food; where I could get it and what I would eat as soon as I got home. When I was home I would constantly eat to avoid painful feelings and the emptiness I felt inside. However, I did not know this at the time.
From my earliest memory I based my value on taking care of others. If I was meeting their needs, I felt good, if I wasn’t, I felt horrible. Any time I did what “I” wanted to do, I was told I was selfish or stupid, and my family and friends would get angry and not speak to me. I learned to suppress my needs and feelings at a very young age.
I hadn’t experienced love for who I truly was. I thought I had to do something in order to win love or approval; like cooking and cleaning for my family or doing and saying what other people wanted. Even when I did these things, it still wasn’t good enough. I felt like a failure and was often told “You can’t do anything right.”
Being so consumed with taking care of everybody around me, I never built a sense of self. I was being molded into the person everyone else wanted me to be and took into my consciousness any negative words that were spoken to me.
When I tuned 13, I went on a diet and started losing weight. I began to build my sense of self around the success and positive attention I got for being thin. For the first time in my life I felt powerful and in control. Because the feeling of losing weight was so gratifying, internally and externally, I continued to lose weight in order to feel good and get approval.
I became frightened to speak at all. I was filled with so much self hatred that the only way “I thought” I could feel better was by doing the behavior that would contribute to losing weight.
After dwindling down to 80 pounds at 5 feet 6 inches tall, I entered my first hospital at age 14, and for the next 23 years of my life I lived in an eating—exercising trance. At the beginning it gave me a sense of power and control, but after awhile I was being controlled by my thoughts and behavior and I felt like I no longer had a choice.
My relationship with food was different from “normal people.” Eating was something I did in secret. It was my time and no one was allowed to disturb me or see me eat, it was as if I was doing something bad. I also felt embarrassed about the things I ate and the way I ate them. When I ate cheerios, I would eat one at a time. I would take an hour to eat one wheat thin cracker and I ate salad with my fingers. Or, I would binge on yogurt, cupcakes, candy bars, pop-tarts, puddings, cereal and bananas in one sitting. I ate the same foods at the same time in the same way everyday, unless it was binge day. Eating this way was my “comfort” zone (so I thought) actually I never felt comfortable, it was just familiar and I knew I wouldn’t gain weight if I ate the same things everyday and exercised compulsively.
Whenever I ate, my emotions and feelings became more intense. Food was something I could physically feel in my body, and I didn’t want to be connected to something I hated (which was me). By exercising I was able to disassociate.
At the time I wasn’t aware of the reasons why I starved, and/or binged and exercised. All I knew was whenever I ate or felt uncomfortable, I would get a sick feeling in my gut and I felt fat and made myself exercise. I continuously impressed these ideas on my subconscious mind making them fixed and habituated, creating an automatic response to exercise after I ate or whenever I felt uncomfortable. Soon, I was no longer in control, my mind took over, the behavior became automatic, making it even more difficult to stop and I was on a path of self destruction. The more I did the behaviors; the harder it was to change.
Everyone around me got frustrated because they didn’t know what to do or how to help. At the beginning I got praise for losing weight, but when I became too thin, I received blame, anger and resentment. The things that were said to me made me feel even worse about myself, and I would continue to starve and/or binge and exercise to escape those feelings. It was a lose-lose situation all around.
Being so consumed with food and exercise I didn‘t have to deal with anything else in life. I was so entrenched in the behavior, that it became the only thing I thought about, spoke about and acted upon. My life was contained and controlled. Nothing could come in and I wouldn’t come out. My inner and outer worlds seemed too frightening and the eating disorder became my protection. I did it for so long; it turned into my identity and automatic way of life. I was a robot, existing but not living. My body was just a vehicle responding to the dictates of my thoughts and beliefs.
By being sick, I was determined to stop the process of life. I was frightened to grow up as I didn’t feel capable of taking care of myself or being responsible. I lived in lack and deprivation in all areas of my life and denied myself any pleasure. I was terrified to change or do anything new because if I did, I would probably fail. I wanted someone to show me they loved me by taking care of me.
I continued to get worse over the years even after going through numerous hospitals and treatment centers. I ran to hospitals and treatment centers looking and begging for some relief. However, as soon as I left, I gravitated right back to the eating disorder behaviors and once again became trapped. I temporarily changed my physical appearance, but I never changed the unconscious patterns that were deep rooted in my subconscious mind and driving my behavior, thus I automatically went back to my old patterns.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were upset, worried or anxious and finally found something that made you feel better? And what was it that made you feel better? And did you continue to go back to that person, place or thing to help you feel better? Well, this is how addictions often start. Whenever I felt bad, I would engage in the eating disorder behavior to feel better. At the beginning I used the behaviors to lose weight, and because losing weight made me feel good, over time I would engage in the behaviors to help me feel better and to cope with uncomfortable feelings and situations.
The act of starving, bingeing and compulsively exercising was a cleansing. It was a combination of physical, mental, emotional, and sexual relief. The experience was so much better than the pain I felt. I was attempting to create structure for myself, well, actually avoid life and painful feelings.
These fixed ideas and habits continued to express themselves until they were replaced at the subconscious level through hypnosis. Because our behavior is driven by the beliefs we hold (mostly unconscious), I had to change those beliefs consciously and subconsciously by using hypnosis, the power of thought and meditation.

How I overcame the eating disorder
I became empowered by having the courage to sit through my discomfort and take charge of my life both on a conscious and sub-conscious level and by connecting to universal love.
In meditation, I was able to access my inner wisdom and my true self which helped guide me in making better choices for my life. In hypnosis, I reframed past hurts and failures and imagined myself as a loving, strong, healthy and confident woman, speaking up for myself in difficult situations, doing new behaviors and going out with friends. Because the mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real or imagined, hypnosis was a safe place for me to experience what it would be like to do things differently.
I also started thinking new thoughts consciously about myself and the world. Whenever I thought or spoke in ways that didn’t serve me, I would immediately change my thoughts or words to ones that did, even if I didn’t believe it.
Every thought and image I continuously focused on accompanied by strong feelings and emotions, was overriding the old patterning in my subconscious mind, and as a result my behavior and the world around me started to change in a positive way. I became healthier, stronger and happier.
Everyday, I focused on doing something new. Once my subconscious mind became familiar with change, it was open to more. By aligning my conscious mind with my subconscious, I became more relaxed and at peace and things in my life started to flow easily and effortlessly.
The anorexia served a purpose in my life; it gave me a sense of comfort, safety, and control. I had to find new healthy ways of getting these needs met. I took charge of my life from my true desires not what was programmed in me from my family or the world. I started reading books on spirituality and discovered that I was more than just my body and the words spoken to me. There is a tender spirit inside me that is happy, joyous and loving. Everyday I take the steps necessary to make my life work on all levels, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. It was a process, but well worth it.