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Sarah5string

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16 hours ago, lemonstar said:

Having had a daughter who got sucked into the vortex of anorexia - I find this uncomfortable watching - no idea who she is but once you've tried to care and support someone with anorexia you start to see there are many of them around

Sad to hear that. I hope your use of past tense means your daughter is OK (or thereabouts) now. It must be a really difficult thing to support someone through.

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12 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

Sad to hear that. I hope your use of past tense means your daughter is OK (or thereabouts) now. It must be a really difficult thing to support someone through.

Yes (thereabouts) - it's not as simple as anyone would like it to be - it's a mental illness through and through and a strange one. She is in a small minority who have made a good, possibly very good "recovery" from having been in a really terrible state. 

Spoiler

It's one of the hardest things that eats away(!) at us is why - it's hard but we have to accept we may never fully know and one thing people might find surprising is that it's no good asking my daughter - her cognitive state was so impaired, the brain shrinks physically by a huge amount and memory is severely affected - she has almost no memories for a 6 month period and is very sketchy for a 2 year period. She had to be admitted to an eating disorders unit just before her 21st birthday and drop out of the 3rd year of her medical degree - she was there for 6 months - the worst moments were when her BMI was below 14, her electrolytes levels (Sodium(Na), potassium(K), creatinine, blood urea nitrogen (BUN)) were all outside normal ranges and difficult to manage - we were told to prepare for the worst as patients her condition at that time can succumb to multiple organ failure - she was being woken for blood tests every 4 hrs day and night - she had heart arrhythmia, signs of kidney failure, etc 


She is in a good place now - happy in a long term relationship and in her work , back exercising normally (still likes to run up mountains), eating healthily and working as a hospital doctor - no one would know about the illness to look at her BUT she does have to manage certain things in her life and that will go on for many years I think.

Spoiler

 

She organises her life to avoid anxiety  - difficult in her job you'd imagine but she copes really well with pressure - she's actually quite a tough cookie having been to hell and back mentally and physically, she is calm in high pressure situations which is a plus in her line of work - it is anxiety that she find difficult to deal with.

She finds it hard being around very thin people or people with AN (so avoids it where possibly) - she finds it very "triggering" - this is not uncommon - it's a very real phenomenon - it can bring about very complex and irrational feelings in her - most in a direction that might make her want to start considering her own body image (dysmorphia - they have a distorted view of their own bodies) and her eating habits - it is definitely a mental illness - it is so clearly a very complex, frustrating and hard to understand mental problem - certainly one of the confusing, contradictory, irrational, changeable, subtle, complex things I have ever encountered - it is not uncommon, as it was for her, to suddenly plunge into binge eating (others have bulimic episodes) and to oscillate between the conditions during the very start of the recovery phase (measured in years - say 2-4 years) - she found that very scary and upsetting - to see her upset was actually a relief in some ways because the AN made her distinctly cold, hard and emotionless - so yes - when seen close up it's very complex. It's terrifying in it's destructive force .- not just in the sufferer but the illness has a self-preservation mode that means it tries to control behaviour, relationships and situations that may threaten it's existence - the illness takes the sufferer hostage - that is how it seems - you have to negotiate very carefully in order to try and navigate your way out of the illness. I know of fatal relapses as long as 10 years after initial diagnosis. She is forever changed and so are we but, without going in to even more detail - there were valuable things to take away from the whole experience - not that I'd recommend it to anyone.

 

 Anyone who wants to talk or ask about anorexia can PM me if they like - there is nowhere near enough support available.

Spoiler

Friends and close family who don't understand the illness (and who could not learn to understand it) made the situation for us, as carers, a lot worse - some of them are not in our lives any more but other people really shone through and became more important to us. 

 

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1 hour ago, lemonstar said:

She is in a good place now - happy in a long term relationship and in her work , back exercising normally (still likes to run up mountains), eating healthily and working as a hospital doctor - no one would know about the illness to look at her BUT she does have to manage certain things in her life and that will go on for many years I think.

We had a friend who we helped through it, and it was so totally frustrating - both her, and it is worse because you know it isn't their fault, but dealing with the demon in them is very frustrating, and trying to get some service that is interested or able to do something. Got something in the end, and things got a lot better, but as you say, the damage is always there, both phsycologically and mentally.

Glad to hear your daughter got through it and sympathies to anyone else out there who has to deal with it

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On 06/04/2021 at 02:51, lemonstar said:

Having had a daughter who got sucked into the vortex of anorexia - I find this uncomfortable watching - no idea who she is but once you've tried to care and support someone with anorexia you start to see there are many of them around. I'm not complaining in any way about your post though -  it's just my reaction - it's a hell of thing for all concerned to get through. 

The girl in the video is the excellent Beth Hart. At the time she had a bad heroin habit, which I think was her primary issue rather than anorexia. She seems to have been clean for a long time and has gone on to be pretty successful (a couple of biggish albums with Joe Bonamassa among others). 

This is a more recent photo (a few years ago). As you can see, she looks a lot healthier. 

BETH HART - LULLABY OF THE LEAVES LOIVE @ ATHENS 2019 - YouTube

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21 hours ago, peteb said:

The girl in the video is the excellent Beth Hart. At the time she had a bad heroin habit, which I think was her primary issue rather than anorexia. 

I guessed as much before I looked her up - I might differ in an opinion about the primary problem but honestly who can say - I spent nearly 3 years in an eating disorders support group (specifically for "carers" of people with eating disorders - not the actual sufferers - they had their own meetings run at the same place) and it was two cases of a daughter (with anorexia) with a heroin addiction and a wife (with anorexia) and an alcohol problem that I found too traumatic to hear about on a regular basis - what I heard at the meetings used to play on my mind too much after the meetings that it actually caused me to stop attending. 

Good to know she has managed to bounce back and is still making music. 

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21 minutes ago, lemonstar said:

I guessed as much before I looked her up - I might differ in an opinion about the primary problem but honestly who can say - I spent nearly 3 years in an eating disorders support group (specifically for "carers" of people with eating disorders - not the actual sufferers - they had their own meetings run at the same place) and it was two cases of a daughter (with anorexia) with a heroin addiction and a wife (with anorexia) and an alcohol problem that I found too traumatic to hear about on a regular basis - what I heard at the meetings used to play on my mind too much after the meetings that it actually caused me to stop attending. 

Good to know she has managed to bounce back and is still making music. 

My information on Beth Hart is based on an interview that she gave about her old issues. She also said that she was diagnosed with a bi-polar disorder later in life. No mention (as I remember) of the anorexia, but I'm sure that was a big factor as well. 

It is good to see someone recovering from such a serious condition. It is also good to see her getting to a position where she can enjoy some of the success that her undoubted talent deserves. 

Edited by peteb
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On 07/04/2021 at 09:06, lemonstar said:

Yes (thereabouts) - it's not as simple as anyone would like it to be - it's a mental illness through and through and a strange one. She is in a small minority who have made a good, possibly very good "recovery" from having been in a really terrible state. 

I've known people with body dysmorphia and anorexia.

I know someone very well with 'chaotic eating' (binge - restrict, rather than classic binge-purge), less destructive but adds to various burdens as well as being a source of anxiety in itself. I think I have a tendency to  myself - I can eat enormous quantities of food when I'm unhappy or stressed, but find crash dieting gives me a very comforting feeling of control when the rest of life all seems to be out of control. Although I've not been below the top end of my health BMI range for decades. My obsession is with hitting my ideal weight 13 stone, which is actually a very healthy one for me. The trigger was getting poor cholesterol and BP results so I decided to drop just over 1 1/2 stone and did it in a couple of months, aside from a few short periods I've stayed down at around 13 for nearly four years and I feel much fitter.

I used to be naturally very thin ( 6' 2" and 11 stone) until my late 20s despite being a big eater, I feel much happier with another two stone on). It was quite scary when I realised I was cruising aisles in the supermarket looking at things I would love to eat but wasn't going to let myself have... I have no desire to get that thin again, but it is disturbing to have this 'dialogue' with food that can almost become a negotiation, and it is very easy to understand how people can struggle with anorexia, bulimia and even over-eating.

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I play drums, mostly funk-style, ripping off the likes of Zigaboo Modeliste, Jabo Starks, Clyde Stubblefield etc. However, I've become a real sucker for  drummers like Tomas Haake (Messhugah), Mario Duplantier (Gojira), Dave Lombardo, Brann Dailor (Mastodon) and Jay Weinberg (Slipknot). Check this out

 

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On 07/04/2021 at 12:12, peteb said:

The girl in the video is the excellent Beth Hart. At the time she had a bad heroin habit, which I think was her primary issue rather than anorexia. She seems to have been clean for a long time and has gone on to be pretty successful (a couple of biggish albums with Joe Bonamassa among others). 

This is a more recent photo (a few years ago). As you can see, she looks a lot healthier. 

BETH HART - LULLABY OF THE LEAVES LOIVE @ ATHENS 2019 - YouTube

Saw her at the Hexagon in Reading a couple of yeasr ago.....sensational, a really personal show and a great support band.  Will be going to see her again and fully recommend.

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