Medication for Eating Disorders?

Hello my darling fudgies!

Preface: For the people constantly googling where I'm going to college next year (I see you in my stats, children!), the answer is...I don't know yet. The moment I do know however I promise to tweet, blog, Instagram, scream it at the top of my lungs. We cool, bros? :) On to the real topic of today:

I must say I am, once again, what else is new, incredibly torn about this topic.
When I started this blog almost 3 years ago (!), I was adamantly opposed to the use of medication to treat eating disorders. But as my understanding of the ED culture and more importantly my understanding of medication has grown exponentially since then, so here are my thoughts on the topic.

Why I was against:

My argument against the use of pharmaceuticals to treat EDs was based on 2 things:
1. my understanding of my own experience with bulimia
2. my understanding of medication

Firstly, I felt that eating disorders could be recovered from without meds. After all, I did it!
Sure it's long, and painful, and requires lots of conversations with others and with yourself that you really don't want to have, but my God is it worth it when you cross the finish line!
So why use meds when they simply are not required to beat the monster growing inside your brain? Especially when some anti depressants are known to cause weigh gain, talk about triggering!

Secondly, I considered medication to be a last resort, for long term, clinical, chronic illnesses, like schizophrenia. This attitude probably stems from my upbringing in Quebec, a province not too keen on pill pushing. And even as I did more research, studies suggested that the use of SSRI (mainstream anti-depressants) to treat anorexia or bulimia had generally great relapse rates. 

Why I am now torn

Here's the deal: my experience with an ED can help me empathize with others suffering or who have suffered, but at the end of the day, everyone's journey is different. Sure, I was able to beat my ED with talk therapy and blogging, but someone else might not be able to, no matter how hard they try.
To use solely my experience as a measurement for what is right or wrong would be foolish!

To top that off, medication can be used for all types of problems. Sometimes depression can be so deep rooted and intertwined with an ED that recovery is not possible if we don't clear up some of the mood issues in order to get to the root source of the problem. Besides, NEDIC says that the average sufferer deals with Bulimia Nervosa for 8.3 years!!!!! Fine, that's not a life time, but that sounds pretty long term to me, so if medication is needed to survive that period of time, than that's the way it's gotta be.

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This topic is delicate, because people's health, physical and mental, is on the line here, but I think this is an important topic to discuss.
Please leave your thoughts down in the comments, I'm really interested in what you have to say. 

xoxo
Gabby

Nothing Is Stronger: A Poem

Hello my dolls:)

This is a (sort of, I tried) translation of a piece I wrote for ANEB. To read the original in French, click here. 
Enjoy<3

I didn't stop eating for your pity;
Your empathy, your sympathy, I don't need 'em anyway.
I don't starve myself simply to be skinny,
to watch my bones shrink away;
No, my eating disorder is all about control.

Controlling my weight, controlling my body,
when everything else in my life is a mess.
When my brain cries out, begging for mercy,
Nothing numbs the pain like eating less.
Nothing in the world seems stronger,
than the pull of my eating disorder.

The booming voices that echo in my head;
Nothing is stronger.
The hollow concave of a stomach barely fed;
Nothing is stronger.
Lifeless eyes accompany my talk,
As my fragile bones barely let me walk.
But I don't care about death, I'm not afraid to wither;
Because nothing is stronger than my eating disorder. 

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But I was wrong, you see, for I decided one day
That I wouldn't let this monster steal my soul away.
I had had enough of the shame, the guilt, the self-loathing,
so I raised a white flag, faced the wind and started screaming,
Hoping that somewhere, someone was listening.

Every day is a war, a new enemy I meet.
Sometimes it's a victory, at times it's a defeat.
I fall, I get back up, but of this progress I am proud,
For I seldom understand the person I had once been.
My eating disorder is yesterday's sin;
There is nothing stronger than my will to win. 

Men and Eating Disorders: A Hidden Truth

Hello my beautiful fudgies!

I wrote an article for ANEB Quebec in french about men and eating disorders, which you can find here: http://www.anebquebec.com/blogue/2013/09/25/le-sexe-cache-des-troubles-alimentaires/ 
It's a very important social issue to me, so I translated it for you all to read. Enjoy:)


When the media addresses the topic of eating disorders, they tend to insinuate that it is a problem for young girls or women, reinforcing the societal myth that only females can suffer from an eating disorder, when in fact this psychological disorder excludes no race, gender, or age.

Indeed, studies estimate that 10 to 15 % of people who suffer from anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, and close to 50% of those who suffer from binge eating disorder, are men.
But where does this lie come from, and what are its impacts? 

"A Real Man?" 

For centuries, and even millenniums, men "worked", whether that be hunting or farming, while women bore and took care of children; that was just the way it was, no questions asked. This rather sexist mentality considered women to be beauty objects and proprieties, it was therefor normal for them to worry about their appearance, whereas her husband did not.
The 1960s brought the feminist movement to the forefront, which reconstructed many aspects of the expected societal gender roles, but regarding male looks and grooming, very little has changed. We are still being taught that men do not worry about their weight or physical appearance, it is therefor impossible for them to suffer from an eating disorder. 

Beauty Ideals? 

Although there is a stigma surrounding men and eating disorders, they are pressured into a standard of male "beauty" that is just as unrealistic and destructive as its female counterpart. Young men sporting enormous defined muscles star in countless Hollywood movies and TV shows, or cover billboards and magazines in popular ads for brands such as Axe.
Ken is just as perfect as Barbie, so why wouldn't men be influenced by the unhealthy representations around them? 

Fear, Shame, and a Dirty Little Secret

But why is it so important that this myth be debunked? First of all, because eating disorders are considered by much of the population to be a feminine problem, men usually feel ashamed of their difficulties, and rarely or never seek help. Eating disorders are the mental illness with the highest mortality rate, therefor this issue shouldn't be taken lightly. Moreover, this erroneous belief makes identifying and diagnosing EDs in men that much more difficult, since medical health professionals aren't looking our for the signs and symptoms.

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Luckily, more and more courageous men are opening up about their straddles, but many more suffer in silence, and it is for them that we must continue to educate as many people as possible on the subject. 

sources: http://www.nedic.ca/resources/documents/MaleBodyImageandEatingDisorder-IncreasingConcern.pdf

http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics 

Have a lovely day, my loves
xoxo

Gabby

Recovery: How Long Should It Take?

Good morning my beautiful sunshines.

For those of you going or gone back to school, I wish you all the luck in the world. I also offer you my condolences for the terrible loss of your REM sleep, especially if you're like me and all your million dollar ideas occur to you ONLY at 3 o'clock in the morning. May the excitement of geometry be enough to pull you out of bed (LOL #sorrynotsorry).

I haven't written a personal, ergo especially sassy post in a while. I have been focused on writing up more researched pieces for the FP and for my other writing jobs, but the truth is I miss being the writer who transforms everything into a weird metaphor and uses too many terms of endearments. She will be back:)

When I started the blog sometime in early 2012, I was 16 years old, a few months out of my hospitalization. I wrote about the tips and tricks that helped me (and still help to this very day)feel better about my body and the beautiful, complex world that I lived in. I wrote about why you shouldn't care about other people's judgements, about loving your flaws, about recognizing your amazingness. Granted, they were often terribly written, but I was in the 10th grade, sue me.

In my rational mind, I believed all these things, but they didn't seem so real to me when my emotions got in the way. I wanted these body positive ideals to be what I automatically thought when I ordered food at a restaurant or caught my reflexion in the mirror. Truth be told, I just wasn't there yet. I understood the words, but I didn't get it.

I felt like all the work I put into my recovery was a waste.
Like I was letting down my friends, my family, my doctors and nurses, and especially my fudgies.
Why was this taking so long? Why weren't these thoughts and habits reflexes by now?

When I started the blog, I thought I was at least 50% over all my problems, when in reality, I was probably at a measly 10%.

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I am now soon-to-be 18 years old, moving on with my life, and as I look back at the journey that seemed to have taken forever, I realize how much I've changed.

I now know what it means to love who you are, flaws included.
I am not done, I still have a few demons to fight off, but I have reached the light at the end of the tunnel.

So. For anyone who is going through the motions, who feels like all their work is amounting to nothing, I promise you are just laying down this incredibly strong base for yourself, because one day you will look down from the impossibly lovely skyscraper you didn't even realize you had built, and you will smile. (how's that for a weird metaphor? I'm so back)

Because it doesn't matter how long the millions of steps take, just as long as you keep walking. 

I hope your day is an amazing one, my darlings!

xoxo

Gabby

PS: also, if you haven't noticed by my repetitive tweets, I am downright obsessed with the song Waterloo Sunset, by The Kinks. They are an incredible band, and I actually cried when I first heard this song, I'm not even fu**ing around, it's that beautiful. It also may or may not have been really late at night, but still, Ray Davies is the God of all that is melodic.