Never Binge Again? UPDATE August 27, 2017

(Liz ) #21

I found EMDR very helpful in conjunction with behavioral modification. The EMDR healed the triggers so I could put the behavior mods into action. I wish you the best of luck. I’m a hardcore sugar addict and it’s a lifelong project to stay clean.

#22

You might find one that does both - my counsellor does IFS and brainspotting. He is not fixed in those techniques exclusively but has found them the most rounded after 25 years - IFS especially.

I hope you find something that works for you.

(Meeping up the Science!) #23

EMDR shows promise for PTSD in particular. Therapy is helpful, however the type of therapy matters less than the approach of the therapist. The character and nuance of the therapist, and the rapport between you and them, matter far more than the orientation itself. We are also not great for every client. I fully admit I am not the best therapist for everyone. I am very pragmatic, practical, and blunt. It is my goal to get results, since people’s time and money are valuable. Not every therapist is the same way.

It’s hard to say online what would work without detailed consulting. I’m also a long time consumer of therapy, and in my case, it took seven years of consistent therapy plus Vyvanse to finally conquer it 90% of the time. Bear in mind I used to eat over 30,000 calories a day, some days.

I still do get stressed and still crave cereal especially. I acknowledge it and look at my stress. I do a lot of reframing. I try to see why I am stressed. For instance, some coworkers are significant sources of stress to ridiculous degrees. I reframe this and repeatedly force myself to think of other positive things.

The truth is that with bingeing there will always be lapses. What we want to prevent is a relapse. Even non-bingey peeps overeat for comfort and stress. For us, we must guard against the loss of control sensation more. That’s what we have to keep an eye on and be vigilant regarding. The food consumption, irksome as it is for us, is actually not the chief problem.

(Doug) #24

Donna, vast thanks to you for your good writing and your experience and knowledge. There is so much here to be learned - much of it contrary to what many of us have internalized for decades - and completing the mental/psychological picture, in addition to the physical/digestive/biochemical aspects, is a very important thing.

(Thomas Yates) #25

I pinpointed mine to loneliness. When I was young I was kind of left on my own as a kid. I found solace in food then. That was when I was around 8 years old, and I went from super skinny to huge (I’ve also wondered about some abuse, but no clear thinking on that).

I lost it all when I was around 14 years old and was skinny again til about 30. Then I gained but was able to lose it all through keto and stayed thin til around 40. Now at 52 I have gained all back and more, year by year and pound by pound… On my way down now, and dealing with these aching feelings of loneliness. Which is weird, because I have plenty of people for support and a lovely SO of the last 23 years. Not being hungry in the least makes me face what is really going on in my life. I have much better coping skills now and am figuring things out.

(Thomas Yates) #26

I have been portioning my food. Generous portions, that I eat and then I wait for 25 minutes to see if I am still hungry. If I really feel like I’m not satiated yet I will give myself another smaller portion, and continue. Usually if I wait, I am fine after the first portion.

(Thomas Yates) #27

Interesting. Thanks! did you do this therapy on line or in person?

#28

I work with a counsellor who is based in the UK but I live in France. We work together on Skype.

#29

Thank you so much for your response, Thomas. (I apologize for being slow to write back; email and online living sometimes gets overwhelming.)

I have wondered about some of the same things you have. I suspect also that there is some loneliness in me, but I don’t feel it. I was only married a short time, and I had a series of 2 - 4 year relationships. But other than that, I’m on my own. My heritage is Norge and Scotch, and both are stoic loner types. The elders in our family are quintessential in that way. So I think that’s why it just feels normal to be on my own.

I’m tired of viewing my life and health as a series of things to “fix”. This forum has been really helpful for me. I’m really touched by the depth in the responses to the “Binge” question I posted.

Heck, now I made myself teary. Thank you so much for making the time to write your thoughts, Thomas. All my best to you,

AE

#30

Thank you, Daisy! I appreciate it.

#31

I don’t agree with that one bit. not all disordered eating comes from trauma. AND cravings DO CAUSE BINGING for sure. For some disordered eating is not necessarily associated with trauma or depresion

(Meeping up the Science!) #32

Above I actually said (emphasis new): “Most disordered eating is caused by a loss of control or trauma that occurred in the past, and the disordered eating is done unconsciously to re-find control and equilibrium.”

I did not say all disordered eating comes from trauma and/or depression. A small percentage comes from habit or learned patterns. A small percentage of eating disorders are also perhaps genetic or learned. Having said that, the majority of true disordered eating (note: I don’t mean occasional or rare overeating) does come from trauma, or has a root in emotional dysregulation (not just depression, actually, FYI). It’s very rare that it just occurs without a reason/due to habit/etc.

The biological regulation for consumption can go awry for physiological reasons too. Prader-Willi Syndrome is a classic example. Emotional eating I’d also consider to be caused by emotional dysregulation, from a clinical standpoint. Hormonal imbalances can affect appetite for sure, however most people can typically control this. When people cannot control the impulse to eat when they are starving, that’s technically pathological eating to varied degrees. And yes, I’ve treated people with cravings who had issues overeating - but they did not have clinical binges.

A true psychological binge has a loss of control associated with it. If there is no loss of control, then technically it isn’t a binge in a psychological sense. It is overeating, sure. But no, it’s not a binge. There’s medical criteria for binging.

In my experience, too, clients who binge also have an environmental trigger paired with the physiological craving, whether stress, anxiety, anger, a long day at work, boredom, etc. The cravings are almost invariably tied to an external stimulus, and we are not always aware of this consciously. I think even when paired with addictive foods, there is almost always an external cue or trigger. This is often the case with addictive drugs, as well, particularly if people are sober and relapse. They may not even be aware of what drives them to use. So it is the same for us.

However, I would be greatly interested in any resources that contradict this, as I don’t wish to spread misinformation. I’d love to see what you have. :slight_smile:

#33

Apologies, didn’t want to speak for everybody. i know that what you wrote above is true for most individuals struggling with disordered eating issues. but not for all. I know in most cases these are associated with trauma, depression, anxiety etc from a clinical perspective. I have been struggling with disordered eating (bulimia mostly) for more than 15 years and have been trying to discover, with therapy which is the root cause for my individual case. Finding out that there is nothing wrong with me from a mental health perspective has been eye-opening and I trully belive, after so many years that I am suffering from a type of addiction created in my brain over time, a faulty neural message from the lower brain, which is responsible for the creation of habits. Believing I have a mental disease, underlying psychological problems or that binging on food is JUST a coping mechanism for difficult emotions and trying to discover what was wrong with my feelings was a nightmare because it never made sense to me. i know now that I do not have to fix some underlying deep rooted “pain” or fix my personality anymore because there is nothing wrong with that. I become aware of this when I embarked on a ketogenic lifestyle 2 yrs ago (this is the moment i understood that all that i have been taught in therapy doesn’t make sense as keto made me “think” more clear and be more emotionally stable) and when I read the Brain over binge book by Kathryn Hansen. I belive now that starting from a stupid diet I have come all the way to creating a deeply ingrained habit and this led, during the years, to a true addiction of the brain, the lower brain. Nowadays I feel that my binges happen because I find it unbearable to fight the urges and not because of some mental illness that I have to figure out in order to recover. Again, I know this is not the case with everybody. It is still as hard to fight back that brain automatism, but realising that it is nothing more than an addiction of the brain has truly lifted a rock from my heart.
I am aware of how medical criteria regards eating disorders, binge eating etc and the psychological and physical particularities associated with it and also the accepted medical methods of treatment but I do not agree - (again, for my specific case and for other individuals who managed to tackle this issue by considering it is nothing more than a faulty neural path created in the brain) completely with those & find it very damaging for everybody trying to recover because it makes it seem that you will never be able to stop binging (and purging) unless you solve what’s screwed up in your life or fix your flaws. “The wiring in our brain was created when we started binging/purging and a habit was formed. A path for the brain to follow that was set into motion and whether we’ve had bulimia for 4 or 40 years, we’ve just been replaying that old tape over and over without knowing how to change the station.”
The mainstream view on the matter (and accepted medical treatment)… just takes away from you any bit of power you might be able to use in healing yourself. it takes away from you the idea that you yourself can do something about it - empower yourself to fight that neural path created in your brain over time. Apologies I didn’t explain my point of view in my previous post and also for my english as I am not a native speaker.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this as I see you also help people struggling with these issues. I wish I could say I recovered but i still have a hard time with that. But changing my view as described above greatly reduced the amount of emotional pain I was feeling squashed under every single day. Even if that meant finding out I am responsible for my disordered eating more than I thought.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Again, apologies for my abrupt comment.
And english:upside_down_face:

Glenn Livingston, Ph.D. author of “Never Binge Again,” and Polly Mertens,a Life and ED Recovery Coach Who Overcame 20 Years of Bulimia have a similar approach…

(Meeping up the Science!) #34

Actually, @zuza you have an amazing perspective. Thank you for sharing it. And you are absolutely right. Also your english is better than most people I know who speak it natively, so… and I am a nerd, and I also know I am not always right, so I always ask people to tell me what they know! I never want to pass up an opportunity to learn something I do not know.

I don’t think that it minimizes it by looking at it as a brain pathway. In a way, it helps us know it isn’t always our fault, even if it is created for other reasons. I think that in my case (I have binge eating disorder) I experienced a similar thing to you, actually. I do think a component is choice and willpower, but a part is definitely not, too. Everyone is an individual, so we are all different.

I absolutely feel perspective is vital. I think that we give up too much power in my culture, particularly women. The fact that something is neurological gives more power to me personally, because I know that I can choose to literally rewrite my brain by changing my habits. We call this neural plasticity.

As for having a mental disease, if we live long enough regardless of who we are, we will meet the criteria for one sooner or later, eating or no. This is unfortunate in many ways. Mental illness diagnosis is not well understood, and largely it is poorly done (in my opinion).

Most people I treat, and myself, take a long time to see where we can change. It is very hard for people with disordered eating to accept control over our own lives, which is sort of ironic, since a lot of it comes from a need for control. I think you actually have fabulous insight…thank you again for sharing it with all of us :slight_smile:

As for recovery, I think for many of us recovery is maintenance. The most important thing is we must be kind to ourselves, but also have rules for ourselves. The attitude we approach things with matters a great deal, but therapists aren’t trained to fix attitudes. I do, and I seek out to change my attitude and my clients’ as well, and the things you mention are flaws in treatment and help that I hope to change. Those of us who can change our perspective and attitude always have the best results… but if only it were so easy to do!

I think it is possible to stop binging with redirection and other issues. Can you completely stop binging, or can I? I do not know the answer to that. No one does. Some people manage to and others do not. I only know that my own personal attempts to stop binging hopefully make me a better counselor for what I have learned from you, from others, and from myself.

#35


Love her!

#36

Thank you TeeCee. Will check her out. Currently on my 43 day in recovery after almost 15 years and going strong. Feel very tense and could use some encouragement so will surely have a look. Thanks again:)