It’s been a little over a year since I started my binge eating disorder recovery journey… again. However, this time my stubbornness is paying off. I’ve had many ups and downs, but I’m still hanging in there.
Relapses in my eating disorder recovery journey
Up until a month ago, not much had changed, other than the fact that I was eating healthier foods and my binges were fewer and farther in between. Ok, that is actually a lot of change…but I wasn’t satisfied.
All of my adult life I’ve been able to lose weight, not a ton at a time (other than in 2016), but I’d lose about 20 pounds before I’d go on a larger than life extended binge and gain it all back again in a month or less. During that month I’d try to restart my diet every Monday only to binge again by Wednesday. Sometimes I wouldn’t even make it to Wednesday…or even Tuesday.
This past year I’ve been eating pretty healthy, with normal-sized portions, and support from others. From time to time I relapsed back into my eating disorder and bingeing only to restrict for days afterward. Then the cycle would repeat until I worked on my recovery program enough and got the willingness to start over. The longest I went working hard and eating right was about 35 days straight. Then I blew it due to anxiety and stress.
I then, of course, turned to food for comfort to numb out the anxiety and deal with the stress for short periods of time.
Good vs bad
I think it’s in our nature to think of everything we do as “good” or “bad”. It has to be one or the other. When it comes to eating disorders and the focus on food, every bit of food that goes in my mouth I think of as good or bad.
I also think of my eating overall as good or bad. If I’ve been “good” for a while and then relapse into a binge, then I consider myself “bad”.
Diet mentality
I don’t know if I’ll ever get the diet mentality out of my head. Even eating healthy, I still try to restrict because if I eat too much of anything that’s bad, right? (Not true.)
Specifically, with binge eating disorder and having tried several diets over the years, it’s ingrained in my head to eat as little as possible.
There has to be a way to change that…
Anxiety and depression cycles
For at least the last 6 months I’ve battled out of control anxiety. Not constantly, but most of the time.
A lot of my anxiety was about my youngest son and getting him to GO TO SLEEP. It plagued me all day, every day. Once he was in bed at night I would be on edge just waiting for him to wake up. Even now when he wakes up in the night he refuses to go back to sleep in his crib. However, when he’s in Mama and Dada’s bed, he’s off to dreamland almost instantly.
Oddly enough, I haven’t been overly anxious during the pandemic. Maybe it’s because I have reduced hours at work (I’m a nurse and work in a clinic) and we’re seeing fewer patients in person so I have a decreased chance of exposure.
The pandemic has affected my depression though, which I’m sure is the same for a lot of people. Not working as much and isolating is a recipe for mental health exacerbation.
The scale
My frustration was with my weight. The number on the scale was not budging. Granted, it wasn’t going up, but all of my (mostly) hard work had nothing to show for it. I expressed my frustration with my family, closest friends, and my mental health team. They thought my metabolism had changed dramatically due to my getting older and having had another baby, amongst other reasons.
I knew they meant well, but deep down I had a strong suspicion that it was one of my antidepressants that was causing this. I also was scared that if it wasn’t the medication, I was doomed to be the same size for the rest of my life and dying young from obesity complications.
Related: Giving Up The Scale: One Small Step Toward Recovery
Medication changes (finally!)
Disclaimer: I am not a mental health expert. If you have concerns about your health, either mental or physical, please contact your doctor or medical provider.
I started mirtazapine in January 2019 for postpartum anxiety, depression, and sleep which was added to my other two antidepressants. I had been taking the other two depression meds for about 10 years. I improved in all three aspects with mirtazapine, however, I was constantly STARVING!
I was always hungry and eating every few hours. To be fair, my doctor did tell me that it could cause weight gain. I wasn’t expecting something so dramatic though! About a month later, when my depression felt more manageable and I could think relatively straight, I started researching the drug and found out that it’s prescribed for chemotherapy patients to help with their appetite, and for people with anorexia to help with hunger cues.
Well! I was not happy with that due to the fact that, oh I don’t know… I already had binge eating disorder! I was angry that my doctor didn’t tell me any more about mirtazapine than “It could cause weight gain”.
So there I was, feeling better mood and sleep-wise, but constantly beating myself up because my overeating was worse than ever and I’d never been so CONSTANTLY hungry in my life!
Frustration
A couple of months later, after starting to eat healthier and not losing even one pound, I asked my doctor if I could try tapering off. She said yes, but when I decreased it by half, the depression came back with a vengeance.
So I went back to the original dose, all the while constantly ravenous.
At my next appointment, I told her I wanted to go off of mirtazapine and try something else. She said no this time because I had improved so much. I left the appointment feeling defeated like I would never get back to my previous normal. For years I had only needed two meds to manage my depression, and neither affected my weight or appetite.
Advocating for myself
At the end of last year (2019), I made a decision that enough was enough!
I went on a quest to find a new psychiatrist. After only a few phone calls, I found several in one private practice that was accepting new patients. Score!
I made an appointment. My new psychiatrist is completely different. He often says that it’s his job to present me with options and it’s my decision as to what I want to do. He was all for going off of mirtazapine and was puzzled as to why I was put on it in the first place. Finally, someone who understood!
Fast forward to today and I’m doing pretty well, given the current pandemic situation. I’m on a combination of meds now that balances me out. And none of them cause weight gain!
I don’t advocate for myself very often because I’m shy and afraid of confrontation, but it felt great to fix the situation with my medication and move on from my previous psychiatrist.
Final thoughts on eating disorder recovery journey
A little over a year after deciding to deal with this monster called binge eating disorder, I’m getting better every day. I, of course, have slips every once in a while, but the majority of the time I’m not bingeing and not overeating.
I avoid the scale like the plague/a certain pandemic and that feels REALLY good. I’m not constantly punishing myself with the number staring back at me on the scale. About 97.265545% of the time I forget about the scale. It’s not in my bathroom, thus it’s not constantly taunting me.
Here’s to another year of my eating disorder recovery journey! Cheers!
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