Speaker 1: 00:03
YNA is a podcast that focuses on mental health and other aspects relating to what goes on inside a person's head. We are by no means professionals on this field and only aim to make these conversations about mental health easier for the listener. Nothing we say or talk about is professional advice unless explicitly mentioned. If you seek professional advice or experience symptoms of an actual mental health disorder, please contact a professional or visit your closest center for behavioral health. You are not alone. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to You Are Not Alone. This topic is on eating disorders. And we are here with Laura.
Speaker: 00:36
Hi.
Speaker 1: 00:37
Who really knows and has a lot of information about eating disorders, and we just really want to have a conversation with her and what she really thinks about it. So, Laura, do you want to tell us a little bit about you and what you got going on?
Speaker: 00:50
Yeah, so I'm Laura. I am 18 years old. I live in the Netherlands. My passion is dancing, it is also my hobby. And I have been diagnosed with anorexia nerf, which is an eating disorder. And right now I am studying. I want to work in kindergarten or in daycare. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Speaker 1: 01:12
Awesome. So we can just jump right into it and uh really get down into the details of what anorexia is. So if you could describe to me what is anorexia for the listeners.
Speaker: 01:22
Yeah, so anorexia is categorized by a fear of gaining weight. And it will often lead to obsessive exercising, being obsessed with losing weight. And when you have anorexia, you want to go further and further and further, you want to keep losing weight. And it is a really restrictive eating disorder. And a lot of people compensate. Compensating uh is when you, for example, can have the donut, but you need to skip your breakfast or you need to exercise after it. So that is what compensating is.
Speaker 1: 01:57
Okay, so when did you find out that you had anorexia? It seems like it's like something that you can't really figure out until you go through all of it and find more information about it, honestly. Because if you're just working, like if you're eating and working out and you're not really gaining weight, it's just like you keep going down this road of just like you're you're not sure if it's something about you or if it's just like something that you're doing wrong. So, how did you find out that you had it?
Speaker: 02:24
Uh, so how I found out is I started off with uh losing weight. This is obviously different for everyone. I had a period of time where I was uh really into junk food and I ate a lot of it. I always was like a uh tiny small girl, and everyone told me like you can eat everything you want and you will not get fed. And I really started to believe it, and I ate a lot of junk food, so I gained weight, and I saw the people around me notice, so I decided to lose weight, obviously, first off in a really healthy way, and then I got a lot of compliments from people around me, like, oh you look so good, and have you lost weight? Because you look so good, you look amazing, it really looks good in you, you know. So these compliments started to really get in my mind, and of course, complimenting people is not wrong, but if you compliment people on losing weight, it can also lead into an eating disorder. But because for me it was like, oh, I have been seen, I am being noticed because there is a thing that I am good at. My parents can see right now that I'm very disciplined, and that turned for me into losing more weight that just got me in a cycle where I couldn't get out of anymore.
Speaker 1: 03:54
So when you had these compliments, it sounds like it was kind of like a morale boost and people around you were trying to help you, but it doesn't seem like them trying to help you really helped the way that it should have. Is there any way if I was in a conversation with someone who was trying to lose weight or in this kind of period of not sure of like losing weight, gaining weight, on how I can handle a conversation without making it sound like it's just so much compliments and all about weight? And what can I say to help the other person better instead?
Speaker: 04:27
Um, so that is a hard question. Um, but I think it is important to not really, of course, if someone is really like losing weight because they are overweight or they really want to feel better, it is good to give them compliments, don't get me wrong. But it is better to focus on other things than their body. For example, say your hair looks good today, or you have a really nice fit today, or you look better right now, or things like that don't always just focus on their weight, or you can also say, like, oh, you look really shiny right now, or uh, you look healthy, you know. Yeah, I think that is really important, and I think it is really different how these compliments will affect someone, someone's mental state. For me, it took a toll on me and I kept losing weight because of it. But it could also be that anorexia was already in my head and took the these compliments as something that drived my anorexia to go further. So you don't know what is going on in someone's mind while giving them these compliments, and I think that is really hard, and that is just a really hard part of it that you don't know how someone is going to take these compliments.
Speaker 1: 05:49
So, with anorexia, does it when when you're looking at food and how how would you describe the whole process of what's going on through your head? So, like, let me say like I offer you a donut, it's like, is it difficult for you to like think about it like I want to consume this, or is it more of just like a process that your body just can't do it?
Speaker: 06:11
Um, so for me personally, uh when I get offered a donut, for example, as you said, for me it's what is going on in my mind right then is like, oh, this is a lot of calories, or uh, should I do it? I am going to eat this or this tonight, will I gain weight from it? So that is kind of what is going on in my mind when someone will offer me a donut. But I'm trying to challenge these fears right now, and I already had donuts and muffins before, um, while in recovery. But these things are still hard for me, and there is still that voice in my mind that will say, like, this is bad for you, you will gain weight from it, all this type of stuff, you know?
Speaker 1: 06:56
So, like, we described on one of our episodes in our second season where we describe that voices in your head are like these people that are like don't really help you and sometimes like they lead you down a wrong path. So, I gotta ask you, like, is there any way you like quiet the voices? Is there any way that you stand up for yourself against the voices and you say, Hey, like, I'm not gonna allow this to take over me? I'm gonna be, I'm gonna, I'm like, it's bettering my mental health to have the conversation, to stop allowing them to take over. Is there anything you do to challenge them? And like, could you give our listeners anything that they could do to challenge their voices?
Speaker: 07:34
Yeah, so of course, when I am in therapy with my psychologist, she she helped me how I could do this. A really big important thing about this is to talk. If you are going to challenge a fear and that voice inside your head is like, oh, this is bad for you, blah, blah, blah. Then it is really important to talk to others about it. And if you not want to talk, then just grab your phone or distract yourself or eat it and really be conscious about what you eat and what you consume, and really think about how it tastes. And then afterwards, you can also look for distractions, such as doing something that you like, for example, doing some art, or maybe you can sometimes it is really relieving if you just write down your thoughts. Also, maybe listening to music or having a dance party on your own. Such things can really help you to challenge that voice inside your head. And if you are further a recovery, um, it is much easier to say, like, okay, I'm not going to listen to you, I'm going to do it anyway. Okay, so you say that I can have it, I am going to have it. Do the exact opposite of what that voice in your head says.
Speaker 1: 08:52
So, pretty much go against it and make sure that whatever it says, that you have a something prepared in your head. So, if I say like, I can't eat this, you tell yourself, yes, you can eat this. So, it's really, it sounds like it's really important what you tell yourself, like how you speak to yourself, right?
Speaker: 09:08
Yeah, that's really important. And it's really important to also tell yourself that you believe in yourself, that you are proud of yourself, and that you are going to make it, that you are going to make that other step in your recovery, and that you are going to eat that donut, for example.
Speaker 1: 09:23
And you said that you started going to therapy, and that really changed a lot of like what you were thinking and like how you were speaking to yourself. Was it really difficult for you to start therapy, or was it something that took time, or was it something that you're like, I found out that I have anorexia? I think the best way to handle this is therapy.
Speaker: 09:41
Yeah, so for me, it's it was pretty hard because when I was going to college, my parents already just noticed that I had an eating disorder because one of my friends told my parents how bad I was doing. And when I got to college, I promised my parents that I was going to do it on my own. But it was for me. I said that I was going to do it on my own, but it was so I could go back to my eating disorder after, if they believed me, kind of. So I was going downhill again, and my parents noticed, my friends on school noticed. My friends at school actually were the reason I was going to my GP. They said to me, like, this can't go further any longer. Sometimes they were even scared for my life. They also told me that. And that was pretty heartbreaking. I acted like I didn't care, but it was really going around in my mind a lot of the times. Uh, so eventually I decided to go to my GP and he sent me to a dietitian. And after that, I also got a psychologist, but she wasn't specialized in eating disorders. So both of them didn't work. So eventually I did go to my GP again and I told him, like, this isn't working. I think we need to find therapy that is specialized.
Speaker 1: 11:07
So when you found out the therapy, the the right specialized therapy, what coping skills did they give you? Did they give you any skills, any tools to use to help yourself to get better? Or was it kind of just like, like, this is what you're dealing with? Um, and these are the kinds of things that you're gonna see, and how are you, and this is how you're gonna have to look at it and handle it. But that did they give you anything? Because I know with when I had depression, well, I still do have depression, but uh my therapist would give me different tools and different skills. And he said, like, writing down journaling is really important, getting your thoughts out is really important, not holding your thoughts inside of your head and actually expressing yourself to other people and how you're feeling is really important. Don't just hold it in. He also gave me like tools of like counting backwards, focus on counting backwards, and or try to uh distract yourself by saying a lot of uh crazy numbers, like try to count back from 3,406 by seven, and so like you kind of distract yourself away from the sadness, you kind of just allow yourself to get better with these tools. So, did they give you any tools at all?
Speaker: 12:14
Yeah, they give they gave me a lot of tools. They also have like I don't know how you call it in uh English, but we call it like a 5G schema, and that is where you are you have like uh something that happened, then you have your feelings, then you have how you reacted, and then you have one more, but I don't know it anymore. Um, and you also have like a uh solve a problem like schedule, and it is seven steps. So first you're going to look like okay, what is the problem, and you're going to look at it like straightforward. So the problem is uh, for example, I am feeling fat, and then comes what was really going on. So then you see, uh, for example, okay, I was bloated, I just ate my dinner and I was bloated, and that made me feel fat. So then you see that feeling fat could not really be about your bloating, you know. So those things are connected, which shouldn't be connected, and then you are going to look for distractions. Uh, for example, you're going to talk about it with your mother, you are going to journal, you are going to write it down, uh, make some music, for example, and then you are going to look at how did it go? Did this help, or do I need to fight another distraction to help me further right now? And I got a lot of more tools also that I need to be more expressive with my emotions because I always keep them in. It is something that my father has to do. Um, so that is something that I also really needed to work on. So, yeah, that is that are kind of the tools that she gave me. And I think she gave me a lot more, but these are the ones that I remember the best.
Speaker 1: 14:09
Oh, these are these are great tools, and I think tools again are the are the cornerstone of what allow us to get better. Because without our tools, without our little things that can help us get better, we're stuck in this kind of pattern of like doing the same thing over and over again, hoping that they would get better. So, as as we continue down of trying to understand what anorexia really is, do you believe that this is something that you can use to your benefit at all? Do you believe that you and your like because I understand that it's been said that anorexia is treatable? However, like I said in my other podcast episodes, like mental disorders will follow you for the rest of your life. It's not something that goes away completely. It's something that you deal with every day and will sometimes it'll be at your highs and sometimes it'll be at your lows. Like you nearly never know. And so I have to ask, is this something that you plan on like trying to treat eat and trying to get rid of, or is this something that you want to grow with and become better with? And it's and it seems like you're spreading a lot of information out there to help other people get a hang of it. So, how do you feel about it in the end?
Speaker: 15:15
Uh, so for me, I really try to work towards just kind of get rid of anorexia. And I know that a lot of people say that anorexia stays with you forever, but it is that you are more vulnerable in uh different situations than other people. Maybe, for example, if you get pregnant in the future, that you obviously gain weight, that you are more vulnerable to these thoughts again, but it is really treatable and you can get rid of it, but you are more vulnerable. But these thoughts can really go away, but it will take years of time.
Speaker 1: 15:55
And with it being with it taking a long time for you to try to focus on how to help yourself and how to get better. So, for someone who isn't very familiar with it and maybe might have a friend out there who has anorexia, how should I start a conversation with them to like inform them, like, hey, like I'm not sure how what's going on, but I clearly see that you're not acting the same and you're not eating the same. Is there a how do I start the conversation?
Speaker: 16:24
So I think it is really important to just go to them and just to ask them from, hey, how are you? Um, are you doing okay? And you can ask them further, like, uh, okay, so I have been noticing that I see you struggle a bit more. Um, is there something going on? You know that you can tell me everything, and I think it is important to talk about it because I care about you. Really let them know that you are there for them, that you support them no matter what, that you are someone who can who they can talk to whenever they feel bad about themselves or whenever they are struggling. I think that is really important to give him that them that kind of trust. But at the same time, people with eating disorders most of the times deny that they have it until they are really in treatment for it. So until they find like good help, you see that they are really like isolating themselves a lot from people, and I think you can really see it from that if they are starting to isolate themselves, if they are starting to be way more quiet and school. Obviously, that could be a lot of things, that could be something that has happened. Uh, maybe they are suffering from depression, eating disorder, it could be about anything. But I think at that time, if you see someone being not themselves anymore, it is important to step up to them, like, hey, yeah, what are you doing? So, uh, yeah, I think that is really important, and yeah, I think that is a way to get to them.
Speaker 1: 18:00
Start the conversation, and I think yeah, that that's the best part is just getting to the conversation, just allowing them to express their emotions about how they feel, especially if it's something that they're not prepared to talk about. Because honestly, could I ask you this? Were you ready to talk about it when you first found out?
Speaker: 18:17
Um, when I first found out, I was really, really in denial, and I thought that they were crazy. Like the one that gave me like the um diagnosis that they were crazy, they weren't right. And of course, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that they were right, but it was still hard for me to accept the fact that I really had anorexia and that I needed to be treated because of it. And um, I just didn't believe it, and I was really in denial, and I think that is a really big thing about it that you are really in denial at the first, but after you are going to see, like, okay, my life is so much better right now, and I really see that I needed to go through this to become myself again.
Speaker 1: 19:08
It sounds like it's a very dark tunnel in the beginning. Like, it sounds like you aren't very sure what you're entering or what you're learning about, and once you can you don't really see a light clearly because you're walking into something you're so unsure about, and that could take a very long time to get over. But it sounds like you really did see the light at the end and found out like that this is something that you personally can fight, something that you can treat, something that you know is inside of you, however, that you can honestly just get better and better every day, and that's honestly really important. That takes a lot of self-awareness. So, I do want to congratulate you on doing something like that. It's very yeah, 100%. So, I gotta ask this last question before we uh go off the podcast. If you were sitting across from somebody who wasn't very sure if they had anorexia or they think they have anorexia, what would you tell them? What would you say to them to get get them to go get diagnosed to get them the help that they need? Because I believe that people when they until they're fully aware and identify the problem, they'll never actually go and get the help that they need. So if you were again sitting across from them, what would you say to them?
Speaker: 20:15
Um, so I would actually take my friends as an example, because they really forced me in the beginning. It was really hard for me, but they needed to. So they really said to me, like, okay, um, you know what? You are just going to UGP. If you're not, we are going to find your mother on Facebook and um we are going to tell her that this isn't going all right with you anymore, and you just need the help that you deserve. So I think you can be really harsh in the beginning because we are really stubborn. We are really stubborn, we just don't want to see it, we don't want to lose that control. Yeah, you know, keep going with it, and it is scared to let it go, and you don't know where to start and what is going to happen. It is like an unknown path. So I think it is really important to kind of be harsh in the beginning because now I see what they did for me, and I am so thankful. Uh so I think that is really important.
Speaker 1: 21:19
Hey, remember guys, if if there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, even if you're going through a dark path, like you and you don't see any light, there's always a light. So we're all getting through things that we can't fight about and we can't talk about, but the friends around you will communicate with you, find the right people to start the conversations, and we can honestly get there. So, again, Laura, I really appreciate you coming onto the podcast and talking to us about this whole topic and getting the people to get more information about what they need. Um, so I just want to remind everybody please, please, please remember you are not alone. And we will catch you guys on the next episode. Thanks, Laura.
Speaker: 21:55
Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. Bye.