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Your Emails and Insights
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I have received so many emails from people around the world and it is both amazing
and a gift, how we can all communicate now. Thank you for all your feedback, it
is so very valuable in understanding and fighting against the power of disordered
eating. Let's continue to share our insights, fears, pain and love in order to
continue to inspire.
Due to the volume of emails I receive, it may take me a few weeks to reply, but I do reply
to all emails so don't lose heart!
Hi Melinda, I confess, I have not read your book yet, but I have seen your website, which is very good and helpful. I am a 34 year old mother of 2 who is in treatment for an eating disorder. I hate myself so much and feel so fat and ugly all the time. I am 164cm tall and my weight hovers between 45 and 47kgs. I desperately want to lose weight, but am forced to eat dinner every day so that my kids don't catch on that anything is wrong. However, I do purge both by vomiting and laxative abuse. My family is unaware of this, but my psychiatrist knows. I have been seeing him for over a year, but it doesn't seem to be helping very much. I have read so much about the subject, and I know what advice I would give to someone in my situation, but for some reason, I am unable to follow that advice myself and apply it to my life. I am now beginning to feel that this is it for me, that my thoughts about eating or liking myself will never change, and that I should just stop worrying about it and let things be the way they are now....I am aware that only I can change myself and that recovery is up to me, but the fear I carry around all the time about gaining even an ounce, just never goes away. I am so pleased for you that you have recovered. Congratulations to you on that and also on your wonderfully informative website. Hopperfrog xxx Hi Melinda, hi, i'm a 12 1/2 year old girl in 7th grade. I am a half-identical twin (yes, it is possible) and have been suffering for 6 months from anorexia nervosa. I recently visited your web page and i have a few personal questions to ask, u dont have 2 answer them its just im so confused and... i need help and i understand that i have a serious problem and my hope and dream is to be well and the happy kid that i once was. my family know about my sister's and my problem and well everyone is just saying "Eat whatever u want 2" and the thing is i dont know when im hungry or what i want when i am and im eating like Balance Bars and stuff, i know its not a great food and its processed so what was like a GREAT food that u ate while trying to recover or what did u do about food? All my diet consists of is ...... healthy brand of kidney beans, whole wheat bread + tortias, some meat 5 times a week, apples, oranges, yogurt, walnuts, BALANCE BARS, oat-meal / Fiber one cereal, and cheese / milk. And everything i read says like u need "variety" and i know i am not getting a variety. I am eating the same thing everyday and i dont really get enough calories. and i know balance bars are processed and sugary, but they are high calorie and thats what i need. Also, should i stuff myself on food if i do not get enough calories in one day? or should i just eat when i am hungry and stop when SATISFIED? this is really hard and my parents wont take me to a health food grocery store and its too expensive. What else can i eat? i'm glad i have someone to ask these ?'s 2. I told my parents to take me to a psychiatrist, and they say they will but arent. (theyre divorced) they both say get the other parent to do it which doesnt help. Any suggestions? and are balance bars ok, or honestly should i stop eating them? Elise NOTE FROM MELINDA: I think you would really benefit from being on an outpatient program with a hospital - there you will be able to talk to both a qualified therapist/psychologist AND a dietician. The dietician will be able to advise you on what to eat and put you on a program so that you don't get upset and confused by what/how much to eat. Sit both your parents down together and tell them that you are suffering - make them understand how important their support is to your recovery. Balance bars are all right for a snack - but make sure you follow the advice of a dietician and eat from all five food groups. im an 18 year old female my body is very weak, my face gets paler every day, but in the back of my mind i hear nothing i see beauty i see that in a couple of months i will be the model my step mom never let me be. my waist is very small i guess but when i look in the mirror i see fat,and no i dont get hungry, i dont exercise anymore i used to when i was leading a "normal" life i know you probally dont care but ill tell you any way, you go to hell if you commit suicide right. but not for not eating. sometimes i wonder why i have all those slits on my wrists,and why ive overdosed so many times, im very pretty smart i guess, but yet pain is my game if you ever have an answer for that please tell me why in that perfect life did all my dads girlfriend hit me, why did my dad choose her after he gave me so much hope why is hope tormenting me making me not give up when i have nothing left to hold on to, so i choose this route i choose to punish myself for what im not sure maybe the attention , in fact i think it is. o well i guess when you get this you probally wont care i probaly wouldnt either but i say never heisitate to tell a stranger that you think maybe their outfit is nice or they look pretty, havent you ever just had a bad day and somebody out of the blue says hey great outfit it was probally me, and it made you feel real good inside almost like you could do anything? Any way bye. April Dear Melinda, How does it begin. I have read all of the web pages. Signs and symptoms. But I know that it begins well before severe weight loss. It has to. But how? When should you question yourself? What are some beginning signs? Sincerely, Missy NOTE FROM MELINDA: your inner voice always knows when something is not right. You start to feel a little depressed, and you have a second dialogue playing in your head telling you things that you are not even consciously thinking. For example, you may be having a conversation with someone when all of a sudden a voice will say in your mind 'I don't like you' about the person you are talking to. You start to question all your relationships, and whether people really do care about you. You become a little withdrawn and spend a lot of time alone thinking, or wanting to be alone rather than be around other people. You may even start avoiding people or inventing excuses not to see them. Deep down, you just don't feel right and you are aware that there is something not quite right. You feel a little lost and wonder why you feel that way. These are some of the things that I know I felt a few months before I began to starve myself. As soon as you feel any of these things, question yourself. Ask yourself why you think you feel that way. Try to channel your energy and passion into something you enjoy, something that will bring you happiness. Surround yourself only with people you love and trust. Confide in someone you trust about the fact that you are not feeling right and talk about what you feel is upsetting you. Or write it down, write and write about how you feel until you can write no more - this can be a great form of venting feelings and getting to the bottom of what is upsetting you. dear Melinda, i would like to say a big thankz for the book 'fighting for life' it really did help me...... when year 8 started in 2000 i came back to school 12kg lighter. one girl at my school noticed my legs had gone skinner and my face was pale and dry.. i had been starving and throwing up my food......i never realised it would happen to me.....my parents didn't take me to the doctors i was told by a lot of people what i had. ive stopped the dieting and all...but every time i see a pic of a beautiful girl in a magazine or Victoria Beckham (she is my idol) i start considering it and by that time im depressed about my looks..also i always compare myself to others and think .....oh gosh im fat ...i might loose bit from here and there....im not close to my family and i dont want to tell my friends....help me please. Kristen Hi Melinda I've had anorexia for 2 long 2 count and I can't shake it. I thought that maybe we could all email eachother for support and a shoulder to cry on. If any one is interested please email me at: angle_of_tommorow@hotmail.com Kat Dear Melinda, I have been reading over your website and found myself in tears. I hate eating.I eat nothing unless people start getting concerned and when I do eat I want to throw up -sometimes I do. I want to get better, but as you know its hard. I feel trapped. Sometimes I even find myself trying to convince me I don't have a problem at all but deep down I know I do. I've tried getting better by myself but I can't. I also can't tell my parents- they wouldn't understand. I read your book 'Fighting for Life' and it made me realize the danger i could face if I don't get better. I want to finish school, get married, have kids, get a job but if I don't get better all my dreams will get shattered. I feel as if no one understands me, sometimes I don't even understand myself. I know people understand eating disorders but I feel as if they wouldn't understand me in particular! I have a low self esteem, I hate myself, nothing I do is ever good enough, I just wish I was a better person... some one else. Melinda, you got through it. Parents may be a important role in getting better but it is impossible for me to turn to them. Please, if you have any advice or anything I would really appreciate it. I admire you... you got through it, Lisa Dear Melinda, I'm a 20-year-old girl suffering from a very strange eating disorder. I'm 165 cm tall and I weigh 58 kg so I'm physically normal. It's my mind that keeps tricking me into stupid diets that never work. I'll lay awake at night and promise myself to stop eating but in the morning I'll have breakfast anyway. It goes without saying that I'll feel guilty after eating and then I'll make new promises to break. A year and a half ago I was well on my way to develop a real eating disorder. I wasn't eating right and I'd always have head aches. I was living with my sister back then and she noticed something wasn't right although I wasn't losing weight due to overeating after a couple of days of not eating. It got to the point where I'd wake up before my sister every morning in order to be able to lie to her about having breakfast. She kept asking me what I'd had for lunch everyday and I felt so powerful for being able to lie to her. She finally told our father about my behaviour although she couldn't prove anything. Since I hadn't been losing weight drastically, my father didn't do anything but tell me I should eat right to stay fit. Somehow I got over my crisis before I got really sick. I guess something told me I was crazy. I find it very interesting that anorectic parents are more likely to get anorectic children that others. My mother suffered from anorexia all through her life, I believe. I never got the chance to ask her because she died about two years ago. Up to this day I don't know what caused her death. She had a heart attack but no one knows why she got it. I personally strongly believe it was caused by a bad diet. It wasn't until recently that I realised that I never once saw her eat a normal meal. She'd pick on her food and finally give it to the dog or someone else willing to eat it. It was all part of our daily life and I never thought there was anything strange about it. She'd sometimes go jogging twice a day and I was only proud of having such a healthy mother. As for me, I haven't been able to eliminate the voice in my head that keeps telling me to lose weight. When I look into the mirror, I see a normal body but I just don't like the shape of it and I'm sometimes convinced it would look better if only I weighed less... Right now I'm staying with my father for a couple of days. He was watching TV in the kitchen just now and I wanted to have a snack in there. When I entered the room he turned the TV louder and that was enough to make me want to punish myself (for disturbing him). I told him I wasn't hungry after all (in reality I'm starving) and went upstairs to surf the Net. On top of all that I'm really proud of myself at the moment. As usual, I'm very pleased with myself for having a head ache caused by too little food. Now is that sick or what?! I had to put off leaving for my father's because I just had to exercise before going away. I've also noticed that I find it very difficult to eat in public. I've had a couple of boyfriends so far and I've never been able to eat with them. I'm also dreading intimate contact because I feel fat around people I'm seeking to please, that is everybody. I guess I'm a typical victim of an eating disorder although I haven't developed the actual disease (yet). I want to be perfect, I want to do well at school and in my life in general. Anyways, I'm sorry for not being able to express myself in less words. Thanks for reading my e-mail! You've got a great page! NOTE FROM MELINDA: You are very lucky that you have never developed a full blown eating disorder - you seem to have a 'fail safe', that is, you get so far and then subconsiously stop yourself before you slip too far. Your emotions seem to dictate what or how much/how little you eat. This is your way of turning your emotions inside so as you do not have to express them externally. In terms of the voice, the more you listen to it, the more power you give it - listen to your inner voice, the one you KNOW speaks the truth - it will never lie to you and you can always trust it. Try to focus on the things in life that bring you joy, the things that you love doing, and derive happiness and achievement from these things. There are so many beautiful things in this world and shifting your focus off body weight and shape will enable you to widen your view of the world and form a wider basis for you to build your self esteem. Hi, my name is Anna Paterson and I have just written a book about my experiences with anorexia nervosa. I was badly abused as a child by my Grandmother and at the age of 17 developed anorexia. There then followed 13 nightmare years during which time my weight at one time dropped to an all time low of 4 stones 10 lbs (66 lbs) and I was taken into intensive care. I have survived anorexia, I fought against the voice in my head that constantly demanded that I starved myself to death and today I live a happy and full life with my fiance. I am mailing today because I am at the moment trying to let other sufferers of eating disorders know that there is hope, you can beat this illness, it need not ruin your life. I went down about as far as you can go and although the journey back was very tough it is possible. Writing down my story - the book is called 'Anorexic' (and it is available on www.Amazon.co.uk ) - was a very painful process and I cried practically every day I was writing the story but it does seem to be having a major impact on people suffering with eating disorders and other mental health problems. Since the book was published about three months ago I have been contacted by many people - sufferers thanking me for writing such an open and honest account of anorexia and professionals saying that I have taught them so much about such a secret illness. If you would like me to send you a copy of my book, I would be very happy to do that and would also like to offer my services if there is anything that I can do to help promote the message that anorexia can be beaten. Best wishes Anna Paterson Hi Melinda, I am a 21 year old girl with an eating disorder, I have noticed this myself because I had this all my life, I was never a heavy girl I was always skinny, weak and small. I used to never eat as a kid, I would always hide my food and I used to always run away from my family when they called me for my dinner/tea, and I still avoid eating with them today, I'd rather eat alone if I do. They would force me to eat, to this day my family still tell me I want to put on some weight and start eating. I only/do eat when hungry, there has been days where I would only have my breakfast in a whole day and that would be all I would eat, I don't think to starve myself, I haven't got that inner voice. I'm not the type of girl who looks into a mirror and thinks that I am fat or I never look at types of foods to see how many calories infact I even hate diet drinks.. so I myself don't think this is a case of Anorexia, but I do have some symptoms. I am not bulimic. Sometimes when I eat I feel like getting sick.. any little bit of food I eat I'm full or it feels like I'm full. I am a very picky/finicky eater and only eat certain things. I used to eat alot of chocolate but now I don't really bother with it any more, but I am convinced that I have an eating disorder and believe that I've suffered from children's anorexia when I was a child. It has got to the stage now where family, friends and co workers are noticing that I have lost weight and that I don't have a good appetite, these people are saying to me that I have lost a good amount of weight but I've only lost half a stone, ( I'm 5ft 7 in and I'm 8 and a half stone) I have noticed myself in the past year that I have been miserable, and knowing myself that slowly I am losing weight. I'm unusually anxious and very very depressed especially when I am alone and when I'm with people I often want to be alone, I am a very soft person and take almost everything to heart, I have a very low self esteem even though people close to me think that I am lovely and look great and have a great personality. Now I've noticed too that I have a lack of social interaction and all I've been doing is staying in my room and watching TV everyday when I come in from work.. I have been so down in myself and most of the time I keep to myself. I have a close friend at the moment who suffers from Anorexia Nervosa, she has had anorexia the past year, but she is slowly making a good recovery. I know that when I visit her, she is concerned about me suffering from the disease. She knows alot about me and thinks that I should get counseling before it really starts, but its not in my head.. the inner voice isn't there.. Even looking at my friend every time I see her, it doesn't make me think about saying to myself "that could be me if I don't start eating properly" I think of it that she is sick but she's going to get better. I find alot of the time that I don't have the energy to do anything and that I fall asleep all the time. At times I am very cold, but I've always hated being out in the cold weather. But also when people say that I would want to put on some weight I would tell them that I am fine and that there is nothing wrong with me, I guess I don't want people worrying about me - but I know deep down that these are a few of the Anorexia symptoms. I know that there are other people a lot worse than me out there, and I hope that people who have read your book and visited your Website found the light at the end of the tunnel, I would greatly appreciate some advice from you about what I have told you about me. Thanks for taking the time to read this email From Dee ( IRE) Dear Melinda, I am 13 years old and have been modeling since I was 11. For the past year I have been obsessed with my body and image. I felt like I was better than everyone else, because I had moe control then they did, eating wise. I started off at 5'7 and 108 pounds. I was already skinny but not skinny enough. I started off with a small diet and then it became my whole life. I was shut down, depressed and unhappy. At my worst point I got down to 85 pounds. But I recovered quickly and now have grown 2 inches and am back at my old weight. My agent loves the way I look and so do I, and I am still one of the thinest models around. Your horrifying pictures helped me realize how much I never want to go back to the way I once was. I feel energenic and happy. Thankyou for your wonderful sight! Thankyou, Sophie Hey my name is Jennifer and I think my best friend has an eating disorder. She has a lot of troubles with her family, her parents are divorced and are starting new lives and she feels left out, even though she doesn't tell me I know she feels this way. Her mood has changed a lot she used to be a happy go lucky girl but she is very short tempered and grumpy most of the time. She doesn't eat breakfast and has very little for lunch about half a sandwich and some fruit, and she will only drink water, nothing else. She goes running every day I don't know how long maybe a half hour or longer and she runs really hard. She isn't very social anymore either, we use to go out all the time and do things with other friends but now we just seem to stay at her house a lot, and when we do go out it will be with another friend but never a large group of people. I've tried to talk to her about everything, I hate asking her if she has an eating disorder becuase i don't want her to get mad at me, we've only really talked about it once and she got very defensive so.....I don't know what to do anymore. Her family is very worried about her and so are her friends, can you please give me some advice? -Thank You Hi Melinda I have just been to your site for the first time and i think it is beautiful. I have had an eating disorder for about 4 years now. I started off being anorexic....living on 500 calories a day while keeping up a very very strict fitness schedule. I have recently moved in with my boyfriend and we got married last year. I was doing very well recovering when i met him but recent events have caused me to go back into those old comfy habits and some new ones as well. While i am not anorexic because it is very hard not to eat at all when you live with someone else, I have begun to throw up everything i eat. I don't binge but i make myself sick after eveything i eat. I find your site very helpful to just look at and consider when i am feeling rough. Thank you for using your experience to help others. X Sarah Hello Melinda Can it be possible that you understand the heaviness in my heart? Or the emptiness of my soul? The sadness and loneliness that rules my mind is unbelievable. In my adolescense I became obsess of my physical appearence and I began dieting and exercising. When I turned 19 I had my first binge episode and was sure I had complete control of my behavior. I was wrong, I am 22 and tired of my secret. About a year ago I confessed my secret to my family, but they just want me to get over it and I've tried to get better. The fear is present and governing my life. I hate the imperfection of my body, the weakness in my mind, the vulnerability which I can face if people know my problem. I hate my life because I'm not happy with anyone or anything, and death seems very appealing because it will set me free from myself. My world revolves on my body and I'm sick of me, how can I be so selfish? I know there has to be a positive answer to this problem. I know I can survive and enjoy life because you did it. You are brave to have faced your reality, which I sometimes don't want to bother because I'm scared. Thanks for letting me express my feelings, I usually don't let them out because it is difficult for me to do so. May the Lord Jesus help us all to overcome our fears and help our loved ones understand. Thanks for you time. Alicia |