Living with Orthorexia. – “Although not formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, awareness about orthorexia is on the rise. The term ‘orthorexia’ was coined in 1998 and means an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating. Although being aware of and concerned with the nutritional quality of the food you eat isn’t a problem in and of itself, people with orthorexia become so fixated on so-called ‘healthy eating’ that they actually damage their own well-being.”

We are surrounded by food all the time: When we are not actually eating we are subconsciously being influenced via social media, constant TV programmes and marketing in shops. Being told what’s healthy;  how many calories we should consume, how we should all be slim, become vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, low fat, fear carbs, nutritional content blah blah blah…. Much is wrong, being shared by people who aren’t qualified to advise and who are using it for personal gain.

Can you imagine having to plan every single thing that enters your mouth? Not being able to visit friends or restaurants without knowing what will be served down to the individual constituents so that you can log them for their nutritional information? Recording every single thing on an App and avoiding certain foods completely in fear that they will do you harm, or that you will put on weight even though the scales tell you that you are dangerously thin?

There’s growing evidence that the increase in mental health issues is linked to the food that we are eating. There are more processed and refined foods and artificial sweeteners than ever before and our bodies just fail to understand what should be done with some of them. The brain relies on good nutrition to survive and will dictate certain behaviours if it feels at threat from malnutrition. You may have reading previous blogs of mine about the brain’s default programming when it comes to our dealing with the problems the we face. To recap this what we are up against;

The brain is hard wired to ensure our survival, constantly surveying our lives for the next potential danger. The part responsible for keeping us safe has certain default behaviours that it relies upon for our survival. So when the brain thinks that we are nutrient deficient this is a problem and it starts to take over our behaviours and thinking, switching to survival mode; Anxiety, Anger and Depression being our three survival behaviours. Anxiety (Flight) to run away from the problem, Anger (Fight) to punch the problem and Depression (Freeze/Surpress) to hide until its gone away or in the nutrient deficient body rest (after a period of adrenalin fuelled activity) until energy levels and body strength has been resumed and we are no longer at threat.  One of the key behaviours of the survival brain is that it believes that all perceived problems are life threatening and as soon as it is activated our conscious rational (sensible) brain becomes impaired, so we find it very hard to think straight and make sensible decisions.

In taking over our actions the primitive survival brain will then become obsessive about the problem; what’s better, to turn our back on the sabre tooth tiger that is about to eat us or keep our eye on it whilst we try to escape? It also relies on past patterns of behaviour that ensured our survival and made us feel safe. Food falls very nicely into this category. We often find ourselves reaching for the high sugar, high fat foods that the brain associates with survival and learned behaviours of pleasure. So how is it that the brain can get it so wrong? It’s need for control overriding its sensible thinking, leading to this unhealthy obsessive behaviour that completely defies any sense. We fall into the trap of thinking that life sustaining food is a problem (carbs are bad, sugar is worse, fat should be feared). Food becomes the all consuming thought, and in our bid to fix the problem we take control of every last thing associated with it. Telling ourselves that what we are doing is healthy (after all we are avoiding the sugar and the fat and all perceived unhealthy foods) when in fact it is the most unhealthy thing that we can do.  Restricting our fuel source to such an extent that we literally starve ourselves and our bodies start to shut down.

So why am I sharing this?

For the past few years someone very dear to me has had a tough time coping with chronic illness. It started with a diagnosis of ME/CFS back in 2017.   Daily exhaustion and fatigue led to cravings of sweet foods in an attempt to fuel the ailing body and mind. This in turn led to weight gain, feelings of worthlessness and body loathing and acute anxieties.  It became too hard to go to school, or at times even leave the house. It was a very tough couple of years. Then light! A turning point where the energy started to return. A progressive introduction of exercise, continued good food (and extra nutritional supplements) aided with the introduction to the home of puppy. Together they started their journey. Starting with 5 mins  3 times a day and over the course of a year resuming almost “normal” physical strength. Then the determination to change the body that was associated with the past. Over the course of the next year sessions with Personal Trainers and a healthy eating regime saw a loss of 5 stones in weight. Everyone congratulated the achievement commenting on how amazing the transformation had been. Falling into the trap of being led by aesthetics but also seeing a far happier person.

Then it all went wrong! I’m not sure when, I didn’t see it, yet it was right there in front of me, every day. (I work helping clients to overcome their issues, including unhealthy relationships with food, on a daily basis (successfully too) yet here was a problem unfolding in front of me that I couldn’t even see.) Then one day it hit me square between the eyes; this beautiful person was wasting away in front of me. The controlled eating and exercising was now out of control. The things that we had previously commended and celebrated were now a problem. A problem that I didn’t know how to fix and it was very scary. I hadn’t noticed that I was no longer cooking meals, but helping on the side. I only laterally realised the extent of the problem; I can’t prepare anything at the moment for her to eat. I made the mistake of thinking I was ok to make breakfast the other day; I weighed the oats, seeds etc but I hadn’t measured the amount of milk so she was unable to eat it!

I think sometimes that having knowledge can be a hindrance, you expect far more of yourselves and you feel, in my case, that I should have been able to “fix” this problem.  I now realise that I too had a problem; the health of my child. I wanted, no, I needed, to fix it for her. I became fairly obsessed, filling my bucket (Stress Bucket) daily with all the things that I wasn’t able to do to solve this increasing issue that was happening to my baby. I had to remind myself that I too am human, and although I have lots of tools I was finding it hard to find the one that I need in the moment! My bucket started to fill (I became angry, frustrated and emotional). I became obsessed with fixing her….. but I couldn’t. It wasn’t just us either, my youngest daughter was suffering as a result too.

I was able to step back just before Christmas and realised that the most important thing that I could do was to be Mum (to both my girls). And to be the best Mum I needed to get my bucket empty, and quickly. A good friend pointed out that in my negative state I had stopped doing the things that helped to regulate my stresses; I stopped exercising, seeing friends and reading at bed time (my 3 essential ingredients for my wellbeing). The last thing I wanted to do was exercise but I knew that it would make the difference. I also sought time from colleagues to help me to get my bucket back to a healthy  level to allow me to continue to work and support my family and I got myself back to boot camp. I couldn’t do it alone, so I asked for help. (and that was hard!)

As the clouds started to clear, I realised that I couldn’t fix my daughter’s problem. I had to step back and help her to fix it for herself. My view of her problem was not the same as hers. I often used the analogy of standing on the edge of a cliff (which is often what life can feel like); that place where you feel trapped with no where to go but down… until someone holds your hand encouraging you to step back from the edge where you find that there is bridge just a little further along.

At the moment we are still looking for the bridge; trying to find the pathway that will take her to where she wants to be. We aren’t there yet. But I am now holding her hand, supporting her every step of the way as she tries to calm the primitive defaults that have been in control of her for months. The priority is to build her physical body up with food, huge quantities that she finds almost impossible to eat, whilst not allowing that in itself to become more of a problem. She still  fears certain foods and she is seeing a therapist (not me) who is hopefully going to help her to regain her control and change her story. We (we prepare everything together, with me taking control of some aspects, a little more each day) continue to weigh and measure everything that she eats for the time being. At least she is now managing to eat more than before, which is good. There’s so  much conflicting advice too; NHS telling us she needs to eat 2500 calories a day, whilst the psychologist (who Im inclined to agree with) is steering us away from weights and measures.

The hardest thing to do is to not focus on the problems that we face (that’s what our brains want us to do), but when we are able to acknowledge them, step back from them it becomes easier to work out the best way forward to solving them. And sometimes you realise that all you can do is to be there to offer reassurance and safety.

I often tell people that we are only ever in control of two things: what we think and what we do! We can not fix other people’s problems for them, much as we often want to. We can’t ever fully understand how they perceive things so we can’t tell them what to do, this only creates resistance. But, in the case of eating disorders you sometimes have to be prepared to fight the resistance in order to prevent your loved one from starving themselves to death. Holding onto the belief that as the body starts to heal and regain strength, the ability to change the self destruct thought patterns can start to change for the better too. And, as the carer, it is crucial that we maintain our wellbeing so that we are able to support and remain calm (OMG, so so very hard to do) so that we don’t make things worse.

There isn’t a great deal of emotional support for parents with children who are suffering with eating disorders in my area and there is a distinct lack of information about Orthorexia.  Our experience of the local eating disorders clinic highlighted this, with them needing to label her as anorexic, when she isn’t , but that was the closest label that they had. But, one that we didn’t accept!

There is an amazing charity that I can call to offer support  but the nearest physical group is a long way away. I want to share this in the hope that I can help others and maybe we can support each other. I have contacted Beat in the hope that with their support we can create something helpful to others who are facing similar situations.

Sending love and strength to you all.