Help? How can I help myself more than I am now?

I am suffering from severe anxiety, severe depression, and a possible eating disorder. I cut on a regular basis, as in like at LEAST once a week, and I struggle to eat any meal. I go in modes of binging and purging and I find myself suffering panic attacks anytime food or weight is brought up in conversation. In 2 years I have made 18 suicide attempts and lost (but gained and lost again) 20 lbs. How should I combat these feelings? I am stuck. I just seem to get worse or get better and relapse until I'm worse than I was before.

[BELAwesome]

Hi. I don’t know what to suggest cause I’ve been struggling as well, though haven’t made a suicide attempt. Have you talked to anyone about these things or talked to some kind of therapist or doctor?

[Hidden in reply to BELAwesome]

I was last year, but my parents pulled me off of it because I was "ok", which I wasn't.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

How old are you please? x

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

14

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Hi I am sorry but you have to be a minimum age of 16 to be on this site as it is for adults only. I have reported your post to our admin who will contact you and make sure you are ok and also give you links to more age appropriate sites.

These are the rules of Health Unlocked. Lil x

[dead_inside]

hello. Would you feel comfortable private messaging me to talk? I understand how you feel. it can be so very hard to start better yourself to relapse and get worse. I do it to quite a lot actually. perhaps we can work out a plan and push each other to do better. You are not alone. I'm here.

[Hidden in reply to dead_inside]

I would appreciate it.

[Hidden]

Hi you don't say whether you are getting any medical help - are you? x

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I was for a while, and then my parents pulled me off of it, thinking I was better. I told them I wasn't and they now refuse to put me back on it and they also refuse to put me on medication.

[Beevee]

Hi. Sorry to learn that you are having a tough time right now.

To recover from anxiety and depression I learnt that battling all those anxious thoughts and feelings just made things worse because you are adding more stress and strain to the stress (anxiety) that is already there. I learnt that recovery would come to me if I gave up the battle and simply let all those thoughts and feelings come and do their worst ( it’s only excessive energy that needs to be released by way of anxious thoughts and feelings) and not do anything about them. It works too but does take time to develop a passive attitude towards the symptoms and resisting the urge to do something about them. If you allow yourself to fall into any state and put up no resistance,you will recover. My guess is that you cut yourself to block out or avoid the bad thoughts/feelings but this only serves to keep you stuck in the anxiety cycle as you are not allowing yourself to feel the symptoms without resistance. Does this make sense?

♥️

[Hidden in reply to Beevee]

It does but in fact, I am unable to do this as my parents make me do a daily "reflection" to make me think abt how to be better, when I've found that if I let myself be anxious I'm actually better and can actually eat better and function better, but they make me get up an hour early before school every day to do one and one before I go to bed. And I cut because it lessens the urge to make a suicide attempt, but sometimes it doesn't work as well.

[Beevee]

I feel for you. Your parents need to understand that anxiety sufferers cannot simply think their way out of anxiety. It doesn’t work like that. You have anxiety so you have anxious thoughts which feel real but are totally irrational. Its the same as trying to put out a fire with gasoline/petrol. Ain’t gonna happen.

If possible, ask your parents to read books written by Dr Claire Weekes. This will help them to understand what you are going through. More importantly, her books also teach you how to recover as I described above. I was also helped in my recovery by visiting a UK website called AnxietyNoMore.co.uk. which apply the same principles as those published by Dr Weekes. She has saved countless people from severe anxiety and depression, including me. You can recover too once you understand that you just leave it all be. I’d also urge your parents to look at the website too.

Above all, please remember that anxiety is temporary. I liked the following quote and think it is very appropriate for anxiety sufferers.

“It will be alright in the end and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end”

[Hidden in reply to Beevee]

I think if I were to suggest that to them, they'd flip out on me, saying I don't know what I'm talking about. When I tried to tell them I feel better when I don't try and think about it and that talking about my anxiety gives me anxiety, they said its BS.

[Beevee]

It is very difficult for those who haven’t experienced anxiety to understand the impact it has. They may very well be just as frustrated as you. If can feel very lonely but you can still recover even without the full support of your family. I talked to my wife about it all the time and doubted that she truly understood but accepted that too! Deep down, I knew that I would recover if I followed the advice and stuck at it, regardless of what anyone else said. I’m glad I did. By the way, my wife has stood by me which speaks volumes! She can’t love me for my cooking skills.