Binge Eating Disorder.

[ThinMindFatBody]

Hello everyone

I really struggle with my weight, I looked up ED's and found BED. I think I have this.

I hate eating in front of other people as I feel they are judging me. So I copy what other people eat and console myself by bingeing later on by myself. I spend horrendous amounts of money on food and sneak it into my room and eat it all. I eat until I'm nearly sick or just really overfull. I hardly ever feel normal 'full'. After a meal I just don't feel hungry but I feel like I could still eat more, so I do.

I'll make special trips to the shop to buy special foods, I read that this is often a symptom of BED.

I'm always thinking about food.

I wake up and think about breakfast. Then I think about lunch. Then tea and snacks etc.

If I go out for the day, no matter who with or where, I'm always thinking about what we're going to eat and where.

If I'm bored, sad, happy, worried any of these I turn to food.

Does anyone else feel like this? Should I go to the Doctor?

Thanks for reading

[crazycrossstitcher]

I suggest you need to seek some help. Approach your GP and ask for specialist help - you need support, advice and counselling to address your "illness". You've taken the first step by recognising your problem - but from experience its not something that just goes away, or you can deal with alone - you do need specialist input - so do seek help - both ABC and Beat have support/advice lines that can also provide guidance - GPs are not always the most aware of EDs - and getting help sometimes is hard work - but it is worth it - you are worth it.

[ThinMindFatBody in reply to crazycrossstitcher]

Thank you. I think I needed someone to agree with me, to show me that it's not all in my head.

[Forbidden_Habits]

Hey, I can relate to you, it's okay to have food on your mind all the time, hell, I LIVE to eat. But, if you feel that you load on the calories in a very short period of time, you will then eventually start to throw it up on purpose to avoid getting fat..............if you do, then you can consider yourself already bulimic, like me :/ . But I think you should talk to someone before it gets worse and you start developing the actual illness because if you do it will start to control you to the point where you feel too grossed out to think about it. never mind talk! The longer you have the disorder, the more the strength of the hold it has on you. Not tryna scare you but I'm just warning you before you destroy yourself like I currently am doing to myself. I'm not in a position to give advice but I'm just sharing with you my experience about how bad it really can get.

Holla if you wanna talk here to help

[ThinMindFatBody in reply to Forbidden_Habits]

When I was 14 a consultant told me I had to lose about a stone to better manage my pcos, he warned me not to become obsessed and stop eating. I remember telling him not to worry, that I don't have the willpower to starve myself. We laughed. That memory makes me sad now, makes me feel a sort of failure that I somehow have so little willpower that I've gone the other way.

Sometimes I want to purge after, bit I can't bring myself to do it. So I eat more to make myself 'feel better'.

[Forbidden_Habits in reply to ThinMindFatBody]

I feel you :/ I never thought that I'd be the one with the eating disorder but you have to tell the doctors just like you wrote on the forum so that they'll take you seriously.

[mark1962fullyrecovered]

Hi there.

I absolutely know how you feel as i have been there myself. I suffered from BED for many years. Sadly I swung from BED to anorexia. I am now fully recovered and the most amazing thing is that I no longer feel the consuming guilt i used to have when I ate anything at all.

Sadly, it is extremely difficult to get any specialist help for any ED. In my experience it is virtually impossible to get any effective help for BED. Most doctors will simply tell you to go on a diet. Dieting on its own will not solve the problem, it can make things worse. All eating disorders are a mental illness and happen as a consequence of life events. They are not hereditary.

I am a counsellor and I now counsel ED sufferers to help them also beat their illness. It makes such a difference to talk to someone who has been there themselves. I offer empathic therapy based on my professional, personal and academic experiences and I have working professionally in the field for 25 years.

Please believe me I am not touting for business. I have relocated from Derbyshire to Northumberland where I hope to set up my own easting disorders treatment project. We failed to secure the necessary funding in Derbyshire.

I offer skype counselling and I work out of the Therapy Centre in Hexham. My rates are competitive and I offer discounts for those on benefits and low incomes.

I hope you manage to find some help. Talking treatments do work. Please contact me if you would like some help from me. If I don't hear from you, then I sincerely wish you all of the very best.

Take care

Mark

[ThinMindFatBody in reply to mark1962fullyrecovered]

I had an unrelated doctors app, and at the end I broke down and told the nurse my worries and showed her the info off the nhs website that I'd printed. She laughed and said that everyone binges sometimes including her then went on to say that yes it's a real condition but one that is perfectly fixable. I've never been more confused over whether I'm being paranoid or not.

I've still made a doctor's app to talk it through and maybe get some counselling.

Hopefully it'll work out but who knows

[mark1962fullyrecovered]

Please get in touch if you would like counselling via skype. Good luck

[zoe11 in reply to mark1962fullyrecovered]

Hi, do you still offer Skype couselling? I know this post is 4 years old but I am currently trying hard to recover after 15 years of mostly bulimia, binge-purge type (43 days free) and could use some help. Have you looked over Brain over Binge written by Kathryn Hansen? Thank you and hope you can reply my post. I am currently based in Warwickshire and get no help on the NHS. Had a private therapist a few years ago but I mostly managed to improve my "problem" on my own.

Thank you.

[Hidden]

There are a lot of great resources on line you can access. Here's a list of a few of them

Nat'l Assoc. for Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders

Something Fishy (excellent resource!)

Eating Disorder Hope

The Eating Disorder Foundation

Mirror-Mirror web site

National Eating Disorder Information Centre

National Eating Disorders Association

Eating Disorders Online

Overcome Binge Eating

There is also MentorConnect, a non-profit where you can get a mentor to help support your recovery!

Let me know if you need any help finding any of them!

[Dan194]

Hi, it does sound like BED. I have it and I recognise all this as experience! When you think about food all the time it does become an obsession and I hope at your next Drs appointment they take you seriously. I would suggest as everyone else has to go the GP and maybe try Cognitive behaviour therapy etc. However I am hypocritical in this as I never went to treat my BED, out of embarrassment (which is ridiculous). If when you do try therapy you feel you need some extra help I'd suggest 'Brain over Binge' by Kathryn Hansen. I've suggested this to a few people simply because it has really helped me. After gaining 4 st in the last 5 months and struggling with BED for four years or so, after reading this I feel like I'm on the road to recovery. Obviously it won't work for everyone but I wanted to share it with you just in case you want to try something different to therapy. BEAT is also good for advice on BED aswell good luck with recovery, hope all goes well- and never be embarrassed about it, your health is too important!