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I was not designed to be a skinny kid. I was a round. I do not know why I succumbed to anorexia nervosa. Maybe it was because I was perfectionist? Because my mother got sick of depression? Because I found alarming the speed at which I was growing up and wanted to control everything?
Anorexia nervosa means "loss of appetite", which is an abuse of language. I have never lost appetite. I did not know it – even though he was complaining loudly about the hollow of an increasingly small stomach.
It is a disease characterized by distorted body image and abnormal eating habits. After almost four years, at the age of 17, I was exhausted by lack of food and by my strict and self-imposed diet. I realized that I wanted to be much more than I wanted to be thin. If it meant being 51 kg and not 38 kg, I would take the risk. Even when you do not eat, you grow anyway.
Gabrielle Tuscher, psychologist for children and adolescents in Hong Kong and a specialist in eating disorders, says that anorexia is a complex disorder of mental health motivated by a number of factors, including genetics, environmental influences and personality traits. "What causes the illness of one person does not necessarily lead that of another," she says.
Perfectionism and the need for control are the usual symptoms in most people with anorexia, says Tuscher. "When other aspects of their lives and their personalities are out of control or emotionally overwhelming, the body and food become a space where the patient can structure and have a false sense of security and control.
"This allows the individual to stop his feelings by focusing on another distraction [like food and the body]but ironically, all that the person feels is. It's never about weight, your body, or your food – it's just that way. The underlying factor, as with all eating disorders, is the search for self-identity. "
It's not just girls and young women who are suffering; both bades are susceptible. "Because this is considered a" female disorder ", many men suffering in silence do so silently and never ask for help for fear of stigma," says Tuscher. Nor is it a disease that affects only young people; some people maintain their eating disorders until late in life.
While this disease physically and visibly affects the body, anorexia is essentially caused by the brain. Tuscher describes the brain as "the body that suffers the most in silence and is also ignored the most".
"In care, we do not consider the recovery of treatment as a weight recovery – it's brain recovery." Brain Atrophy [a loss of neurons and the connections between them] occurs by starvation. When you die of hunger, the brain also starves. But for brain recovery to occur, which will ensure complete recovery, it is obvious that the body must regain its weight. "
A brain that fights starvation will not be good enough to support a person cured by recovery because, as Tuscher explains, "the brain matter breaks down literally and all perception is affected, even vision is impaired because changes in, state of hunger ".
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Once an individual has recovered, a CT scanner shows that a complete recovery of brain material is possible, Tuscher explains.
The white matter – essentially the subway of the brain that drives, processes and sends the nerve signals – is recovering faster than the gray matter, the regions of the brain involved in muscle control and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision-making and self-control. The gray matter will still be lacking in the first year, says Tuscher. From here three years, all brain matter will be restored, provided that the individual is fully recovered.
Helping someone in their recovery is a delicate task. The cycle of denial and deception, as well as the often withdrawn and furious behavior that characterizes anyone with eating disorders, can drive away those who care, leaving parents and friends stunned and discouraged.
Love and support are essential to rebuild their self esteem and bring them back to health. Although there is no single solution to the difficult situation that can cause a eating disorder, family and friends are the best allies of a young person. The most effective remedy is to get friends, family, professionals and counselors to work together.
Parents must give up control, says Tuscher. "It's not something they can fix, nor even" for them ", although it may sound so.The distress and frustration they feel is their feeling of not being able to repair their child.They can not.They must recognize that it is a serious illness. "
The parent's role is to support, love and nurture the child throughout their illness while they are recovering. Family dysfunction plays a huge role in eating disorders. Therefore, recovery is also about ensuring that the parental space is a place of understanding and support, safe and without judgment, says Tuscher.
Eating disorders are not about weight, about their bodies or their food. They simply present this way in the symptoms. Do not forget this and focus on what the child feels.
ANOREXIA BY THE EYES OF A SURVIVOR
Anna, a surgeon now in her 40s, left Hong Kong to study medicine at the University of the United Kingdom. She had developed anorexia in high school and it had worsened in the university. Completely healed for two decades, she recounts her fight against the disease.
"I became anorexic at age 15 and I suffered for nine years.I was very shy when I was young and I was suffering from lack of self esteem and d? Anxiety I was often told that I was beautiful, sweet, perfect – and yet I never felt well enough, "she says. "At age 15, my twin brother and father died and my world collapsed. It was all for me. I still had a mother who did not see me and concentrated all her attention on her other perfect child.
"I collapsed in the eating disorder and it invaded my whole being.I did not care what had happened.My life was gone.I plunged the head into first trying to recover a certain level of control and [to] do everything I could not feel. My weight dropped to 35 kg at 165 cm, while I blew myself. I swallowed the laxatives by the handle, I cut off my arms and face, I did tireless exercise and did as much cocaine as possible. I think I just did not want to wake up, be with my dad and my brother.
"My mother could not manage my illness because she had already lost so much, I had to be the strongest for her, she never knew how to help me, my other brother had no Patience and sympathy for my condition and said I did it on purpose My friends were there but could not help me and slowly moved away, so I stayed alone.
"Finally, I recognized that I was sick and that my life had to be better, so I thought I would try to improve it, what would I do? could happen worse? I made the decision to finally occupy my father's death of my brother and all the sorrows and traumas that I suffered, I decided to fight for me, to let myself go, to live and to heal.And that's what I did.It was a painful process but that was worth it.
"People suffering from a eating disorder need help.The people in their lives need to educate, listen, understand that they are in need of help. a eating disorder never affects your body or what you eat or do not eat, it's about not having a sense of self, it's trapped in abuse, trauma and without change, without self-esteem and self-esteem, it pushes those who have no control over it.see beyond what we look like or do not look like, see us for our pain. Listen, support, do not judge, the more you shame us, the more we seek comfort in our pain. "
For more information and badistance on eating disorders in Hong Kong, contact the Hong Kong Food Disorders Association at 2850 4448 or by email. to the address [email protected].
This article was first published in South China Morning Post.
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