Origins of the disease
Bulimia and anorexia are diseases associated with eating disorders caused by psychological abnormalities. They have different causes of occurrence; treatment requires an individual approach.
Definition of Bulimia
Excessive eating is seen as a way to escape reality. Patients who have successfully completed rehabilitation note that in moments of ravenous appetite, the sense of time and space is lost, attention is completely concentrated on food.
Anorexia explained
It is generally accepted that the cause of this pathology is dissatisfaction with one's body.
However, there are a number of other explanations.
- Attention of others. Thanks to the acquired disease, the patient receives the dose of pity necessary to feel significant.
- "independence". Children under constant control try to prove their independence. Often, in defiance of their parents, they limit themselves and stop eating and drinking certain foods.
- Managing feelings and emotions. Prolonged fasting causes numbness, which gives the illusion of control over the emotional state.
How are bulimia and anorexia related?
Both diseases are accompanied by weight fluctuations and a woman’s foolish desire to lose weight. Some representatives of the fairer sex are silent about the true reasons for this desire, but the result is the same - complete exhaustion of the body with noticeable weight loss. This is a psychological problem associated with an internal fear of obesity or an inferiority complex that has burst out.
Differences in the symptomatic picture
People unfamiliar with eating disorders confuse bulimia and anorexia. The difference between bulimia and anorexia lies in the behavior of patients and the consequences of their decisions.
Symptoms of anorexia
Anorexia is deadly, more than 30% of cases are fatal. Anorexia is distinguished by the fact that people refuse food, in panic fear of gaining weight. The disease often occurs in adolescents and has a clearly defined symptomatic picture:
- weight loss by 20% of normal;
- obsession with one's own weight, diet based on a calorie deficit, daily weighings;
- exhaustion from physical exertion;
- denial of hunger;
- disturbance of hormonal balance, frequency and quality of menstruation, loss of attraction to the opposite sex;
- failure of the immune system, the body stops coping with a cold, which can be fatal;
- hair loss, nails;
- greenish-blue skin color;
- frequent fainting, possibly coma.
Anorexia
Manifestations of bulimia
There are no external signs, the weight remains within normal limits, but changes occur in the functioning of the organs. Bulimia is an uncontrollable craving for food, followed by its elimination from the body (vomiting). Symptoms:
- irregular portions of food;
- food is swallowed but not chewed;
- artificially induced vomiting, enemas, laxatives;
- feeling guilty for overeating;
- lack of taste in food or aversion to it;
- taking medications that prevent food from being absorbed into the stomach.
Bulimia is an uncontrollable craving for food.
Orthorexia
In recent years, due to the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, another deviation in eating behavior has appeared - orthorexia, characterized by the search for the healthiest, most wholesome food. This includes aggressive veganism, vegetarianism, and raw food diet, which lead to digestive disorders, vitamin deficiency, exhaustion, and wear and tear of organs.
Eating right is important, but it is important to maintain a balance without going from one extreme to another.
Consequences
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia cause serious problems and lead to subsequent problems.
- Anemia is characterized by unhealthy pallor and dizziness. It is fraught with problems with the cardiovascular system.
- Low blood pressure increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
- Arrhythmia can lead to sudden death.
- Rupture of the esophagus (in case of excessive vomiting), in the absence of help, is fatal in 70% of cases.
- Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
- Irregular menstrual cycle, infertility.
- Renal failure, as a result, uremic intoxication of the body.
Treatment
Medical practice has confirmed that a multidisciplinary approach ensures success in 95% of cases and includes several types of psychotherapy: individual, group, family, working with the body (learning to love and own your body), nutrition.
Individual psychotherapy
The basis of outpatient treatment is psychotherapy aimed at providing emotional support to the patient and getting rid of harmful thoughts about food and body shape. This approach changes the style of thinking, increases self-esteem, helps improve relationships with people, and is more effective than taking medications.
Individual psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is developed on an individual basis. The doctor, based on the person’s temperament and the stage of the disease, selects ways to influence psychological health (cognitive behavioral therapy, art therapy, psychoanalysis, animal-assisted treatment).
Group psychotherapy
Support from others is extremely important for patients. In a group of 8 people, body-oriented therapy, work with image and social behavior can be carried out.
Body-oriented therapy
People with eating disorders inhibit their emotions. This behavior is accompanied by nervous breakdowns, irritability, and hysterics. For more effective treatment, it is necessary to make the patient feel. Various types of interaction with the body are suitable, as they teach you to understand its needs and desires.
Art, music, dance, breathing are types of body-oriented therapy. Yoga, meditation, and qigong have gained popularity in recent years.
Dietetics or support from a nutritionist
The work of a nutritionist is based on two principles.
- Teaching proper nutrition, revealing its basic rules and subtleties.
- Accompanying the patient, drawing up a nutrition plan, selecting products taking into account the person’s taste preferences and medical contraindications.
Causes of food addiction
- What is the reason for obsessing over food?
— Any addiction is a certain way of adaptation. And working with people, I identified four main levels at which bulimia exists, at which it acts as an adaptive element:
One of the most important levels is the level of the family system , that is, in childhood the foundations for dependence are still laid, the child develops the feeling that he is part of the family:
- we don't like
- not in demand
- does not receive what there is a spiritual need for
That is, one of the ways to adapt with the help of food is to gain warmth, to seek love, to seek approval. These are always good girls who graduated from school with a gold medal, from college with honors, these are incredibly interesting, talented people.
The second level is the level of personality, no longer within the family system , but if we consider a person as a separate person. A neurotic personality, a personality torn apart by internal conflicts and contradictions, there are a lot of them:
- love-hate
- I trust
- I'm too gullible, but I don't trust
- obedient, but I have a lot of protest inside me against what I agree to
you can find many, many nuances. And it must be said that these internal conflicts cause a lot of mental pain to a person, which is inscribed in the body and which, in principle, a person can feel if he listens to bodily sensations.
Source: Pravda photo archive. Ru
And since this discomfort often becomes literally unbearable, a person begins to look for ways not to feel himself, not to feel bodily sensations, and then an escape strategy is formed, which is characteristic of any addiction:
- food
- alcoholic
- narcotic
any absolutely emotional dependence.
The third level at which addiction still progresses is the level of the nervous system .
I always say that bulimia affects people with a very strong will, an overly strong one, and they control a lot, they want everything to be perfect, so “if I have any negative feelings, then that’s very bad.” , wrong, I should be a good girl, I’ll block the negative feeling, I won’t feel it.”
What's happening? A blocked feeling cannot go anywhere; a person does not experience it. If we experience a feeling, then it exists, it ends itself, or we express it. If we block it, it remains a dead weight in the nervous system, creating physical heaviness. Sometimes people complain that a load is placed on their shoulders and muscle tension forms.
In a state of relaxation, our blood flows to the internal organs, but the internal organs cannot go without nutrition for a long time, they begin to panic, the nervous system begins to “ring bells” and turns off consciousness. And then the man says:
“I didn’t understand how I ate it all, where I was, did I seem to be here?” And it’s easy on the machine. And then the person is forced to rest, he has eaten. We still have the memory that our mother fed us, lulled us to sleep, and we are on the side, we are resting.
— And the fourth level?
— It’s one of the important ones, it’s about communication , because, as you know, an addicted person becomes:
- closed
- stops leaving the house
- gradually the circle of contacts narrows
- loss of friends occurs
And sometimes, when people come to therapy, they already feel deeply lonely and not only cannot talk about the problem with someone, but cannot talk at all.
The fact is that a person is addicted, any addiction can be taken now, as a rule, he is emotionally wounded within the family, he is wounded by society, wounded by the outside world. And as a result of these wounds, when there are too many of them for the psyche to adapt, it creates a certain defense mechanism, and the person closes himself off into a cocoon. And it becomes like an autonomous system.
In our country, a person is usually considered in all sciences to be an open system that exchanges with the outside world. And here this energy exchange is blocked . The person has closed himself off, and he cannot direct his energy outward and receive this energy from the outside, from communication, through receiving heat.
Food is a source of energy for us, and when a person loses the opportunity to receive from the outside and express himself, express an emotion, express himself as a creative person, give some product of his own creation to the outside, it turns out that bulimia begins to replace this energy circulation.
That is, through food a person received energy. And then he ceases to need the outside world, which caused a lot of pain.
— Tell us about ways to adapt to a healthy lifestyle.
— How can I give another way of adaptation? For example:
- remove the wounds that the outside world once inflicted on a person
- remove this protection, because as long as there are wounds, the protection will not be removed - it hurts, it’s scary that you will end up in this pain again
When a needle is poked into an open wound, it is very painful; when it is poked into healthy tissue, it is not very pleasant, but oh well.
— Can a person himself, thanks to his willpower, get rid of this addiction?
- This is a difficult moment, because with the help of willpower a person drives himself into this disease. If we are talking about compulsive overeating, most likely it can turn into bulimia. A person will probably lose weight, but if his reasons for this method of adaptation remain internal, then, most likely, he will simply begin to break down due to these restrictions.
