WELL-BEING | EATING DISORDERS…BY ANY MEANS

If like me, you’re lucky enough to pos­sess a degree of insight which enables you to recog­nise the dan­ger­ous mani­fest­a­tion of an eat­ing dis­order and a need to reach out for some kind of help, then don’t leave it. Don’t hang about. Do some­thing now and per­haps you stand half a chance.

If you the read­er are a loved one who sus­pects a struggle, notices the phys­ic­al rav­ages, tell tale beha­viours or have any reas­on for con­cern what­so­ever that someone close to you may have a dys­func­tion­al rela­tion­ship with food then by any means, inter­vene imme­di­ately. Con­front. Pay closer atten­tion. Keep tabs. Seek pro­fes­sion­al help behind the back of your loved one, because quite simply, the con­sequences can, may or will be devastating.

You may start by prag­mat­ic­ally and del­ic­ately ques­tion­ing them. I hope and pray that this simplest and easi­est of approaches opens the door to a pos­it­ive out­come. If unsuc­cess­ful, take the first oppor­tun­ity to relay what I’m about to tell you. A rel­at­ively com­pre­hens­ive list of pos­sible and likely out­comes drawn from first hand experience.

Tell them they’ll be chron­ic­ally tired and con­stantly leth­ar­gic. Explain that their bowel func­tion will stead­ily grind to a halt. While the genu­ine hun­ger pangs will pass after time, a gnaw­ing and excru­ci­at­ing sense of empti­ness will devel­op in the pit of the stom­ach. A daily sense of mania and deli­ri­um will take hold, lead­ing pos­sibly to forms of anxi­ety but cer­tainly to a lonely and isol­ated des­per­a­tion in a world ruled by the thoughts of food and the num­bers on the side of pack­ets; instead of the past times and friend­ships one once enjoyed. Depend­ing on cer­tain beha­viours, the teeth will gradu­ally wear down, shorten, fall out; rendered func­tion­ally use­less and aes­thet­ic­ally repuls­ive in a mouth peppered by cav­it­ies, caries, abs­cesses, pus and excru­ci­at­ing toothache. False teeth by 30? If not entirely, at least in part. Long and ardu­ous hours spent attend­ing dent­al appoint­ments for dif­fer­ent forms of dis­in­fec­tion and recon­struc­tion, if one is lucky enough to be referred for treat­ment on the NHS.  Oth­er­wise, get sav­ing cos it’s gonna cost you.

Anoth­er side effect of the beha­viour which caused such dam­age to the nash­ers, i.e. vomit­ing — pos­sible heart arrhythmia or attack. Out of nowhere. Without warn­ing. Cer­tainly an inter­mit­tent pound­ing in the chest and quite unnerv­ing palp­a­tions. All down to a lack of a vital little elec­tro­lyte min­er­al, potassi­um; con­stantly ejec­ted from the body in the act of pur­ging. Rem­edy bey­ond the point of a banana or two. Now a med­ic­al emer­gency requir­ing hos­pit­al­isa­tion and treat­ment with intra­ven­ously. A course of treat­ment so pain­fully slow, any pre­dis­pos­i­tion to rest­less impa­tience might have you mak­ing a break for free­dom after too long. Or absconcion as its form­ally known. An action which risks place­ment under Sec­tion (s) of the men­tal health Act. Med­ic­ally imprisoned by law. Even­tu­ally in a psy­chi­at­ric unit for eat­ing dis­orders, if and when ill enough. The pro­fes­sion­als and staff have a duty of care to save your life. They know what they’re talk­ing about. But you want out, you want con­trol, free­dom. You don’t want to be watched through slats in the bed­room door, day after mind numb­ing day. Ask­ing for the little boys or girls room to be unlocked. Earn­ing the privel­age of a walk around hos­pit­al grounds.

But now you ain’t going no where without risk­ing real arrest.  And you know you’re not psychot­ic. You’re an extremely intel­li­gent,  self aware and com­pet­ent indi­vidu­al. But try explain­ing that to the doctors.

Even­tu­ally, essen­tially and pos­sibly you may die. Eat­ing Dis­orders and espe­cially Anor­ex­ia cause the highest rates of mor­tal­ity of any men­tal ill­nesses. But if you escape tragedy, con­sider the time wasted. Time you can’t afford to waste in an already short life on this beau­ti­ful earth. The weeks, months and years of missed oppor­tun­it­ies. Employ­ment, ambi­tions, friend­ships, fun. A mind full of and con­sumed by regret, just to add insult to injury.

An inex­haust­ive list of bleak yet etern­ally pos­sible con­sequences which I’m sure has been exper­i­enced count­less times in all man­ner of vari­ations by suf­fer­ers. Avoid these inev­it­ab­il­it­ies. Let this scare you or your loved one into action. Get or give help as soon as possible.