Afraid to restrict/limit myself
I have been struggling with binge eating disorder for 13 years. Im 23 now, and I dont want the rest of my life to be like this. Recently it has been so much worse, over the past year in particular, as I have been slowly working towards taking steps to be more aware of my feelings and because I have stopped self-harming, I have come back to using only my eating disorder to cope.
I don't know how to recover. I have seen nutritionists who specialize in eating disorders, and both of them said my first step is to eat regularly. 3 meals a day, and 2 snacks.
I can't even get this part down, and I have been working on this for over a year. I am no longer seeing either of the nutritionists as paying $100 for 30 minutes to say the same things over and over again- that I need to develop a structure to my meals and stick to it.
But I am so scared of having structure. Food has this crazy power over me, and i feel like if i cant have what I want when I want it, I am restricting myself and that is just going to cause me to binge again. Im scared to even try to limit food at this point because it just scares me that much. I don't know how to make a structure I can work with, especially not on my own, I feel like everything will be wrong about it, and I will make poor choices with what foods to eat, or make a great plan, but feel restricted by it and just not follow it at all.
I feel so backwards because most people are terrified of overeating or bingeing. but I am afraid of restricting my intake.
Maybe someone can relate to this. or tell me im not crazy. or share with me their approach to recovery from B.E.D.
Hi DawnShadow,
I completely understand your feelings right now and how difficult it must be for you. As you say, you are using food as a coping mechanism for your feelings and you are scared to limit yourself. The best advice I could give you is to take the advice of the nutritionists. Limit yourself in the food that you eat, find proper balanced foods and plans for each day and stick to that. Swap unhealthy snacks for healthy snacks in the meantime, so if you feel you need another snack on top of the 2 that you have been told, make it a banana, an apple, a small handful of raisins or something. It is going to be difficult, but you know that you are doing it for the right reasons and you appear pretty determined to do it, you are just struggling to know how. On the website (and I know that you have mentioned stopping self harming), we have a 'Self-Harm Self help guide'. This is at the top of the webpage under 'Self Help Guides' --> Self-Harm. The reason that I tell you this is because you have replaced self harm, your previous coping method, with eating. This guide offers a wide variety of coping methods for your feelings which you can try out.
I hope that this helps.
Best wishes,
starryRiver83
