Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Anne-Sophie's Pro-Recovery Project

Today is Benjamin's day for the Pro-Recovery Project. Interesting that we have a male eating disorders blogger today since it's in the news today on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/46480643

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves

There are many ‘eating styles’ and many of them can actually help us to stay healthy - but some are driven by an impulsive fear of becoming fat or bigger. These can damage our health in permeable ways and are called eating disorders. The  most common disorders are Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder.

The causes for the development of an eating disorder are very complicated but research has suggested that both biological and psychological causes are prerequisites in the development of an eating disorder.

There are a broad array of eating disorder treatment options but regrettably most of that is contingent on where one lives and how much money someone has as many of the treatments can be quite costly.

I am the mind frame that the success of a treatment is very dependent firstly on one's mind frame. Some have suggested it is the path up to the road that is the journey to recovery and self discovery.

I will say that an eating disorder is never based on the symptoms. It is not really about calories, food, weight and body image...but it's really about self-worth, self-esteem, insecurity, control and the diffidence associated around one's identity.

Eating Disorders are worrying and tumultuous illnesses that sufferers and loved ones need to 'nip in the bud' at the first stage of discovery.

There are many reasons to recover from an eating disorder, but in this post I will focus on the aspect of psychological freedom.

Nothing beautiful has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was paramount to individual circumstance. This illness can plague, tarnish and jade the emotional faculty and instils within sufferers a ubiquitous obsession, infatuation and anxiety that can tarnish almost every element of one's being. I have spent numerous, mundane hours pensively exploring my mind, recognising my tendencies, frailties and strengths and recognising that despite all the perceived "benefits".... I wanted freedom. I wanted to be able to have the freedom to make an impartial action, to take an impartial, rational stance. I wanted to be able to sit down without that lingering impulse that is symptomatic of an eating disorder. Tranquillity, peace and serenity cannot be induced with a oscillating and unyielding eating disorder. There's no control in an eating disorder, but merely the illusion of such. The eating disorder controls us and it becomes so intertwined with our psyche that we start to identify with it and we start to believe that it is us. Although it is of course us, it should be differentiated from our normal, rational and healthy psychological state.


The road of recovery is a journey of self-discovery. We recognise our values, qualities, desires, strengths and weaknesses. We advance within ourselves, we question the pressures that the inane mass media invoke on us, we question those comments from others about our appearance and we ask ourselves why we deserve freedom. The most striking question that we ask is what it means to be happy and what founds the most impassioned, long lasting and healthy form of happiness?

Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you need belief, confidence and desire. Life is temporal, beautiful and amassed with opportunity, love and friendship. We only have one flight from the nest into the sunset, let us make our passage, our expedition and our reality as peaceful, free and content as possible. Be the person you want to be remembered as, defy pressures external and internal, love you, allow yourself to be loved and find oneself.

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