Anorexia And Bulimia: The Price Of Emotional Intransigence

Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia pose a challenge to our society. Although its rate is higher in adolescent girls, the truth is that boys do not escape and women who have passed adolescence are not immune to suffering them.

The term “good girl” is associated with secrecy, neatness, warmth, emotional control and a myriad of demands that put bars on the spontaneous and natural development of any human being. The stereotype, behind which a large number of lawsuits are hidden, condemns precisely the same adolescents who advertise it.

An easy way to control your weight, to control your body, to control your image is through food sacrifices. Voluntary resignations that in most cases are undocumented, poorly managed and, therefore, with a high dose of frustration.

Anorexia and bulimia

We commonly associate anorexia with food restriction and bulimia with purging, vomiting, or compensatory behaviors after eating. These are not standard and rigid patterns, but can vary depending on the person suffering from the disorder.

Actually,  there are two subtypes of anorexia, restrictive and purgative (purging is all compensatory behavior to eliminate ingested food). 

Non-purgative anorexia is associated with perfectionism, rigidity, hyper-responsibility, and feelings of inferiority. The purgative type (in addition to total food restriction they purge) is associated with a family history of obesity, premorbid overweight, impulsivity, dysthymic reactions, emotional lability and addictive behaviors.

In bulimia nervosa purges or compensatory behaviors are common. In this prototypical bulimia nervosa, with purging, there is greater distortion of body image, more abnormal eating patterns, and more associated psychological problems.

Non-purgative (there is binge but no compensatory behaviors) might look like binge eating disorder, but it is not because there is the overrated idea of ​​weight and shape. This subtype is associated with other problems such as suicidal ideation, addictive behaviors, and impulse control disorders.

What do they have in common?

The basis of these disorders is emotional, patients are unable to regulate their emotions. Emotions that sometimes they have not been able to express in a satisfactory way in a family environment that is not very stimulating, restrictive, with great demands about their behavior or in an environment that has not been able to respond adequately to their high intellectuality and desire for affection.

Eating disorders usually appear between 10-30 years, 95% are women and have in common the overrated idea of ​​thinness. They share  an extreme concern for weight and figure, cognitive distortions, depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as poor social functioning.

Why does it appear at that age?

If we take into account that most of the victims are adolescents, one of the probable causes is that the young woman does not know how to manage the transition from girl to woman. Their communication system “as a child” is still deficient and they feel pressure, they are in a context of inhibited emotionality and at that age they are more aware of what the female gender “apparently” imposes on them: thinness, beauty, naivety and submission.

It is the need for perfection, fear of relapse, and perceptual distortion that keep your behavior patterns going. Behavioral patterns that only receive reward in their own repetition.

Myths about anorexia and bulimia

The personality of women with these disorders has been associated with a pattern of vital disorganization, weakness, low intelligence, and high suggestion about the comments of others. But they are not the personal characteristics that we find in these patients when we evaluate them.

Nor are they delusional people unable to discern reality from imagination. In anorexia, patients are not delusional and hysterical.  According to some studies, it is not a perceptual alteration either, but rather a comparison with increasingly demanding models that materializes in restrictive behaviors.

They are not hysterical, they feel lonely

On the other hand, the fact of having their attention so focused on a purpose frees them from facing other types of problems, which will always be secondary and postponed until the moment they solve what is the real problem for them.

Most are aware that they are in a destructive process, but once started, they have created a system of reinforcements and punishments so powerful that it is very difficult for them to escape from it. Your brain has been programmed in such a way that its harmful inertia is really powerful.

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Many of those who suffer from one of these disorders are able to restore normalcy in their lives. Doing so is hard work, requires patience and relapses. However, to be able to overcome it, the support of the people who love the person suffering from the disorder is necessary. Your support, your faith, and your persistence in getting out of the tunnel are critical.

This is so because the disorder directly attacks the self-esteem of the person who suffers it, makes it inferior because it is always compared with models that she believes are superior, more perfect, more desirable. Therefore, the person always places himself in a place of inferiority and aspiration, constantly and continuously.

In addition, it is common for people who have suffered some type of eating disorder, such as anorexia or bulimia, to present patterns of excessive dependence, fear of abandonment, hypersensitivity to criticism, alexithyma, etc. In some ways, these types of disorders are overcome, but they are not cured and it will be a constant challenge to maintain your recovery throughout your life.