Q:
I am wondering if it is possible that I have an eating disorder. I am 19 years old right now, but have been very self conscious about my weight ever since I was about 14. My freshman year of high school I went on a low-carb diet and lost about 10-12 pounds. I was not overweight before, but I got down to about 116 lbs (I am 5'5). I got to the point where I really did not enjoy eating, and any feeling of being full disgusted me, and I couldn't wait to feel "empty" again. This lasted for about a month, but then I gained the weight back and went back to being about my normal weight. I haven't starved myself constantly over the past 5 years, it seems like diets go out of hand and I take them too far and almost get a high off of not eating and losing weight. Also, in-between these phases I will go through almost the complete opposite, and binge eat like no other. My sophomore year of high school I remember it got especially bad, where I would eat so much telling myself "tomorrow, I'll start eating better and start losing weight" but it would never really happen. I gained weight and got to about 145 lbs, almost 150 at a certain point. I eventually lost the weight by barely eating, and after about 3 years of dealing with these two opposite eating habits I am at about 126 pounds. What scares me though is that sometimes I still feel disgusted by how I look, and if I eat barely anything one day I actually get excited. It's like an accomplishment. So even though my eating habits are never constant (the binging and starving), and they are more in spaced out phases, is it possible that I could have an eating disorder? There is not one day that goes by where I don't think about how many calories I have eaten, and I am always thinking about food in one way or another. I HATE feeling so "addicted" to this, and I can't imagine it changing anytime soon. I wish I could go back to the day where I could just eat a piece of pizza or ice cream and not even THINK about how much weight I am going to gain because of it. I really don't know what I should do, and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
A:
It does sound as if you have a difficult relationship with food that may in fact be obsessive/compulsive as it is feeling out of your control to affect your own behavior and is occupying much of your thought and feeling. In that sense, you may have an "eating disorder" that is mixed anorexia and bulimia (binge behavior without purging).
There is most definitely help for this, in both the counseling and psychiatric realm. At WWU, we work as a team to connect you with a therapist who specializes in eating issues and struggles, and we have a dietician very knowledgeable in the field. You also can have psychiatric support with medication, if necessary, to help calm some of the anxieties and behaviors that you are dealing with.
You can start by calling the Counseling Center at 650-3164 and have an intake appointment. They will direct you to the next step.
~The Doc
