About Me I recovered with the help of a very good cognitive behavior therapist, and highly recommend cognitive behavior therapy as an aid to recovery from anyone suffering from any type of eating disorder.This type of therapy is different to many others in that it involves reprogramming your mind, so that you can think more clearly, and identify and work with the problems in your life one by one. My therapist did not spend time discussing food or weight issues with me and we spoke only briefly about my past. The therapy sessions were spent, instead, in talking about my life as it was at the time, where I wanted to be and what was stopping me from getting there. I came to realize that the only thing stopping me was myself, and the negative way in which I perceived myself. By helping me to slow down and become aware of my thoughts, I started to see that my negative self-image was permeating every area of my life. I began to realize that the thoughts I was having, of which I had previously been so unaware, were causing the feeling of panic which I had become so used to. Being anorexic and bulimic was, for me, an attempt to escape from the things I was afraid to face up to. I had a young child. My relationship with his father was unsatisfactory. I had recently returned from abroad, with no money, and had had to move back in with my parents. I wasn't happy with my job. Before I began to have therapy it never really occurred to me that I could change any of those things. The only thing I felt I could change, and control, was my body. Therapy showed me that by making changes to my life my need to control my body would diminish. And it worked. Concern over my weight and my body became less and less significant to me as I began to build the life for myself and my son that we deserve. I was undoing the thought patterns which had led to my becoming anorexic and bulimic, and replacing them with new, positive ones. Now, when I look back, I look at another me. One so different that I hardly recognize the anorexic me of those days.
If you would like to know more about how cognitive behaviour therapy can help the anorexic or bulimic, please click here
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