“You get to define which experiences are traumatic for you, whether or not it would impact others in the same manner.  It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic,  but your own emotional experience of the event.”
– Dr. Kathleen Young

This is just a quick post, but I read this on a trauma blog tonight and thought it was so well-put.  This is something that i struggle with a lot — whether or not something “counts” as significant.  Maybe I am making it up.  Maybe it was …

I can’t remember the last time I saw “economist” and “bulimia” in the same headline — I usually don’t put the two together.  However, this article (Eating-Disorders Experts Challenge Economists’ Conclusions About Bulimia) made some pretty interesting statements:

Bulimia Nervosa (BN) is an addiction rather than an eating disorder
Black females are 50% more likely to be bulimic than white females
“Bulimic behavior” is less likely among wealthier, better-educated families.

You should definitely read the article, but I have a couple of things to add to these points:
1. BN is an addiction
I always compare …

I stumbled upon this article last week:  Metabolic Assessment of Menstruating and Nonmenstruating Normal Weight Adolescents This is something that I have always been curious about — is amenorrhea associated with a low metabolic rate?  I always assumed yes, at least a little bit.  However, I didn’t really base this conclusion on any hard science.  Let’s say that I used “Grey Science,” which goes something like this:
Your body requires a certain number of calories to function at full-capacity.  When you chronically deprive your body of these calories, it has to …

There is definitely a stigma surrounding mental illness.  It doesn’t receive the same kind of acceptance as physical illness.  I’m not really going to get into stigmatization and society and whatnot, but I just want to make it clear that I believe that physical illness is much more understood than mental illness.
That said, I am a little disappointed to read this article on relationships and mental health:
A partner is four times more likely to leave you because of a mental health condition like depression than because of a physical disability.
The …

Headline: Bad Economy Spurs Eating Disorders
According to Twin Cities, the patient load at Park Nicollet’s Melrose Institute/St. Louis has increased by 36 percent from one year ago, while the patient load at The Emily Program/St. Paul has increased by 20 percent for the same time period.
For instance, he says, people who suffer from an obsession with their weight, but who exercise to control weight gain rather than starve themselves, may no longer be able to afford their gym memberships. In that case, Jahraus says, they may decide to limit their …

I read an article this morning on dentists diagnosing eating disorders. It’s actually something that I’ve always wondered about… mainly because I was always scared that my dentist would call me out on the ED. It’s funny how having a doctor say something about my eating disorder felt oddly validating (maybe because I needed someone to say that I wasn’t okay for my feeling crappy to count), but having the dentist make a comment was mortifying.
I have never gone to the dentist and wanted anything to be wrong. …

“However, there are those who adopt extreme thinness as a lifestyle choice. Such people – aspiring anorexics, or “wannarexics” – are more representative of what you may be seeing in your daughter. Wannarexics imitate the behaviour of those with eating disorders so as to be, for example, a size zero. They are generally underweight but are not anorexic, as their behaviours are not as extreme.”
“Wannarexia comes from wanting to fit in. Girls as young as 5 identify greater weight with lesser popularity; they want to be Barbie. Pre-teens learn that …

I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m kind of a big deal. People know me. I have several leather bound books. And my apartment spells like rich mahogony. I’m friends with Merle Olsen. He comes over on occasion.
- Ron Burgunday, Anchorman

There have been a number of posts lately about eating disorders on facebook and the prominence of “sick photos” (the first post coming to mind is Laura Collins “The faces in facebook“). While I have yet to run into any of that on FB, it doesn’t …

I’ve been told more than a couple of times that negative body image is one of the last things to go in eating disorder recovery. Doesn’t that seem unfair? You want to think that you’ll feel better and be more accepting of yourself with the start of treatment, and that will motivate you to eat better and take care of yourself and move on past the disorder. And maybe at some point in treatment the nutrition kicks in and decreases the depression and anxiety that starvation heightens… …

I don’t even remember how I ran across this article today: Pro-anorexia websites inspire controversial photo exhibit
A controversial new photo exhibits opens tonight in Washington D.C. that has many people grimacing in disgust. The exhibit features a collection of work by German photographer Ivonne Thein and is titled ‘Thirty-Two Kilos.’ If your math is rusty, thirty-two kilos is roughly seventy pounds. Why is that important? The collection of photographs features extremely emaciated models.
I really think the only unique part about this exhibit is the title (while very sick, it is …