I’ve heard that “the eating disorder is like a bad boyfriend.” I guess that in this context, referring to the eating disorder as “Ed” makes a lot of sense. The boyfriend analogy aside, the eating disorder does fall under the category of “toxic relationship.” Just look at how relevant the 10 steps are…

Everyone has heard the phrase about things having to get worse before getting better. However, it doesn’t say MAKE things worse so that they can get better. It doesn’t exactly work like that. I see a couple of different situations where people “try to get out of the eating disorder by going [further] into their eating disorder”:

This evening I was reading Carrie’s post on overcoming core traits.  Personally, her post was very timely, having just finished reading the book, “When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough.”  That is NOT a book that I would normally pick up (I feel pretty well-versed in perfectionism), but my therapist handed it to me.  In hindsight, maybe I could have NOT read it and argued that I was challenging my perfectionism by not doing my therapy homework.  Oh well, next time…
Anyway, the book made a lot of good points, and I could …

I’ve been in all different levels of treatment with numerous professionals and various treatment centers, and overall I’d have to say that both group and individual therapy are important (and beneficial) in recovery.  With group, there are several people who you can bounce ideas off of, get advice from, relate to, and rely on for support.  I feel like most of the real therapy work happens in individual, though, where you can focus on your specific issues, goals, etc.  I really do think it helps to have both individual and …

…according to Grey Thinking, at least.  I’ve seen so many coping skills lists full of bubble baths, deep breathing, positive affirmations, etc, and really am just bored with them.  Someone needs to come up with some creative and new alternative coping mechanisms!  I might as well start.  Here’s a list of some of my favorite / most-helpful coping skills, that I’ve never seen (or very rarely seen) on any “learning to cope” list.
Five of the most underrated coping skills:

card stores
bulletin boards
kudos charts
crafting
dvds

I have a lot to say about each one …

The growing obesity epidemic is nothing new, and I’ve written about government-imposed food restrictions in elementary schools before, but I’m pretty disappointed that the government would charge non-dieting, overweight Americans: State’s Obesity Risk: Lose Weight or Lose Insurance
To summarize this article in a couple of lines:
Alabama is giving its employees roughly a year to start getting in shape or state employees will be charged $25 a month for insurance that would otherwise be free.
Some states offer benefits for healthy living, but Alabama is the first state to punish those not …