Coping with Eating Disorders: Ten Tips Which May Help You to Help Yourself
Buy a self-help book. Research has proved self-help books can be enormously effective.
Begin to keep a diary - write down feelings. Make your diary personal to you - your own confidante and friend in whom you confide your thoughts. Scribble, stick in photos, draw pictures - there are no rules about how you have to use the space.
Begin to be in touch with the feelings and thoughts around the binges. Begin to understand your underlying emotional issues.
Ask yourself what is it that you really want instead of food - is it a response to the worry of work? Do you really want a hug, a chat with a friend?
Start nurturing and pampering yourself. Set aside time in the day for your own relaxation and leisure periods. Prioritise your needs.
Dare to say yes to yourself instead of no. Learn to accept the way you are and begin to appreciate and love yourself.
Do not overly criticise or judge yourself harshly. Over zealous self-criticism will drive the compulsion of the eating disorder.
Draw a family tree to include all friends and all those living or dead. Write down your family history noting dramatic or eventful periods of change.
See if there are emerging patterns of behaviour. Look at the way you relate to others. Do you have equal give-and-take in relationships? If not look at books on assertiveness or join an assertion group such as those run by the University Counselling Service.
Be gentle on yourself. Accept the way you are. Your eating disorder has enabled you to cope with difficult circumstances. See if you can come up with other coping strategies which are less harmful.
