Monday, December 1, 2008

Singer/Songwriter, Juliana Hatfield Knows ED, Too

Juliana Hatfield, 'member her from the 90's?


"They make us eat six times a day. Three meals and three snacks. We all sit in the kitchen together and there is a monitor at the head of the table making sure we eat everything on our plates and drink everything in our cups. This is called the refeeding process. It must be done slowly and steadily, with more food added on as time progresses so we don't shock our systems. So we are not in danger of ending up like Karen Carpenter -- she gained too much weight too fast after starving for a long time, and her heart couldn't take it.
The bathroom doors are locked so the bulimics can't go in and puke. (I myself have never been a purger.) When you need to go, you must ask a monitor to unlock the door for you and after she lets you in she stands just outside the door and then you must either count while you are on the toilet, loud enough so that she can hear you, right up until the moment you exit, or you must let her flush for you after you are done -- so that there is proof that you didn't vomit your food into the toilet.
Every morning they wake us up at seven and we all put on hospital johnnies, first thing, and go and have our vitals (temperature, blood pressure) checked and have ourselves weighed. I have gained five pounds so far. I'm doing well. I'm a model patient, weight gaining-wise. My mental/emo health is another story -- a longer story, a work in progress."

Seriously? I could've written that. Except we never got to count out loud. We were never allowed to flush at Casa Palmera (I mean Palmona Picasso, Patrick). She must've gone to the place in Arizona, maybe? Anyway. Here I am--back blogging about ED.

Juliana went on to say:

"Before computers you never would have found me blabbing (blogging [blogging is blabbing]) so openly like this about this," she writes before explaining the ins and outs of the E.D. center that's treating her."
Please read more of Juliana's blog: julianahatfield.com/blog.

I'm sure some of my readers (and you know who you are...) wish I would just shut the eff up about all this. I suppose they can ignore these posts, if they choose. Unfortunately, they are the ones who I want to know what I'm feeling. They think they understand, but they don't. Some may even think it was never an eating disorder to begin with, as I did for a bit. (Because it's normal to weigh 95 lbs.??) I was in complete denial. Food has ALWAYS been an issue for me. I love it more than most people--or I despise it. There are no in-betweens. And it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FOOD ITSELF. That's what people don't GET. It's about whether or not I deserve to be fed. That's a whole 'nother issue.

I went to the doctor today. She said I have completely screwed up my metabolism from punishing my body to the point where my weightgain is out of control. I also may have messed up my hormones and thyroid while I was at it; she scheduled bloodwork tomorrow. I came home and went nuts. I have refused to eat dinner...but I'm hungry. Ugh. NOW what?

3 comments:

Annette said...

I think i'm a freak because when i read about people's ED's i'm actualy a bit jealous i don't have one anymore.....I actually MISS the CONTROL i had. I MISS being skinny. I was lucky because i wasn't so underweight as to have problems (just really low blood pressure, cold & tired ALL the time). Hope things are OK J - if you're hungry at least find something you can eat and not feel guilty about. Soup's good.

Jilly said...

I can't even imagine how it must be to feel you don't deserve food. I only have a love/hate realtionship with food, because I eat the wrong crap in the wrong amounts at the wrong time of day. Bless you sweetie, for having the strength to confront these issues. I'd be happy to trade you some of my food self-esteem for some of your alcohol self-esteem, since that's where my problem lies.

Unknown said...

Awwww. . i live with a man who has OCD and alot of that comes out in his weight gain/loss. Looking at it from a loved ones point of view we often cant understand why or how you can punish yourself to this breaking point. But from another point of view when i gained a bit of weight in Africa, i actually thought about cutting off part of my thighs caus i hated it and then went into a mega no carbs at all diet for about six weeks and became mega skinny, to the point my boss called home to my mum. I was 43 kgs when i returned home, which is about 93lbs and the scarey thing was i loved it and felt fab. . .so in a sense i can see how it can become an obsession.
Ive babbled now too arghhhhhh
Its caus i aint been here for a while J x x x x x