adult love and anorexia

» loveone0 - purging love?

I met and fell in love with a wonderful woman...we saw one another for about 5 months..we were both head over hills...and then very suddenly, she fled...she could not explain why..she is miserable and depressed but says she can not be with me..she had told me of her fight with anorexia some 20 years ago..almost died, was hospitalized...I knew little about anorexia so assumed it was a past problem...but over the last few weeks I've started to think that her "running" from our relationship, from love and intimacy..is somehow related. She had told me that she had never felt as she did with me..never really been in love..she seemed thrilled at first but now seems unable to tolerate the same feelings.I can't find any reference to this in literature...am I on the right track? am I (love) something she is purging? She said she felt "out of control"..please help me to understand this.

-- posted by loveone0

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» chipper3 - Re: purging love?

In response to message posted by loveone0:

The woman you speak of is very lucky to have had the chance with someone so compassionate and caring and attempting to understand this. She may well have been having a good patch when you two met; the Anorexia may have subsided for a while after her big bout of it, but unless she got help to kill the ED completely and to fix her head up, then of course the illness is going to recur and recur and recur, whenever she gets a little down. Once you have an eating disorder, you are susceptible to come back to carrying out the 'habits' or 'symptoms' again- you are always liable to be a victim, unless you get help. If the woman you speak of didn't have help (ie. counselling) when she first had anorexia, then yes, she is definitely susceptible to it again. She probably 'ran' from you and your relationship together because she felt the illness coming on her again- that 'out of control' feeling, anorexic people get rid of that feeling by 'taking control' (as in- cutting out food, cutting down dramatically, compulsively watching what they eat, etc etc). The feelings she was having for you probably made her feel vulnerable and liable to get hurt (ie. you might have left her just as she was so happy, etc) because people who have eating disorders have NO self confidence or self esteem, or hardly any at all, and feel weak and very vulnerable. Those feelings she was having for you were those out-of-control feelings you get when you're in love, and anyone with anorexia or underlying anorexia already feels out of control of their own lives and are usually obsessed with trying to attain control somehow (not eating- that gives you a huge, much needed sense of control, and you feel like it's the only thing you can hold onto and it becomes your crutch) and that is probably why she ran at the first sign of losing control (over anything). That's what I think anyway, I have/had anorexia and know it is a big control thing (but ends up controlling you and digs it's claws in and gets a grip).
The woman you speak of, I think, still needs help and still has the illness of anorexia.

-- posted by chipper3

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