"I hate the way I look"

You are certainly not interested in coming to this web site to read any statistics. They are so impersonal and abstract. How on earth could knowing them possibly help you? Well, you might just feel a little less terrible about yourself if you knew that as of today, at least 85% of the women in America are on a diet. And this is not the first diet they've tried. Same for you? Or maybe you've been on one long, continual diet for all of your life.

It doesn't much matter if it is compulsive overeating, binging, purging, exercising, starving, anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, or any combination of these behaviors. You know if you are in trouble. You don't have to take any more of the twenty question tests. You know if you hide your eating. If you lie to others about it. If you hate yourself every moment of every day. If all you think about is eating or not eating. If you wish you could die and come back in a perfect body.

"It's not about the food. "

Let's make it clear, right here and now. It is not the food. It is not about calories or fat grams, or carbohydrates, or protein, or sugar, or good and bad food. It's all about control. It's about feeling out of control and trying desperately to bring order to the chaos that is your life. It's about trying to make other people notice you and love you. Trying to make others behave the way you want them to behave. It is indeed, all about control. When you hear that inner voice telling you that basically you are a bad, unworthy person, you feel so bad that only something to eat will make that feeling go away. It's like filling up an endless hole, right there inside of you. And it's no wonder you do it with food. Food equals love for most of us. It was the currency used by our very first care givers to show us that we were loved. It is still the message of love for many of us.

You know that eating can take away that awful, almost constant feeling of aloneness. That for just a few moments you will feel connected to something. There is something missing in your life and you need to find it. Food seems to provide the road map to that missing part, so you take it again and again, only to reach the same dead end. Every day is a struggle. No one else seems to understand. You're angry, fearful, anxious, hurt, all of those and more, and nobody even cares!

Starving?

The experts say that this behavior, this desire to starve yourself is caused by the media images you see. You know better! You know that those stick skinny women in the movies and on TV feel just the way you do. Oh, of course they say they starve themselves so that they can get and keep their jobs, but that's just a cover. Does anyone really believe that they are going to tell what's really in their hearts. It's that same need to control the inner and outer chaos in their lives that makes them use food as a weapon against the world and themselves. You understand them, but you hate them, too, because they look so much better than you do!

"Drunk on your own brain chemicals."

What a dilemma! Once you get started on this road to destruction, it seems like there is no turning back. Your own brain reacts to your obsessive and compulsive behavior, flooding your system with a rush of intoxicating neurochemicals. For a moment you feel better, you feel in control again. But, you are drunk! Your thinking is impaired. You can't make a rational choice or an informed judgment about this behavior because your system is overloaded. It's operating in the berserk mode. It doesn't last long, and shortly you have to do it again. Eat, not eat, puke, poop, obsess, exercise, run, hide, cry, rage, buy something!!! They all work for a little while. Until they don't work at all, anymore.

Getting Help

Then you have to reach out for help. There are lots of books, lots of treatment centers, lots of 12-step groups, but you are the only one who can take the first step. You have to admit that your life is in a mess, despite all of your best efforts to control it. And you need help. You can't do it alone.

We are here to help. In the Spirit of Recovery we will listen and share our collective wisdom and experience. You will speak with the best therapists available. Call us today, at 1-800-754-1452 or email us at RecoveryCentral@aol.com for a free initial consultation. There's no better time than right now.