"Anorexia nearly killed my wife..."

[bliss_eternal]

“Anorexia nearly killed my wife”
Tom Cramer’s perfect world shattered when the love of his life developed an eating disorder. To understand her illness, he stopped eating too. Post your comments on this story here.
As told to Brian Alexander

Tom and Meg, three months before she was hospitalized with anorexia
Psychiatric wards are places where they take sharp objects and shoelaces from patients. My wife lived in one for two weeks, when doctors feared she was a danger to herself.

The day Meg was admitted, she was 83 pounds, down from a healthy 109 on her 5’1” frame just five months earlier. Driving home from the aerobics class she taught, she had become nauseated and faint and had chest pains. She went to the ER, where they sent her to the psychiatric ward. When I arrived, I was terrified—and relieved. Maybe, finally, doctors could help her in ways I hadn’t been able to. It was the beginning of Meg’s fight to overcome anorexia, and the start of my own to help the woman I love so much.

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But not everything was easy for Meg. Before we had kids, she worked in child advocacy in Washington, D.C., and loved her career—but when my job transfer forced us to move to North Carolina and then to Pittsburgh, where both our families were, Meg became a stay-at-home mom. Living just miles from our parents, she felt she was under constant scrutiny, pressured to be the perfect wife, mother, daughter and daughter-in-law. I began to understand that beneath my wife’s tough exterior, she was a pleaser.

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Since that time, I’ve learned that anorexia does not have an on/off switch. What Meg needed from me was adult interaction and emotional support, not clean clothes. Which is why, under my brilliant strategy, we went from a couple that rarely fought to one that argued all the time about food and the gym.

The more I pushed her to change, the more she pushed back. She tossed the sexy clothes and adopted a uniform of baggy pants and shirts to hide her wasting body from me. We rarely made love. She had so little energy that she’d fall in bed by eight, just after the kids went to sleep. Her allergies flared and her periods stopped. I found myself making excuses for Meg’s gaunt appearance, telling friends and family that she had the flu or another illness.

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For more than a week, without telling anyone, I tried to simulate anorexia. In addition to my daily routine of running three miles, I severely limited my calories. I’d have juice and maybe a banana for breakfast and a small salad for dinner. Since Meg and I usually ate separately, she didn’t notice. But I was exhausted and irritable; my head ached constantly. I’d lie in bed at night and think, I am so hungry! How does she do it? How can the voice Meg hears be so powerful?

But by day three, I began hearing the voice too: “Come on, you can do it. Don’t give in. You’re better than that.” When I refused food, I had a sense of victory. The longer I resisted, the more powerful I felt. When Meg was admitted to the hospital, I thought that she had failed and allowed this to happen. Now I understood the seduction of the words in her head, how they could override the most basic human survival instincts. And I saw her as a hero—who had to be incredibly strong in her fight to recover.

I didn’t tell Meg about my experiment for almost a year, but my attitude changed immediately. No longer ashamed because I thought my wife was weak, I got over my need for us to be exalted as perfect. I stopped lying to friends and family that Meg had the flu. As I was more honest, support and encouragement flowed in—our friends didn’t distance themselves or disappear as I’d feared. I became the advocate Meg needed, able to coach others on why they should never mention Meg’s appearance or comment on her food choices. For example, if someone said, “A salad! That won’t be enough!” I would remember times that I’d used those very words, and then I’d explain that pressuring her wouldn’t help and might make things worse. Instead of trying to protect her by denying that there was a problem, I became a speed bump between my wife and the rest of the world.

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excerpted from:
http://www.glamour.com/health/articles/2008/01/anorexia

********
The article above was on the msn front page. I'm excerpting it from Glamour (as they were the source for the article).
I have mixed feelings about Glamour. I'm glad they bring attention to problems like this. At the same time, I take issue with the fact that magazines like Glamour are part of the problem. Their advertisers include companies that use models that look like pre-pubescent boys. It's great they're looking at the issue, but where's the accountability? Magazines like this make their money by making women feel bad about themselves. There's a link on the main page asking people to respond with pics and comments when they see a "fashion don't." :eyes:

[ismnotwasm]

1. I've noticed that about fashion magazines

They all more or less suck. I avoid them, and I'm not without personal vanity either. I'm at the point were just looking at them pisses me off. I guess I'm glad the guy tried to figure out what his wife was going through, but I'd be happier if those magazine weren't so full of shit. Lose weight, be a size 2! But make sure you eat healthy! And like tossing a bone to a dog, they'll print the occasional article about anorexia or bulimia or even sexism. The hypocrisy is stunning.

Anorexia is a horrible disease. When I worked at a nursing home, we cared for a women who had a choice of a mental institution or being tube fed in a long term care facility (this was a number of years ago, I think, I hope there are better options today)This women was upper middle class, had a great family--you know, all that "good stuff"

What she would do, is pace the halls trying to work off calories. She leave the building and take walks. She'd "accidental" pull out her feeding tube or complain of nausea. She wore bulky clothes to hide her emaciation. It was horrible. As is often with patients with "self inflicted" diseases she faced a certain amount of judgment, and as she was difficult to deal with, well I always felt the health care system didn't have the right treatment for her.

I had a friend who's wife had the disease so severely she had a stroke. It didn't cure her anorexia.

I have a friend (who is probably dead) who, when she wasn't shooting up heroin, was bulimic to the point of damaging her heart and rotting her teeth. It was always the bulimia, or the heroin, never the two together.

I had a patient recently with a different, chronic disease, who had anorexia on top of it. She had difficulty with independent movement, and so developed horrid pressure sores. She had NO protein stores to help her heal.

I knew a social worker, very attractive at the beginning of her anorexia. I was in a little deli/coffee shop with her and her husband one time, and watched her face as her husband tried to get her to order something to eat. She looked, I don't know, fearful? baffled? "No, no, I'm not hungry" she said. I lost track of them so I don't know the outcome

I type this of the top of my head, in just a few minutes, I know other examples, and I'm just one person. Those magazines contribute to these horror stories. They make me sick.

[bliss_eternal]

2. I only read them at the doctor's office...

...these days. In my twenties, I read them constantly. How I wish I'd had a clue of feminism then. I would have known how full of shit they all are. During that time, it was rare to even see a model of color featured, much less a plus sized one.

I don't recall when, but one day I just didn't want them anymore. I was sick of it all. The media's focus on this actresses size, or that one's hips. Magazines with headlines about women's mutilation in Africa while simultaneously featuring a "how to please your man in bed" article. :crazy: I guess I woke up.

I get angry at myself, as there's still one I'll occasionally succumb to. While it doesn't feature the contradictory articles, it has lots of shi-shi-foo-foo, overpriced items that most of us will never NEED in a lifetime.

The advertising and marketing of retail items to women and children is beyond evil, in my opinion.

[ismnotwasm]

4. What 's funny

About myself, is at work, occasionally there will be a "trash" magazine, you know celebrity gossip. I'll look at those with a certain amount of guilty pleasure, since I don't by them for myself. I'll even joke about it. They can be extremely sexist and downright mean but they're kind of a free for all, I guess.

If someone leaves a "Woman's magazine" especially a high end one like Vogue, I can't look through them without being irritated. I'll start thumbing through them with commentary. My co-workers know my opinions, and put up with me. Even when I go so far as to say things like "make-up and botox shouldn't make your face look like another orifice", and use as comparison certain members of the Ape family and their rear presentation, with vaginal swelling, and in some cases reddening. (I know that's bad, I'll also give the high heels as sexual presentation talk, you know butt and boobs sticking out)

(I like make up when it's well done, I no longer wear it myself very often but I don't care if other people do, It's just that I wish the art of self decoration was equal between men and women)

[bliss_eternal]

5. Guilty pleasures....

...make us human. We've all got them.

One of mine is looking at clothes, shoes and yep--even some make-up. Which is why I occasionally indulge in a magazine that doesn't feauture the contradictory articles, etc.--it's all about shopping. But it's a double edged sword though, because the shopping featured is chi-chi-foo-foo, insanely expensive boutique crap for the most part. They do feature lesser priced items as aleternatives, though (small consolation).

I cracked up at your comments on Vogue. You're more tolerant than I. That's probably the only magazine I can't even look at casually. Seriously. Vogue to me is fashion pornography--stylists, photographers, and designers whacked out dreams of what women should look and dress like. Sure the girls make great money, but many at the cost of their health and sanity(i.e. drug and alcohol addictions, eating disorders, etc.)

[Ellen Forradalom]

3. Sidebar on the same page

Tacky, tacky.

[bliss_eternal]

6. Ugh.

:grr::mad:
See--no accountability at all.

[bliss_eternal]

7. The other so-called "women's magazines" aren't any better...

...the ones focused on family, housekeeping and the like make me VERY angry. Most are filled with not so subtle comments about "single women", married women without children, etc. Really right wing, sickening crap.

Just thought I should add this, so it's clear that there's a range of periodicals "for women", that perpetuate issues for women in society.

[Ellen Forradalom]

9. Oh Christ on a crutch, and don't even get me started on the fucking "MOMMY WARS"

Parenting magazines love to throw gasoline on that fire. Stay-at-homes write in saying, "Women who work at jobs DON'T LOVE THEIR KIDS" and the work-outside-the-home ones write sheepishly, "But I have to work for us to make ends meet!"

I hate it when they make inmates their own jailers.

[xmas74]

12. I hate that shit.

I buy those magazines on occasion for some quick fix dinner ideas. By the time I've finished reading them I don't feel "good enough", compared to the married women, the married parents, the stay-at-home mothers, etc.

I swear, if you are a low-wage earning single mother you'd make the world a better place by offing yourself, according to some of those magazines.

[bliss_eternal]

13. Additionally....

...I dislike seeing them endorse the idea that single female friends and relatives (of the married w/children women)are "unsupportive" if they aren't "volunteering" to sit with their precious little darlings.

:wtf:

As if it's every single woman's goal in life, to have children--and they need to practice by sitting with the children of friends and family. I've seen this very sentiment expressed in some of their "advice columns" or women asking how to "confront" a horrible sister or friend for not doing so. :eyes: Like, women are shitty friends if they don't offer to babysit. The whole "love me, love my child" rationale. Just beyond ridiculous.

Not one of these people seems capable of even considering maybe their single, female friends even like kids, or enjoy babysitting.
:grr::mad:

Forgive my ranting on this. I just hate seeing "women's magazines" perpetuate divisiveness between women.

[Ellen Forradalom]

14. I wonder if those women are more comfortable

demanding 'babysitting' of their friends and female relatives than the kids' own father?

[bliss_eternal]

15. Oh god forbid...!

...excellent point, btw! I would bet money, they are more apt to demand relatives or friends sit, but reluctant to ask their husbands to watch their own children.

So much easier to deem a friend unworthy, or a relative uncaring than to wake up to the reality they married a selfish jerk. ;)

[Ellen Forradalom]

16. My son's father is a prince that way

We have issues between us two, but he's always been a real hands-on dad and I love him for it--as does our son, of course.

[Control-Z]

8. Off, but on topic

What a great husband.

[Ellen Forradalom]

10. It occurred to me while reading this article

that "the problem which has no name" is still very much with us. The author indicated her difficulties in dealing with demands placed on her by family. How easy it still is to forget in our culture that mothers are human beings too.

[ismnotwasm]

11. Human beings FIRST

Women are always defined in secondary roles. Mother, wife, whore, virgin. Our very humanness has been called into question more than once throughout history.

It's not surprising anorexics tend to be overachievers from white middle class families. Here you are with "advantages" Yet how you define yourself is at first nebulous, open to question, and when examined has much to do with what you look like. That loss of control is dealt with using a basic necessity--food. As I said before, it's a horrible disease.