Fatgrrl posted something in her Dirty Secret post that I am experiencing myself.
As we in the fatosphere know all too well, doctors can be so ignorant about health in relation to fat. There have been so many times in my life where I lost weight in unhealthy ways, but my docs were positively beaming because the overweight girl lost weight. They had no concern that I wasn’t eating due to stress or pervasive nausea or a disordered fear of food. It only mattered to them that I lost weight.
I went to see my psychiatrist today. I’ve been doing really well on anti-depressants, but he’s also been wanting to get me on ADHD medicine. I have always presented with strong ADHD symptoms, but I’ve avoided the medication since we weren’t sure if it was hyper-vigilance due to PTSD (which we know for sure that I have).
Well, I hardly have flashbacks anymore. The PTSD isn’t nearly as noisy at it used to be, so I agreed to the ADHD meds. My psychiatrist is quite aware of my eating disorder history, at the same time, I can see he doesn’t really get it. He gave me a med that I have avoided, because it can often be abused by eating disordered folks. I never felt ready. I couldn’t trust myself — at least I was healthy enough to know that much.
I can’t say that I’ve felt eating disordered in a long time now and that is such a huge relief in my life. I feel I still have a ways to go in healing from a lifetime of a abuse and trauma, but I no longer feel the need to not eat, overeat or otherwise use food in a disordered way.
Do I emotionally eat sometimes? Sure. Dont’ we all? And, sometimes I miss a meal too. The point is that it doesn’t feel like the end of the world to me to eat for some other reason than to fuel my body. I no longer think that I’m “virtuous” for missing a meal. Food isn’t a morale choice. It’s just food.
Back to my pdoc… I was floored by what he said to me. He said while on this medication, I shouldn’t let myself starve completely. It is okay to eat just a cracker all day, just as long as I don’t let myself get hypoglycemic. *headdesk* Why would any doctor recommend this to anyone?? He went on to tell me that he won’t worry if I lose some weight (as I am on the border of normal and overweight right now), even if I lose it because I’m not eating because of my medication. So, if I starve, it’s okay – cuz I’m fat. Abusing my body by taking advantage of my meds is okay, cuz i’m fat. Right…
Lucky for me, I’ve come far enough from the eating disorder to find the idea of starving myself via medicine repugnant. And, I sure as hell don’t believe that I a) need to lose weight and b) losing weight in any unhealthy method is okay for anyone considered fat or not fat. It makes me so angry that docs that are even fairy progressive (as mine is generally) STILL DON’T GET IT and still send these messages that abusing your body is a-okay if you’re fat. When I was younger and/or more disordered I used to think that because a doc said it, it must be right. I took it as validation of my starvation… of the self-hate, the abuse. Too many docs are a part of the problem.
–AngryGrayRainbows
Angry Gray Rainbows 
What kind of medical professional gives a potentiallt triggering medication to someone with a history of eating disorders and then validates restrictive eating and weight loss? Eeesh. Time to dump this doc and find someone more appropriate for you, I think.
A really ignorant one. LOL
Had this happened a year ago or more, I would’ve dumped the guy immediately. However, the medication I’m on has even been recommended to me by eating disorder treatment professionals from the very beginning. But knowing what I could and couldn’t handle at the time, I avoided the meds. I would’ve just gone further into the disorder – at least that was my educated guess.
I still see my therapist (who knows very well about eating disorders and have saved my life… yay!) and she knows about all the med stuff. So, given that I hardly have any eating disordered thinking any more and given a professional who knows eating disorders who supports the choice, I feel solid in this decision.
However, yeah, the psychiatrist is a bit of a dink. Sadly, after seeing six pdocs at this point, he is the least ignorant I have found yet. And, I live in a major metro area!!! Isn’t that sad? The medical community has A LOT of catching up to do!
OMG! What a dork! I have to keep in my mind that doctors are people too. I know that the “medical” community had me snowed about fat for a lot of years so i feel sure that doctors have been snowed too.
The thing that stood out to me was when you said something like ‘because a doctor said it, it must be true.’ I thought that way too. I’m thinking some of the doctors are in the same boat. They trust all the “evidence” out there because he probably thinks, “you know, Dr. XXXX is prominent and must know what he’s talking about.” Yep, most doctors are clueless.
You can always try the med and then if it doesn’t work (and we’ll check on you to see if it does), you can go back and check in with Dr. Dork and tell him so.
Bottom line: you’ll know if it’s not right so take special care to watch what it does to your body.
sas
Good news, friends! This med isn’t giving me the side-effects that I feared. There is some small loss of appetite that I know back in the bad old days I would’ve taken advantage of, but I am proud to say that I am still lovingly nourishing my body with a wide variety of foods that include vegetables and white chocolate macademia cookies – among other things, of course.
I am guessing that this is a medication I have been really needing. While it is a stimulant, because I am very ADD’d, it calms me down. I no longer feel that oppressive struggle to focus. While, I do have some struggle to focus, it feels more “normal”. It doesn’t feel like an endless uphill battle to read a paragraph (as often it does). While I may be distracted by shiney things still, I can calmly remember what I was doing and get back to it with some effort. When, previously, too often I’d spin my wheels try to even remember what I was doing before and then to get myself to focus on it after I was distracted… fogettaboutit.
I’m starting to understand my therapist’s point that it was really some kind of miracle that I just natually did so well in school given my ADDness. I didn’t realize how much I had to fight my distractedness until for the first time in my life, my distractedness feels so diminished.
I also had been wondering if i had chronic fatigue or something like that. While I am often hyper, at the same time, I am also often completely drained. I think my hyperness and my struggle to focus was draining me in more ways than I knew. Since this med, I feel like I actually have energy to do the things other people do… like put the dishes in the dishwasher and go for a walk with one of the cats in the snow. It doesn’t feel painfully difficult to overcome my fatigue to do such things… which is just fucking awesome.
At the same time, I don’t have this strung-out, over stimulated feeling I got from having too much caffeine. It just feels right. It feels normal – for me anyway. I don’t feel compelled to run around the block or obsessively clean the house. It feels just normal… where I can choose to read a book (and more easily focus on it… OMG that is so great!) or look out the window at the snow, but I also have the energy to do a couple loads of laundry. Sadly, I haven’t felt this good, since I was very young and I guess before my ADD symptoms lost their quality of hyper-focus on one thing and my brain started darting in 1,000 directions at once, confusing and tiring me.
The doc said that with this particular med, I wouldn’t have to wait a month to see how it works for me. I would know within 30 minutes of taking it. And, so, I’m off to a good start. Yay for concentration!
I am unable to understand this post. But well some points are useful for me.