Is this forum for me?

[CricketIAFP]

Attn: This is my first post ever anywhere and I warn you it is very long. If you are pressed for time you might want to skip this or read at a later time.

Hello, I am looking for a forum where I can express, explore the psycological foundation my eating disorder. I am a 39 year old woman who has never been over weight more than 10-20 pounds my entire life up until about 5 years ago when I physically collapsed into a severe anxiety/depression state that after exhausing all testing by doctors was told to seek mental health. The physical symptoms I was experiencing were; sleeping 15-20 hours a day, gaining a total of 80lbs and trying to self medicate to first get to sleep with alcohol. I am not in a denial state about alchol because once I was treated with medications I stopped drinking cold turkey (in spite of how heavily I was drinking) and even though there were a few times I wanted to drink once I stopped I was not driven to do so. I literally went a year and a half without one drop of alcohol and then I allowed myself to have a social drink probably about 4 times in the next years and really didn't enjoy it or want more than 1 drink.

What I have discovered in the last 3 years; after seeing a counsellor of psycology and psychiatrist first I had to deal with getting control over the anxiety attacks, nightmares, and depression. My life was really good so it was hard for me to understand why all this was happining to me. I have a good marrage of 15 years. We raised combined 4 children. Financially we were comfortable. All of the children were pretty much grown and gone.

After getting ahold of the anxiety etc. above by following the advise of my doctors and doing the exercises for the anxiety I began to become more in tune with what was causing it. I began to have brief foggy flashbacks of people, a place and an event that occurred in my life. At first I thought it was maybe just flashbacks of certain dreams I might have had as a kid, but slowly I began to look up street addresses on a map and found the place where the event was. The flashbacks became clearer and clearer to me. I had been going to private counsiling for two years at this point and though it never came up before, I had decided to ask my therapist about it. I told her every detail of the event I could remember and asked her to help me to find out if it was real or imagined.

I know this is such a long introduction but I really need to know where I can find continued help. I will tell you that I am positive now that the event did occur. At age 13 I was living on the street with a girlfriend because my circumstances at home caused me to flee for my own safety. I had a new stepfather who was trying to sexually abuse me. I ended up hanging out at this "party house" and was drugged, raped, torchered buy two men and one woman for about 1-2 weeks. What I remembered of it 32 years afterwards are brieft times I was in and out of the drugged state they kept me in. I won't go into details but I can tell you it was the worse things imaginable.

I went through the last 3 years doing everything I was guided to do about it. I have been told by my psycologist that I have done everything I could to get through/over it. But I am still on anti-depressant medication and still 80 lbs over weight. I can't seem to get myself on an exercise program and I am a comfort eater. I mostly eat at night or in the middle of the night, even though I know this is the worse way to eat. It is an addiction for me.

Is this forum for me, or can anyone direct me to a forum where I can get the help I need? Again, I apoligize for such a long post but at the same time I needed to say everything I did. Thank you in advance to anyone who might be inclined to help direct me.

Cricket In A Frying Pan

[best]

I am not sure how much help you will gain here but I do know you will gain a lot of support.
Welcome to SR.

What you will find here on this site and on this forum as well... A wonderful group of caring poeple that will share what they know and listen as you share.
People will give opinions and experiences...take what you need and what will work for you.

Again...Welcome

[Nina Kay]

Hi Cricket,
Welcome to SR and to the Eating Disorder Forum in particular. Sorry I'm coming in on your thread so late, I was out of town today. I think that what Best said was true. You will recieve alot of support, love, and encouragement here, but you may need to look further for the specific help you might need for the deeper and mor complicated issues. You are obviously dealing with Post Traumatic Syndrome. There are foums here that deal with Mental Health and some other forums dealing with these kinds of problems here on the Sober Recovery Board which you might want to check out. But the truth is what we do here is share our own experiences and support one another. There is no professional type help here. You might want to ask this question at the top of the cover page, where there are two professionals that maybe could point you in the direction that you need to go. We would love for you to come back here as often as you might desire, to walk the recovery road with us, having to do with the compulsive overeating. However, I do feel like it is probably very important for you to get some professional help dealing with what you have found to be the root of your problem. We are here for you if you need us and I am an emotional overeater. (compulsive overeater)

[CricketIAFP]

Thank you Best and Nina Kay. Nina, yesterday I was reading some of the posts here and I agree with what you commented. I am going to seek out a forum where I can talk with others about the root of my problem. However I also want to talk about my ed here from time to time.

Thank you both very much for your replies. I feel the love here and that means a lot to me.

Sherry