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Secrets of a Formerly Miserable Wife
Author Diane England, Ph.D. has the credentials you expect, plus she has 
empathy and speaks from the heart because she has been there, too.

“Are you Using an Eating Disorders to Cope with his Narcissism, Addictions, and Abuse?”

 I probably don’t have to tell you that your eating is controlled by many factors. Perhaps the need for quality fuel for the body should be the primary one, but you and I both know we often eat for social and emotional reasons instead.

I’d like to talk about the emotional reasons in this article since I suspect this might be a problem for you. After all, when you’re in a marriage where you suffer ongoing verbal abuse and emotional abuse provided by your narcissistic spouse, it’s easy to turn to food for comfort and as a means o cope with unpleasant emotions.

Many people may eat when they’re bored. Some eat when they’re frustrated. Some stuff their faces when they’re angry. But you may eat because you’re trying to squelch the pain that stems from his abuse and a life that feels so out-of-control.

You might feel compelled to eat because of something called depression. After all, while some people eat less when they’re feeling down or depressed, that’s not how it works for everyone. In fact, I believed I should have benefited from all the misery I experienced in my marriage by becoming a few pounds thinner. Of course, my weight just went up instead because I ate the wrong kinds of foods during this time. I think I felt I deserved them; they were my reward for all I was suffering through—dealing with the verbal abuse and the emotional abuse and his narcissism and the results of his alcoholism and addiction to multiple prescription drugs as well.

Fortunately, after I left my spouse, I lost a number of pounds I’d put on during those last few most painful years. Sure, I’d gotten him into treatment and he was sober at the time. Still, the abuse hasn’t stopped. And I didn’t want to live with the worry about him relapsing, either. But this article isn’t supposed to be about me: it’s supposed to be about you. And so if you want to read more about me, check out my book, Secrets of a Miserable Wfe. You can read more about it at this site.

Right now, let’s get back to our discussion of using food inappropriately to deal with emotions like anxiety and pain and fear—things you undoubtedly encounter rather regularly, isn’t that so?

Yes, we use food to not to fuel our bodies, but to fuel release from our suffering. But of course the foods we consume typically aren’t healthy but instead, filled with empty calories. They add pounds and create health problems because they’re high in sugar and fats. Rather then being the answer, this solution merely makes matters worse.

Sometimes it can lead to an actual eating disorder or something that while not diagnosable as such, might be on the verge of one. Thus, if you either develop one or have one now, it’s not a healthy means to manage the chaos and pain of your abusive relationship. In fact, maybe you should view it as a warning since or a symptom of a larger problem and that’s the unhealthy marriage. Of course, you might need to seek help to start getting the eating order under some control first. In the process of learning how to do this, it might become clearer to you how your eating is associated with the destructiveness of your marriage. As a result, you might be more willing to do something about it.

From what I’ve said thus far, it might seem that overeating is the way a woman would deal with a painful abusive marriage. But that’s not necessarily true. Sometimes when you’re life is out of control—like it is when you’re living with a man who’s abusive due to narcissism, it can also make you feel better and in more control not to eat. In other words, you might actually develop the eating disorder of anorexia nervosa.

Let’s look at this disorder first and then we’ll talk about those who often secretly overeat to deal with negative emotions.

                   Do You Believe You can be Neither                      too Rich nor too Thin?

 I’ve just indicated that a woman might basically starve herself because by not eating, she gains a sense of control in an out-of-control personal world. And this is true.  But this can seem like a good and noble solution--that ultimately backfires, of course—because of messages we’ve been fed as women all our lives. And the affluent woman seems to typically take this message most seriously. I think it was a socialite from years past that said you can neither be too rich or too thin. And socialites today as well as many others affluent women seem to believe it. And that’s also while I believe you could be at risk of eating less as a means of feeling better about yourself as your marriage further deteriorates.

But what about the messages we’re always receiving about very thin is a good thing?

American women have been growing heavier. But as we’ve done so, the models and actresses to whom we’re constantly exposed have actually been getting thinner and thinner. In fact, most are now extremely underweight. When we’re exposed to images of these thin women regularly, however, we come to believe that they’re the normal ones. We’ll, if we don’t see their love weight as normal, we at least see it as the desirable goal to aim for, much as we desire more money despite the fact we might already have much more than average and much more than we even need to lead a comfortable life. It becomes that higher goal to attain.

We soon grow discontent with our bodies that might well fall within a normal weight range for both our age and height. Indeed, we often come to feel disgust for our own average bodies.

But you also might feel out of control because you can not maintain that ultra-thin physique that your favorite actress or model has.

We forget that these women have a great incentive to stay thin that we lack. There are millions and millions of dollars at stake. Plus there are always other beautiful thin women standing there on the sidelines, wanting to takes their places. Except perhaps you have felt similarly and thus kept striving to stay thin to help keep your marriage in tact? But now are you discovering that you’ve traded in your health and the pleasure of eating in a healthy manner for an unattainable goal? After all, you can’t really control who your husband is or what he does through your own behavior, can you? If he has a sex addiction, for example, he’s going to cheat no matter how thin and beautiful your are. It’s about him and not about you.

Anyway, let’s get back to trying to attain the results the actresses and model present us with regularly.

In trying to meet these standards that are both unrealistic an unhealthy for us, we begin to feel worse and worse about ourselves. We feel more out of control. And sometimes in the process of taking action to feel better about ourselves and more in control, we actually spin further and further out of control.

When you’re basically starving yourself to death through the eating disorder known as anorexia nervosa, you are not a woman in control. No, this is out-of-control behavior that must be dealt with because it is life threatening. And sometimes even after the woman is a normal weight again, she still dies because of damage created from the previous eating disorder.

 Do You Have Symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa?

·       Resistance to maintaining body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height

·  Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, despite being underweight

·   Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced—typically seeing the self as much heavier than one actually is.

·         Undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation

·          Denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight

·         Infrequent or absent menstrual periods

Women with this disorder see themselves as overweight even though they are dangerously thin. Furthermore, despite their thinness, the process of eating becomes an obsession. These women develop unusual eating habits.

What exactly do I mean by this? Well, they might avoid eating meals at all. Or if they do sit down to eat, they might pick out just a few foods and then eat those in small quantities. In fact, some woman may carefully weigh out the food to ensure not too much is eaten.

 Women with anorexia often repeatedly check their body weight. Since the woman is invariably discontent with what the scale tells her, she may engage in other techniques to control her weight. These could include intense and compulsive exercise as well as purging by means of vomiting. Well, she might also abuse laxatives, enemas, and diuretics to promote weight loss.

The course and outcome of anorexia nervosa varies across individuals. Some experience a single episode and then fully recover from that. Others might exhibit a fluctuating pattern of weight gain and relapse. Then again, some experience a chronically deteriorating course of illness over many years.

The most common causes of death associated with anorexia nervosa include cardiac arrest, electrolyte imbalance, or suicide.

Or, Perhaps you Binge and Purge,
Exhibiting Bulimia Nervosa?

So maybe anorexia nervosa isn’t your problem. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have an eating disorder that still could be threatening your help. The one you face might be bulimia nervosa instead. Read the following and see if you can identify with any of these symptoms.

The woman suffering from bulimia nervosa engages in recurrent episodes of overeating within a discrete period of time. Furthermore, she feels a lack of control over her eating during each episode. And like the woman suffering from anorexia nervosa, she might also engage in inappropriate compensatory behavior in order to prevent weight gain. Again, these could include self-induced vomiting, fasting, excessive exercise, or misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas.

Women with bulimia usually weigh within the normal range for their age and height Because of the purging or other compensatory behavior they engage in following the binge-eating episodes. Nevertheless, like those women with anorexia, they may fear gaining weight, desire to lose weight, and feel intensely dissatisfied with their bodies.  Of course, they also feel disgusted and ashamed when they binge. As a result, they tend to engage in this behavior secretly. But it’s important to note that they typically do feel relieved once they purge. In other words, the purging is negatively reinforcing because it relieves or does away with negative feelings and emotion the woman doesn’t want to keep experiencing. This means it will be engaged in time and again. Plus the behavior will be challenging for her to give up. Like an addiction, it is also an illness.

Do you Overeat, but Don’t Purge?

Some women just plain eat excessive amounts of food at one sitting—again, typically in private—but do not purge afterwards. This is known as binge-eating disorder. Basically, during such an episode they eat much more rapidly than normal, they eat until they feel uncomfortably full, they eat large amounts of food when not feeling physically hungry, and they eat alone because of embarrassment over the amount of food consumed. They also feel self-disgust, guilt, and are typically depressed after overeating. Of course, they do not experience release from these painful feelings because they do not purge and thus experience that relief those with bulimia nervosa do. They also don’t engage in compensatory behaviors such as purging, fasting, or excessive exercise. As a result, they are apt to be overweight.

They will continue to binge and put on weight because of the vicious cycle that develops with this disorder.  Because of the bad feelings that result from the binging, the woman may engage in further overeating to try and mange them. but then of course, she feels even worse.

And so the disorder spins further and further out-of-control.

Here are Some Treatment Strategies

As I mentioned earlier, eating disorders can be treated. The woman can once again expect to reach a healthy weight. But the earlier these disorders are diagnosed and treated, the better the outcomes are likely to be.

Because eating disorders tend to be complex to treat, the treatment plan itself is apt to involve medical care and monitoring, psychosocial interventions, nutritional counseling, and sometimes, medication management. At the time of diagnosis, if the clinician determines the woman is in immediate danger, hospitalization will be required.

Treatment of Anorexia

The treatment of anorexia calls for a specific program that involves three main phases: (1) restoring weight lost to severe dieting and purging; (2) treating psychological disturbances such as distortion of body image, low self-esteem, and interpersonal conflicts; and (3) achieving long-term remission and rehabilitation, or full recovery.

The acute management of severe weight loss is usually provided in an inpatient hospital setting.  Feeding plans will be developed that address both the person's medical and nutritional needs. Sometimes intravenous feeding is recommended. Then, once malnutrition has been corrected and weight gain has begun, psychotherapy (often cognitive-behavioral or interpersonal psychotherapy) might be started since it can help the woman overcome low self-esteem plus address her distorted thought and behavior patterns.

Family therapy is also helpful to many women. However, if you’re in an abusive relationship, this might not be an option for you unless perhaps there are other family members who could participate rather than your husband. Of course, you should discuss the realities of your marriage with the professionals handling your case. They need to know that the abusive relationship might be a contributing factor in the development of the eating disorder in the first place. Then of course, you’ll want to follow their advice.

Sometimes women who have achieved weight gain from their treatment will then be given psychotropic medication. The type of medication prescribed is usually a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). These have been found helpful for weight maintenance as well as for resolving mood and anxiety symptoms.

How Bulimia is Treated

The primary goal of treatment for bulimia is to reduce or eliminate binge eating and purging behavior. The strategies used to achieve this end include nutritional rehabilitation, psychosocial intervention, and medication management. The specific aims of these strategies is the establishment of a pattern of regular non-binge meals, improvement of attitudes related to the eating disorder, encouragement of healthy but not excessive exercise, and resolution of co-occurring conditions such as mood or anxiety disorders.  

Individual psychotherapy might also be used to help the woman deal with her bulimia. Actually, it has been discovered that group psychotherapy that uses a cognitive-behavioral approach is often helpful. And while family or marital therapy have been effective for many women, as I said earlier, these might not be options for you if you’re in an abusive relationship. But again, inform the professionals involved in your case about your situation and then let them guide you.

As with anorexia nervosa, psychotropic medications also can help women with bulimia.  Once again, antidepressants such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are probably the most useful. But this is especially true if the woman has significant symptoms of depression or anxiety. And actually, they can be particularly useful if the woman hasn’t responded well to psychosocial treatment. Furthermore, these medications may help prevent relapse.

Binge-eating Disorder Treatment

The treatment goals and strategies for binge-eating disorder are similar to those for bulimia. However, because studies are currently being conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of various interventions, it’s not possible to say which interventions are most effective as it is with anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa.

Why You Might Have a Problem and not Know It

Most women suffering from an eating disorder don’t recognize that they’re ill.  Thus, if family members and friends have been trying to tell you they believe you have a problem, you might want to stop blowing them off and actually take note and listen. You need to realize that they’re probably seeing you more accurately than you’re seeing yourself.

I want you to remember something that perhaps you’re forgetting—or you’ve never fully accepted because you’re in denial that a problem exists. Well, you might have been in denial, but you’re awakening to the truth about your marriage now, aren’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this article, isn’t that right?

You’ve been living in a very hostile and destructive environment. I say that because when you’re living with a man who exhibits narcissism and engages in verbal and emotional abuse regularly—as well as there are undoubtedly other painful realities associated with perhaps alcoholism and a sexual addiction—this simply has to be the case. In response to his destructive behaviors, you’ve undoubtedly developed some of your own. This is just the way it is. You shouldn’t beat yourself up about ths. Just get real with yourself about what’s going on.

I never overate that much and I only put on a limited amount of weight. and sure, I could tell myself it was all about age. But then when I got out of the situation, I lost weight even without dieting. That tells me some of my eating was undoubtedly related to the pain and stress of that environment. I used food to cope. But in my case, I also used shopping. Because we had money, it didn’t appear to be the problem it could have been if we hadn’t been affluent. But that doesn’t change the fact I knew and felt my behavior was somewhat out-of-control.

Since I’ve been away from that marriage, I still like to shop. However, I do it with some control now. I don’t have to shop; I chose to at times. But quite frankly, it took some work on my part to get to where I didn’t need what was probably an addiction.

You can get to the point where you don’t need the food, either. But it’s probably going to take making changes in yourself, just as I had to do.

You’ll be helping yourself if you’ll look at the eating disorder as not the problem with its alleviation as the final solution. Instead, think of it as a symptom of something larger that must be dealt with. You might go a step further and realize it’s the painful marriage. But ultimately, there’s a reason why you’re in that marriage—why you got into it, and why you stay.

When you want to better understand what might be driving you, causing you to get results in your life that you don’t like versus those you’d prefer, you might want to read my book, Secrets of a Miserable Wife.

Disclaimer: This how-to and self-help relationship advice and information for women about narcissism, addictions and abuse should be considered educational or inspirational—a guide or directory to things to consider and inform questions to ask a professional you contact for sound advice. It is not a substitute for marriage counseling, individual therapy, or legal advice. Women coping with domestic violence such as emotional abuse, verbal abuse, and/or sexual abuse—even where no physical abuse is present—are encouraged to seek professional help for treatment of depression, anxiety, self esteem, and other likely associated issues.

All material at www.NarcissismAddictionsAbuse is copyrighted. Feel free to duplicate and distribute this article for noncommercial and educational purposes, though we require it remain completely intact as laid out, from the header to the bottom of this copyright notice. No article may be placed on a website without permission. If you have a website that attracts women who could benefit from the information at this site, please link to it.

Key Search Terms for this Page: Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Treatment, Anorexia Nervosa, Anorexia, Anorexia Bulimia, Bulimia, Bulimia Nervosa, Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Addict, Depression, Depression Treatment, Symptom of Depression, Depression Self Help, Depression Help, Sign of Depression,  Cause of Depression, Treating Depression,Self help,  Verbal Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Sexual Abuse, the Verbally Abusive Relationship, the Emotionally Abusive Relationship, Codependency.

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