Posted by Racer on March 18, 2004, at 9:39:19
Here's a question for you all, whether it be psychological or philosophical or practical, it's creating practical problems for me. You all, ironic as this may seem, will constitute a Reasonable Person test for it. If you, as reasonable persons, consider me to be too sick to have any insight into my own mind, then I'll believe you.
It involves self-awareness and insight, and I'm going to give a very specific example of something that happened with this pdoc, and ask you to tell me your thoughts. Deeper thoughts, not just the "get over it, Racer!" or the "he's an idiot" thoughts. I want to know if this is another example of me being without insight into the extent of my illness, or if it's a sign that I have insight and just need a little support to start living by it. 'K?
On the first visit to Dr EyeCandy, as we were discussing my history, I said that I had a history of an eating disorder. He dismissed it -- if an MD hadn't diagnosed it, it was only some weird patient self-report that really wasn't meaningful. When I tried to get him to take it seriously, he went straight to the DSM IV criteria, and said if my periods hadn't stopped, it wasn't an eating disorder. (Let's not get into how you diagnose a male with anorexia, eh?) So, we've now established that I never had a 'real' eating disorder, right?
Let's talk about that faux anorexia. I knew, at the time, that my body image was distorted. I knew that my health was being damaged by the eating patterns I followed. I knew that it was probably not good for me to work out so much. I also knew that, while I *felt* humongously fat, I was thinner than I thought I was. Get the distinction? I *knew* I wasn't as fat as I *felt* I was.
Here's my Reasonable Person question: with that information, that I was aware of my own skewed image of my body, and aware that it didn't really fit reality, does that mean that I had some insight into what was going on? Or is that a sign that I had some sort of delusion that I had insight? Does knowing that you're hurting yourself mean that you're faking it? Making it up? Mind you, I did feel overwhelmingly huge, and would see nothing except huge thighs, rolls of belly fat, etc, every time I looked in the mirror. I also felt the outlines of my hipbones frequently, to make sure that they still stuck out. So, I was living in my body within the same time zone, if you get what I mean, I knew some of what was wrong, but I still couldn't stop it.
Was I so entirely lacking in insight tha I couldn't even see that I didn't have insight? Or did I have the requisite insight required to recover, but no help in accessing it?
And, if that makes no sense at all, let me know that, too.
Thanks, all!
poster:Racer
thread:325597
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20040213/msgs/325597.html