David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Eating Disorder Behavior Can Be a Form of Panic Attack
by Joanna Poppink, MFT
Retrieved February 2017
An OMG experience gives you more information about what's happening to you than the numbness an eating disorder provides.
The Panic Attack Symptoms Nobody Talks About by Rachel Gearinger is a short, well written, candid article that may have powerful significance if you have or had an eating disorder.
It's well known now that eating disorders can create a psychological numbness that dulls your senses and, for a short time, relieves stress. But you don't feel relief. You feel nothing. That dullness or numbness could be a form of depersonalization and/or derealization, a little discussed aspect of a panic attack. Please read the article and let me know what you think. joanna@poppink.com or below in the comments.
If you think of your symptoms as a form of panic attack you could have a greater appreciation of your experience and what is triggering your behavior. You might think that ice cream or a buffet dinner or meeting new people are triggers for your eating disorder. But that doesn't give you more awareness of your situation. If you think those things trigger a panic attack in the form of eating disorder behaviors, you might start thinking of why or how these things would frighten you so much.
When you start exploring the source of your fears you have the opportunity to build inner resources to cope with them. That process is an important aspect of eating disorder recovery psychotherapy and the road to your recovery.
What occurs to you when you think of your eating disorder behaviors as panic attacks?
by Joanna Poppink, MFT
Retrieved February 2017
An OMG experience gives you more information about what's happening to you than the numbness an eating disorder provides.
The Panic Attack Symptoms Nobody Talks About by Rachel Gearinger is a short, well written, candid article that may have powerful significance if you have or had an eating disorder.
It's well known now that eating disorders can create a psychological numbness that dulls your senses and, for a short time, relieves stress. But you don't feel relief. You feel nothing. That dullness or numbness could be a form of depersonalization and/or derealization, a little discussed aspect of a panic attack. Please read the article and let me know what you think. joanna@poppink.com or below in the comments.
If you think of your symptoms as a form of panic attack you could have a greater appreciation of your experience and what is triggering your behavior. You might think that ice cream or a buffet dinner or meeting new people are triggers for your eating disorder. But that doesn't give you more awareness of your situation. If you think those things trigger a panic attack in the form of eating disorder behaviors, you might start thinking of why or how these things would frighten you so much.
When you start exploring the source of your fears you have the opportunity to build inner resources to cope with them. That process is an important aspect of eating disorder recovery psychotherapy and the road to your recovery.
What occurs to you when you think of your eating disorder behaviors as panic attacks?
