Posted by Chairman_MAO on February 28, 2004, at 10:03:19
In reply to help me!, posted by jerimycoplo on February 26, 2004, at 23:37:28
I feel for you. I am 6'2", have a great default bodily shape, and yet still have some of the same issues regarding dysmorphic body perception. What you are experiencing is a spiritual crisis, not wholly unlike what a drug addict goes through when the drugs stop working. In the context of your anxiety disorders, your workout fanaticism makes sense: you're trying to gain absolute control over one area of your life to compensate for that which you feel completely out of control of. People with OCD do this through counting, cleaning, and washing; people with eating disorders do this via restricting, binging, and purging; some do it through accumulating material goods; or money; yet others work all day or are obsessed with their attachment to religious dogma; still others need endless sexual conquests; others fall into a love relationships which precludes all other life-enriching activity ...
Some addictions are embraced by our society, such as accumulating material goods, working out obsessively, and love addiction. Other types of addicts are persecuted like Jews in Germany, such as drug addicts. I can assure you, however, that the underlying psychology is all the same no matter what your addictive attachment is; just look at how adversely working out or the lack thereof affects your life, just like drugs for a drug addict!
You are NOT "nuts"! You simply lost sight of other things which do give you pleasure and increase your self-worth. Remember the things that used to please you as a toddler?
"Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."
I'm not a Christian nor a religious man, but all faiths have a lot to say regarding a blissful existence, and it's the same message no matter where you look! This is a medication support group, and I could give you medication advice as I do for so many others. However, you've articulated so much about what's wrong that you probably do not need medication to make it right. I suggest talk therapy with an addictionologist who does NOT subscribe to 12-step crap; this could help you.
If you really want meds, there's nothing wrong with that: try dopaminergic drugs (Wellbutrin would be a good start, from there go to the dopamine agonists used in Parkinson's) or the benign opioid buprenorphine. My rationale behind this is simple: they're good at helping out negative self-talk. So are the SSRIs for many people, but you're already on one, and I also believe their effectiveness is way overblown.
If you go with meds, make sure to get therapy along with them; it's far more important for you than meds are. Also, check out the book "Be Here Now" by Baba Ram Dass and "Emmanuel's Book" by Pat Rodegast.
Best of luck!
poster:Chairman_MAO
thread:318096
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040228/msgs/318479.html