Gastric Band - the journey to recovery from an Eating Disorder

One of Living Room Cardiff’s attendees is embarking on a programme of recovery from an eating disorder. Follow her progress here: Gastric Band On the 30th of October 2009 I was banded, not branded, banded, (although they may as well have been the same things) I was gastric banded. On the 11th of September 2014 I am going to be un-banded, the fluid is going to be removed from my gastric band which means I will be able to enter into recovery from my lifelong eating disorder. When it was suggested that I had an eating disorder I was skeptical, after years of being told that I was greedy lazy and gluttonous and had no will-power, you learn to believe it. Even better those kind souls who suggest that the solution was simple “eat less and do some exercise” Duhhh if it were that simple there would be no fat people! The other reason was that I was scared about the words “eating disorder” I thought if I had a “disorder” there was nothing that I could do about it and I would be destined to a life of eating my body weight in chocolate compulsion and shame. No person is overweight because they want to be that way; if any person was given the choice between being fat or thin our society today what would they choose? “I’ll be fat please” I think not, I know not. Being overweight makes you feel: hopeless, shameful, embarrassed, humiliated, trapped, useless, self-loathing, weak-willed, helpless, unlovable, disgusting, unattractive, lazy, gluttonous, out of control and enslaved. And the more you feel these emotions and feelings the more trapped you become. It is like being inside a hamster’s wheel. I eat for so many different reasons, I eat when I’m happy in celebration as a reward as a treat. I eat when I’m sad to comfort me. I eat when I’m bored for something to do. I eat out of habit and poor eating habits. I eat when I’m scared or anxious to distract me. I eat when I’m angry to calm me down. I eat when I can get away with it in secret. I eat because I am hungry; I eat when I am full. I eat to restrict myself when on a diet. I eat to please others or to be polite. I eat because I feel that urge that need and compulsion to do so even though I know I am harming myself and others. I have never eaten for nutrition or to fuel my body. I can recover from this condition as it is an addiction, and I can recover from this need to compulsively eat one day as a time as I have recovered from my other addictions I believe and I think I am proof that bands and weight loss surgery are not the answer to obesity, chronic overeating, binge eating, or constant graze eating in our society. They are yet another way of making money out of highly vulnerable suggestive and desperate people. Who would willingly ask to have a band placed round their stomach to reduce food intake or have half their stomach taken away? Who would volunteer to eat portions the size of a thimble or pureed baby food? Who would offer to regurgitate their food or be in agony when food becomes “stuck”? Who would offer to be dependent on vitamins and supplements forever? People who feel helpless as they cannot stop eating, that’s who. And what happens after these procedures? Initially it is the answer to all your prayers, the weight falls off, you feel good, positive for the first time in ages, you buy new clothes, you are complimented, you become more active and your confidence increases. Exactly the same pattern as dieting. This as we know is not sustainable. What they don’t mention is the illness creeping back in, steadily over time, slowly at first - then bang it’s got you. Food that is healthy and good for you will often not go past the band leading to regurgitation, frustration, hunger and grabbing the slip foods. They tell you about slip foods. The foods that slip past the band - chocolate, cake, biscuits, crisps all the foods that over eaters crave. They tell you not to eat them. What can you eat then? Dust? You ask for the band to be tightened to combat this but it only makes the problem worse as your list of restrictive food lengthens. Eating becomes an endurance test unless you are eating slip foods. Meal times become an embarrassment, eating out or being invited out to eat, a dread not a pleasure. There are times of day (morning where you cannot eat anything of substance at all) you cannot take your tablets in the morning as they become lodged. The band is affected by your menstrual cycle and is always tighter when you are having a period. My eating habits now are far far worse than they were five years ago and for one reason. The reason was that I was in the grip of an addictive illness and no band or surgery was going to address that. The answer to the problem lies in recovery and a journey into myself. The way out is ‘in’ as I’ve been told. I must learn to love and accept myself for who and what I am. I am looking forward to the morning. This horrible cycle will be coming to an end and the real solution can begin. Julie.

Plant Neb

Plant Neb A yw rhai plant yn haws eu caru nag eraill? A yw dioddefaint rhai plant yn llai derbyniol nag eraill? Os ydyn ni’n gofidio llai am rai plant nag eraill a allwn ninnau fel cymdeithas honni ein bod yn caru plant o gwbl? Dyma rai o’r cwestiynau fydd yn pigo cydwybod y genedl am genhedlaeth yn dilyn y datgeliadau ofnadwy o Rotherham yr wythnos hon. Efallai, ar ôl achosion Savile, ein bod oll mor ddideimlad am y dioddefaint y mae oedolion fel petaent yn ei achosi i blant yn rheolaidd ym Mhrydain nes na allwn bellach brosesu’r erchyllterau sy’n digwydd bob dydd. Ond, mae’n rhaid i ni eu prosesu oherwydd, yn debyg i Savile, roedd y troseddu’n gyfrinach agored, yn digwydd o flaen llygaid yr heddlu a’r awdurdod lleol a’r unig ffactorau a rwystrodd y dioddefwyr rhag cael eu hachub oddi wrth y drwgweithredwyr oedd cefndir y dioddefwyr. Yn Rotherham ac ar draws y sir, rydym yn sicr yn gofalu am rai plant yn fwy nag eraill. Y lluniau angylaidd o blant agored i niwed sy’n syllu allan arnom o gloriau papurau newydd tabloid, wedi eu hanfarwoli yn dilyn achos arswydus arall o gam-drin plant, Daniel Pelka, Baby P, Victoria Climbie, James Bulger - dyma’r lluniau sy’n ein poeni. Beth sy’n wahanol am y 1,400 o ddioddefwyr yn Rotherham, pam na achosodd eu dioddefaint a’u poen nhw ymatebion tebyg? Roedd llawer o’r merched a’r bechgyn perthnasol yn blant agored i niwed, yn dod o deuluoedd di-drefn neu ddiffygiol ac roeddent wedi eu creithio’n emosiynol, eu hesgeuluso ac wedi dioddef ymosodiadau yn hir cyn i’w hymosodwyr gael eu dal. Roedd y rhain yn blant oedd yn dyheu am i rywun eu caru a gofalu amdanynt, dangos trugaredd iddynt a phrofi iddynt eu bod yn bwysig a gwerthfawr. Mae’n sicr bod llawer ohonynt yn dangos pob math o agweddau ac ymddygiadau heriol, fel y mae plant a phobl ifanc yn eu harddegau’n ei wneud wrth iddynt ddelio â’r boen sydd yn eu bywydau. Mae’r ffaith yma, a’r ffaith bod eu camdrinwyr yn eu twyllo’n hawdd i gredu y gallent gael eu caru, eu gwerthfawrogi a’u hanwylo, fel petai wedi eu condemnio ym meddwl yr heddlu a’r gweithwyr cyngor oedd i fod i’w hamddiffyn nhw. Does gan oedolion ddim yr hawl i ddewis pa blant sy’n ‘ddigon da’ i gael eu caru a pha rai sydd ddim. Ymhellach, onid y plant sy’n anodd eu cyrraedd, y rhai sy’n byw bywydau di-drefn ac sy’n llawn poen, dicter a chwerwedd yn barod ddylai gael y flaenoriaeth yn ein cymdeithas? Pa athro sy’n haeddu cael ei alw’n athro os yw’n disgwyl llond dosbarth o fyfyrwyr gradd A ac yn anwybyddu’r rheiny sy’n cael trafferthion? Pa feddyg sy’n trin y cleifion gyda salwch y gellir ei wella’n gyflym gyda phresgripsiwn ac yn anwybyddu’r gweddill? A beth am y drwgweithredwyr? Beth wnawn ni gyda’r dynion unigryw o beryglus yma? Mae’r wythnos hon wedi bod yn gyfle i’r newyddiadurwyr sydd o blaid ‘crogi a chwipio’ (nad oedd ots ganddynt am y dioddefwr wythnos yn ôl mae’n rhaid dweud) apelio at ein cyneddfau mwyaf sylfaenol a’n dicter. Mae’n bosib iawn bod chwalu bywyd plentyn yn anfaddeuol neu o leiaf y tu hwnt i faddeuant y mwyafrif ohonom, ond bydd codi mewn ton o ddicter yn gwneud dim i helpu eu dioddefwyr a bydd yn ein dallu i’r ffaith nad yw’r dynion a gam-driniodd, a arswydodd ac a dreisiodd cymaint o blant, yn ddim llai dynol na ni, mor ofnadwy bynnag oedd eu troseddau. Y ffaith olaf yma mae’n debyg yw’r ffaith fwyaf anghyfforddus, arswydus a thrallodus ohonyn nhw i gyd, a dyma pam rydym yn ceisio troi’r drwgweithredwyr yn bethau ‘eraill’, a’u disgrifio fel ‘bwystfilod’. Wel, yn drist iawn, mae’r bwystfilod yma’n arswydus o arferol a bydol ac, os na fyddwn yn ceisio ymgysylltu â nhw fel bodau dynol ar ryw lefel, fyddwn ni’n dysgu dim o’r stori ofnadwy yma. Wrth gwrs, dylent gael eu cosbi gan y gyfraith a’u cadw ymhell oddi wrth blant am flynyddoedd lawer, ond os ydym fel cymdeithas bob amser yn taflu ein dwylo i’r awyr ac yn wylofain am y dioddefwyr, ac yna’n difenwi a chasáu’r troseddwyr, rydym yn ein heithrio ein hunain yn daclus oddi wrth unrhyw werthuso trwyadl. Rydym oll yn cyfrannu at gymdeithas mewn ffyrdd pitw bychan sy’n creu’r sefyllfaoedd yma o bryd i’w gilydd felly mae gan bob un ohonom gyfrifoldeb, atebolrwydd ac euogrwydd ar y cyd am dynged cymaint o ferched a bechgyn ifanc yn Rotherham. Rydym oll yn cyfranogi mewn cymdeithas sydd, mewn gwirionedd, eisiau sgubo gwireddau anghyfforddus o dan y carped a, thrwy wneud hynny, rydym yn helpu i barhau’r gamdriniaeth ac yn methu gwneud y peth iawn dros ei dioddefwyr.

Nobody's Children

Nobody’s Children Are some children easier to love than others? Are the sufferings of some children less legitimate than others? If we care less about some children than others can we as a society profess to love children at all? These are but a few of the questions that will haunt the nation’s consciousness for a generation following the horrific revelations from Rotherham this week. Perhaps, post Savile, we are collectively so numb to the suffering that adults seem routinely to inflict upon children in Britain that we can no longer process the horrors that happen on a daily basis. However, process them we must because, as with Savile, the crimes were an open secret, happening in full view of the police and the local authority and the only factor that prevented the victims from being rescued from the perpetrators was the backgrounds of the victims. In Rotherham and across the country, we do care about some children more than others. The images of vulnerable, angelic children that stare out at us from the covers of tabloid newspapers, immortalised in death after yet another shocking case of child abuse, Daniel Pelka, Baby P, Victoria Climbie, James Bulger - these are the images that haunt us. What is different about the 1,400 victims in Rotherham, why did their suffering and pain not elicit similar responses? Many of the girls and boys in question were vulnerable, came from chaotic or damaged family backgrounds and were themselves emotionally scarred, abandoned and brutalised long before their abusers caught them. These were children who were desperate for someone to love them, to care about them, to show compassion to them and to prove to them that they were important, that they mattered and that they had worth. Many no doubt exhibited all manner of challenging behaviours and attitudes, as children and teenagers do when they are acting out the pain in their lives. This fact, and the fact that they were easily duped by their abusers into thinking that they would be loved, cherished and valued for who they were, seems to have condemned them in the eyes of the very policemen and council workers who were meant to be protecting them. Adults have no right to pick and choose which children are ‘good enough’ to be loved and which ones are not, furthermore, it is the children that are hard to reach, the ones who live chaotic lives and who are already full of hurt, anger and bitterness that should be our society’s priorities? What teacher worthy of the name expects a class full of A grade students and ignores those who struggle? What doctor simply treats patients with illnesses that are quickly remedied with a prescription and ignores the rest? And what of the perpetrators? What do we do with these uniquely dangerous men? This week has been an opportunity for the ‘hang ‘em and flog ‘em’ columnists (who cared nothing for the victims last week, it should be stated) to appeal to our basest, angriest instincts. Ruining a child’s life is quite possibly unforgivable or at least beyond the ability of most of us to forgive, but simply engaging in a crescendo of rage will do nothing to help their victims and it will blind us to the fact that however monstrous their crimes, the men who manipulated, terrorised and raped so many children are no less human than we are. This last fact is probably the most uncomfortable, frightening and distressing of them all, which is why we seek to ‘other’ the perpetrators, describing them as ‘monsters’. Well sadly, these monsters are frighteningly mundane and everyday and unless we try to engage with them as human beings on some level we will learn nothing from this terrible story. They should of course be punished by the law and kept far away from children for many, many years, but if our default setting as a society is firstly to throw our hands in the air and wail for the victims and then to vilify and hate the perpetrators, we neatly exempt ourselves from any rigorous evaluation. We all contribute to a society in minute, minuscule ways that periodically creates these scenarios so we all have a responsibility, an accountability and a shared culpability for the fates of so many young girls and boys in Rotherham. We all participate in a society that has at its core a desire to brush uncomfortable truths under the carpet and in doing so, we help to perpetuate abuse and we fail its victims.

The ubiquity of alcohol

Drinks manufacturers, retailers, licensing authorities and those in charge of much of our public spaces have ensured that British drinkers need never be more than a few paces from a drink. Recently London Zoo, in a bid to raise badly needed revenue to fund vital conservation work, opened the zoo on Friday nights to crowds less interested in the wonders of the natural world and more interested in a new venue in which to be drunk. The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday that one visitor decided to pour beer over a tiger and another tried to climb into the penguin enclosure. These juvenile and ignorant acts speak volumes about the effect not just that drinking has on individuals, but the effect that Britain’s drinking culture has. When William Blake wrote of the majesty and ferocity of tigers he asked: ““What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame they fearful symmetry?” He wondered how the beast had come to being, what god or devil had created it, his fascination was not just for the animal itself but for the raw primal power of nature. The drunk, lost in his own narcissistic realm sees none of this, the potency and magic of nature and of the world around him is lost, he may as well be drunk at home. The problem for the precious, vulnerable animals at London Zoo is that when they are exposed to drunken people they invariably experience stress and are harmed, while people active in problematic drinking are more likely to see the things around them as objects or play things to further their own entertainment. Many London museums host similar late night events, opening up the most fascinating of exhibits to people who are, by drinking, limiting their capacity to fully engage with the exhibits. The irony is of course lost on the organisers of the event because of the revenues alcohol sales generate; the simple fact that curators and zoo keepers in the nation’s capital know that late night sober events are unlikely to be popular suggests that something is fundamentally broken in our society - it suggests that for a great many people living in Britain, a social event without alcohol is unthinkable. There is another public space in the capital, steeped in tradition and a magnet for tourists that also find it difficult not to function without alcohol; the House of Commons. In the past two years a bill for £275,000 has been accumulated, according to the Daily Telegraph, and veteran alcohol campaigner Dr Sarah Wollaston MP has stated that some MPs are often too drunk to know what they are voting for. The fact that this statement can be made without a moment’s pause for reflection or a hint of controversy speaks volumes about the nation’s denial about its collective alcoholism. There is one further example of how drinking has invaded public space, but you will need to be a motorist to access it. The next time you are on the M40, make sure you are extra vigilant when driving past Beaconsfield services, because the country’s first motorway Weatherspoons pub, the Hope and Champion opened its doors there earlier this year. In a country with strict drink drive laws, the corporate muscle of Weatherspoons has managed to gain a licence to sell alcohol on a motorway, putting the antics at London Zoo into the amateur league of irresponsibility. Parks, stations, libraries, stations, sporting events, festivals, museums and zoos now require alcohol in order to function, making them as alcoholic as the problem drinkers they inevitably attract. Not only does it become progressively more and more difficult for non-drinkers to find anywhere that is not dominated by drinking, but it also has a more insidious effect; it normalises alcoholism, making this powerful, addictive drug disappear into the fabric of everyday life.

Disability or Addiction?

The flurry of headlines over the previously obscure Danish child-minder Karsten Kaltoft recently underline our society’s confusion and anxieties surrounding food addiction and obesity. For those who are unfamiliar with the case Mr Kaltoft, an obese employee of the Billund Kommune, a Danish local authority, was sacked for being unable to carry out his duties. His weight and body size prevented him from bending down and carrying out tasks such as tying children's shoe laces. Mr Kaltoft appealed against the decision to the European Court Of Justice, claiming he had been discriminated against, claiming that his weight should be counted as a disability. The ECJ is still deliberating over the ruling, but whatever it decides will have profound consequences for the treatment of the obese across the EU. Already countless column inches have been devoted to this issue, and one does not need to read between the lines in order to draw out a common theme; Eurocrats have gone too far this time and the nanny state is about to reward sloth, gluttony and lack of moral and nutritional fibre. Britain’s most rabid commentators have targeted the issue of obesity and explained it as a moral failing, one which now affects two thirds of the British population; the fact that a majority of people are now either overweight or obese should tell us something however, or should at least suggest that the tabloid cries for the nation to buck up or show some fortitude are inadequate solutions. The fact that we face an epidemic of obesity in Britain suggests that the causes of obesity lie far beyond Bunter-esque gluttony and are deeply rooted in the food economy that surrounds us every day and is infused with processed sugar (we now eat three times as much of this addictive substance than people did 50 years ago). It also suggests that instead of seeing obesity as a disability or a lack of grit, another paradigm might be employed to explain it. Obesity, like alcoholism or gambling problems, is a food addiction, and with high calorie food stuffs peddled in as cheap and as irresponsible a way as alcohol currently is, there is no shortage of ways to feed that addiction. All of us are probably familiar with comfort eating and most of us have probably engaged in it at one time or another; who doesn’t enjoy a warming meal on a cold, miserable winter’s day or a sugary treat as a reward for dealing with something challenging or difficult? The food addict is used to medicating emotional wounds and hurts with food, in the same way that the alcoholic seeks oblivion through drinking - both are seeking substances external to themselves in order to change how they feel. Seen from this point of view, a decision to classify obesity as a disability would be a catastrophe for people who struggle with food addiction, it would permanently classify them as no longer able or capable of recovering from their condition. It would give the cruel, the bitter and the intolerant carte blanche to criticise and vilify food addicts even more than they already do. A far better solution to our current crises over obesity would be to recognise over-eating as a powerful compulsive behaviour with deep seated emotional roots, but to do that we as a society would have to adopt a language that we are unfamiliar with and unaccustomed to; one that seeks to engage, empower and to find solutions instead of our current discourse which mocks, ridicules and hurts.

The Social Fly-tippers

What kind of awful, odious human being would steal from a vulnerable adult or child? Another vulnerable adult, it would appear. Certain types of crime are so abhorrent to us as a society: child abuse, sex trafficking, the exploitation of the elderly or cruelty to animals, that our media knows it can easily hit its sales targets by printing lurid details of the offence. The British public, after decades of almost Pavlovian classic conditioning, is so primed to be indignant, outraged, furious or wrathful that it is easy to engage when a heinous act is uncovered. In one such case in the last few months, a care home worker has been found guilty of stealing from residents in order to pay for her gambling addiction. In this instance we as a society have been called on to despise, detest and loathe this woman; without of course exploring on a deeper level the facts of the case. One only needs to leaf through any national newspaper and find the adverts for bingo, bookies and online poker to understand the reticence on the part of the editorial staff to explore the hold that gambling now has over our society and the destruction it has been licensed to wreak. In this case, Rachel Stokes, a care home manager from Gloucestershire admitted to stealing £1,000, though the total figure is more than likely higher, in order to pay for her addiction to online bingo. She was rightly jailed for eight months in April, though the families of her victims understandably demanded a longer sentence for her actions. Her accomplice, on the other hand, was spared both the trauma of the court room and the indignity of the press report. The online gambling industry, much like its counterpart the alcohol business, is free to saunter away from the scene of the crime. Our legal system has no conception or framework for assessing culpability when it comes to the actions of our addiction industries. Instead, the addict must shoulder the sole responsibility for the tragic consequences of their addiction and must be vilified and held up to the glare of public opprobrium for the rest of their lives. There is no disputing that Mrs. Stokes breached a trust placed in her and should be punished, but the simplistic ideas that we have about criminal culpability and agency are out of date in an age of mass addiction. Mrs. Stokes was not acting alone, she was acting in tandem with a multi-billion pound industry that relies on addiction, desperation and loneliness. She admitted her addiction in court, to the great indifference of the nation - to our knowledge this article is the first that has been written on the culpability of the gambling industry. The biggest expansion in gambling in Britain’s history is having vast and, for the most part, unseen consequences in the lives of countless people, many of whom are as broken by their addiction as the victims of their acquisitive crimes. We as a society are prohibited from placing the blame at any other door than that of the addicted individual, partly because our legal system has no other way of thinking, but mainly because vested interests in the addiction industries find that set-up most convenient for them. It is time we thought of them rather like social fly-tippers, dumping the messy by-products of their trade and scurrying away, evading the bill for the clean-up. Wynford Ellis Owen Chief Executive Living Room Cardiff / Stafell Fyw Caerdydd

Alcohol is a feminist issue

Alcohol is a feminist issue. In 1978 the writer and psychoanalyst Susie Orbach published one of the most important books in modern feminist literature since Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch'. Reflecting the growth in obsession over women's bodies, dieting, their relationship with food and our image obsessed society, 'Fat Is A Feminist Issue' has put body image at the centre of debates surrounding women's rights ever since. Today, whilst images of the female body continue to be highly contested and a new generation of assertive and proactive women leads the charge to abolish everyday sexism in the guise of the Sun's Page Three, the threat to women's physical bodies has never been greater. A new report showing that half of all women in Britain are likely to have been physically or sexually assaulted also puts alcohol in the frame as one of the chief aggravating factors in this shocking epidemic of violence. Alcohol, a drug that is everywhere and that is naturalised and normalised by advertising and popular culture, is actually implicated in countless crimes against women. In short, alcohol is a feminist issue, and perhaps the pre-eminent one of our times. The Violence Against Women report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, published last week showed that Britain was one of the most violent countries in Europe when it came to sexual and physical assaults on women by men, with the country exceeding the EU average for sexual violence by 11 percent. The report cited Britain's drinking culture as a key exacerbating feature of this violence, not only does alcohol make people more likely to do violent things that they would be very unlikely to do when sober, it also puts drunk women in very vulnerable situations. Even though these figures have now been made available and alcohol's role in such widespread violence and suffering is abundantly clear, our government has uttered little more than a murmur. Ministers are content to remind us that the distillers, brewers and supermarkets are all committed to 'responsibility deals'; meaning that the government will not regulate or dare we say 'govern' this incredibly powerful industry, no matter the harm to the public. A responsibility deal amounts to little more than a PR campaign to shift sole responsibility for the effects of excessive drinking on to the shoulders of the drinker. Men are the victims of alcohol fuelled violence too, but the disproportionate manner in which women are harmed by this powerful, intoxicating, addictive drug sure makes the availability, pricing and aggressive promotion of it one of the key issues in women's rights today.