 various types of eating disorders affect so so so many people and not a lot of people know about them or know what to look for and all of that so I am somebody who doesn't have that many videos about eating disorders on my channel and I'm also not that educated about them so I have a very special guest to talk about eating disorders and addiction. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and while you're watching this I am in California and I pre-recorded this so I'm assuming that you did what I told you and you followed me on Instagram and you're seeing all of my beautiful California pictures and updates and all of that but yeah anyways my buddy Callie Marie from the channel PsychMinded came over and she's somebody who's struggled with anorexia nervosa in her teenage years and she is a great great great woman she has a mental health channel here on YouTube and like she is amazing and she hustles so hard. She did another video for me not that long ago about managing your stress or anxiety and depression in college so I will link that up in the info card and down down in the description if you want to check that out but please do me a favor her channel is it's growing but she's only at about 200 subscribers right now we're gonna make a deal like I made with you on the last video she did let's make a deal if you like this video or if you learned something in this video one of those two things me and you are making a deal that you have to go subscribe to her channel she has so much amazing content all right deal deal all right here's Callie Marie. Hi Chris hi everybody thank you so much for having me here today I am so excited to be sharing this message with everyone and with the rewired soul audience so thank you so much for tuning in and thank you for having me Chris my name is Callie Marie and I am the host of the YouTube channel psych minded so go ahead and subscribe if you like mental health videos and today I'm going to be talking about something very important and something very close to my heart I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety as well as anorexia nervosa over 15 years ago I have dealt with severe depression and anxiety for my whole life but luckily was able to recover from anorexia around the time I was 17 the depression and anxiety lingered and the eating disorder was kicked to the curb and I am so grateful for that but unfortunately for many of us that struggle with eating disorders the path is not so easy or linear recovering from anorexia for me was an incredible blessing and I learned so much from my experience with my eating disorder and still to this day I am very cautious about falling back into bad habits or anything that would be resembling my behaviors back then but we're going to talk today specifically about why eating disorders are addictions and not only that but why they're the most difficult and most deadly addictions when we think about addictions we most often think about drugs or alcohol and it hasn't been until recently that we've really started to approach food issues and eating disorders in the same way the brain's reward system along with the habit forming compulsions that come with eating disorders are very reminiscent of drug addictions one in a sense becomes addicted to food or addicted to starving themselves there also becomes an addiction to the different behaviors and the rituals that surround eating disorders and we see this very commonly with drug addiction as well there becomes this dance of compulsion and obsession and all consuming ordeal which is totally characteristic of addictions someone with an eating disorder feels like they have absolutely no control over their behavior this is when the compulsions come in where they feel compelled to starve themselves or they are unable to stop eating eating disorders primarily exist to help the person to cope with stress it's a very negative coping mechanism but unfortunately for the person who has an eating disorder it feels like the only way of coping at all this can be very similar to drug addicts they feel like they can't function without the drug or alcoholics who feel like they can't function without the alcohol this is very similar to eating disorders and somebody with bulimia or anorexia or binge eating disorder is going to feel these compulsions and feel like they're unable to stop eating disorders completely consume the person with obsessions throughout their day this interferes with everyday life and the biggest point to make that makes eating disorders stand out so much as addictions and makes them so much more difficult compared to any other addiction is that food is everywhere think about it if you have a heroin addiction or you're addicted to alcohol there are very specific settings where that is found but unfortunately with food it is literally everywhere we look and there's very little escaping it in fact there's no escaping it that's what makes eating disorders so unique is the fact that you can't get away from it you can't cold turkey it you can't just say no i'm not going to do that anymore or whatever the case may be for someone with an eating disorder you have to learn to find balance that's not the case with any other drug it's usually a black and white yes or no kind of thing and unfortunately with food it is everywhere and balance is required we don't need drugs and alcohol to survive but we do need food to survive and that's what makes eating disorders so difficult and what makes me so passionate about sharing my own story with anorexia as well as educating about eating disorders because there really is so much to be gained when we can learn from each other and we can learn about these addictions and disorders and the more we know about it the more compassion we can have towards somebody who's suffering or somebody in our life that we know is struggling just like with drug addiction and alcohol eating disorders are often rooted in very deep-seated trauma or hurt or grief and so it really is important for us to understand as much as we can about the psychological mechanisms of eating disorders and work to help people in the best way we can so i hope you enjoyed this video it's a little bit different but i really wanted to point out what the similarities between drug addictions and eating disorders are and really make that comparison because it really puts into perspective how dangerous and scary eating disorders can become thank you so much for watching thank you so much for having me chris i really appreciate this has been an absolute blast collabing with you and if you enjoyed this video please subscribe to my channel for more content and i will see you guys next time bye all right callie marie thank you so so so much for coming over and talking about various eating disorders and like before she sent me this i didn't even know what it was about i didn't know if she was gonna share her story about it but like dang girl like that that's one of these things like the um there's so many different addictions and the way she was talking about it and as she was talking about like those of you who know me i'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic and like yeah yeah i totally get that it's the way we train our brain to respond to different stressors and different triggers and the reward pathway so i can totally see that and the way she was talking about how we get addicted to the rituals and all that but like this is something that i often think about like even though it doesn't seem like it i feel fortunate that my addiction was drugs or alcohol drugs and alcohol not or drugs and alcohol because like callie marie said like with food it's it's everywhere and you need food um i worked with a therapist at my treatment center and he would say that part of part of our issue is our relationships right and you hear relationships you think about relationships with you know friends family significant others but like our relationship with things like for example drug addicts and alcoholics our relationship with drugs and alcohol right also our relationships with ourselves with eating disorders it's the relationship with food right either too much or too little so yeah like again if you enjoyed that video if you learned anything please do me a favor go subscribe to callie marie by the time i get back to las vegas i want to see callie marie at 300 subscribers okay can you help me do this all right she has a ton of videos go binge watch her stuff if you miss me because i'm not uploading as much go binge watch her she's amazing i have linked her channel up in the info card and down in the description probably in the pinned comments um yeah it's all over the place so thank you again callie marie for coming over and doing another guest video i love you you are amazing and that's all i got so if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you're new make sure you subscribe to me too and ring the notification bell and a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you are all awesome and you can subscribe to callie marie by clicking somewhere over here all right thanks so much for watching make sure you're following me on instagram and i'll see you next time