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Elephant in the Room Foundation

STORIES IN INTERVIEWS

VERONICA LUCCIONI - HAVING A DAUGHTER WITH ANOREXIA

PUBLISHED: Sunday, March 26, 2023

NURFM WellBeing Host: Jack Hodgins

This Week on Wellbeing we are talking with Veronica Luccioni, who is a mother whose daughter went through anorexia. Following her daughter's recovery, Veronica founded The Elephant in the Room Foundation, a charity that aims to improve the lives of individuals with anorexia nervosa. She is on the show today to share her perspective as a mother having a child with anorexia, and how she went about helping her daughter with her anorexia.

In this episode Veronica talks about when she noticed the anorexia in her daughter, the symptoms she noticed of anorexia from her perspective as a mother, and how she helped her daughter recover.

Her body changed and she became skinnier and started wearing smaller clothes . . . she started fitting into those clothes again and she started wearing them so I told her 'No! you cannot be wearing those - you cannot be fitting into smaller and smaller clothes'. - Veronica Luccioni on this episode of Wellbeing.

CHRISTINE JAP - LIVING WITH ANOREXIA AS AN ADOLESCENT

PUBLISHED: Sunday, March 12, 2023

NURFM WellBeing Host: Jack Hodgins

This week on Wellbeing we are talking with Christine Jap about her anorexia journey. Christine started experiencing anorexia at age twelve and after a journey with it only recovered recently in 2017 while attending university. Today Christine is the PR officer for The Elephant In The Room Foundation, a charity that aims to improve the lives of individuals with Anorexia Nervosa. This is the sixth instalment in our 13 part series on Anorexia. This episode is the fourth and last with females that have had a journey with anorexia. Next week we cover the important topic of male anorexia.

In this episode, Christine talks about why she developed anorexia, the way she viewed food while going through anorexia, how her family tried to help her with her anorexia, how it impacted her daily life, her journey with recovery, the challenges of anorexia recovery and how recovering has impacted her life positively.

“Inside I knew there was something else going on, that it wasn't really my fault. Everyone was kinda just saying 'Oh this is your fault, you just don't want to get better'', so that reinforced my shame and negative thoughts” - Christine Jap on this episode of Wellbeing.

True Story about Christine

Christine shares her story with the world in the hope of eliminating the stigma attached to anorexia. She believes that no one should die from this illness and that, with the right information and support, everyone can thrive again in life, just as she has!

Life After Recovery

Tim Barham Story

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

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TIM'S STORY OF ANOREXIA

My Story

Male

Onset 13-19 yrs old

Lost 10-20% of original weight

More than 2 years suffering

Yes, seek medical help

1. Innocent Beginning

My story of anorexia begins about a year before it started developing. In the spring of 2013, I had a medical exam and found out I was about 75kg (165lbs). I was informed this made me slightly overweight for someone of my age and height, and was becoming quite self-conscious of this, particularly as I had to move up from a 32-inch waist for a 34-inch waist for my trousers around the same time. I was also quite concerned because my parents had and still have problems with their weight, and my mother is self-conscious about her own weight and tries to diet fairly often.

2. Anorexia Trigger

Weight Loss

When I started sixth form later that year, I resolved to try and get fitter. Since moving to sixth form from secondary school allowed me more independence, one way I used this was by trying to lose weight by eating less, picking healthier meals and watching my intake of fat and saturated fat, as well as exercising more by walking to my dad’s work instead of asking him to pick me up from the school campus. This started fairly harmlessly, and by the end of 2013 I had lost about 4 to 5kg and was back into a healthy weight range.

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Unfortunately, my behaviour towards food and exercise grew more obsessive during 2014. I continued to lose weight without any real concern on the part of my friends and family for most of the first half of the year, and started doing exercises like press-ups daily as well as running on my way to and from sixth form when I could; I also tried to keep my fat and saturated fat intake as low as possible instead of just below the recommended 70g and 20g a day. Due to this, I lost another 8kg by Easter and by June, if I recall correctly, had lost around 5kg more; in the space of about a year, I had fallen from around 75kg to 57kg, and was also finding that I could fit in 30-inch and 32-inch waist trousers with no problem.

June of 2014 sticks out to me because, with hindsight, this was the point at which my behaviour started to seriously interfere with my mental state. I went on a trip with my class abroad, and found myself determinedly seeking opportunities to exercise more and to avoid eating. When I ate ice cream and chips with my friends, I felt intensely guilty about it even though I really enjoy those foods, and would try to do dozens of press-ups when I was alone to work off the calories. By the time I got back, I was weighing myself obsessively, even getting upset about the slight weight gain from my water levels changing when I took showers.

The first time my family really noticed, however, was when we took a holiday a month later. I was behaving obsessively about what meals I had, picking ready meals with extremely few calories and little fat when we went to the supermarket and calorie-counting to a ridiculous degree. On one day, I even refused to eat one of those ready meals and just had toast for dinner instead because it had fewer calories.

My parents’ response to this was not particularly helpful, as they frequently became angry with me, only seeing how thin I was becoming without really understanding why my mental state was so unhealthy. When they told me they thought I was anorexic, I didn’t really believe them at first- I always thought of anorexia as something girls got, not boys. They consistently tried to get me to eat more, but it would often turn into shouting matches, and I specifically remember telling them ‘I don’t see it!’ about how thin I was getting.

While I’m not sure how true it is, something I suspect is that I became so obsessive about losing weight partly because as I had lost weight, I had made more friends at sixth form, and I assumed that me being so thin was making me more attractive and likeable, so if I gained weight again people would stop liking me. This was not true at all, of course; my friends rarely ever commented on my weight, and none of them stopped being friends with me once I was recovering.

But with my mind in the state it was, I convinced myself that I had to keep being thinner to make myself attractive and likeable to my friends. It probably did not help that, because of societal stigma towards weight gain, I saw being ‘underweight’ as a goal rather than something hazardous to my health, as if I could consider myself ‘better’ than people who were heavier than me.

4. Recovery

Weight Restoration

During the late summer and autumn of 2014, I tried to make my eating habits healthier, no longer calorie counting and instead focusing on not eating fatty foods, but more or less eating whatever I wanted otherwise. But in November of that year, I relapsed into aggressively calorie counting; I would wake myself up earlier than my parents so they did not see how little I was eating for breakfast, eat chicken pieces or other small snacks for lunch & nothing else, and try to make small meals for myself for dinner like beans on toast and have them at least 12 hours before waking up the next day.

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5. Relapse

Long Tail of Recovery
Self-discovery of Genetic Vulnerability

My parents soon noticed again, and we began angrily fighting over my eating habits again. Something that did not help was that I still felt very little confidence that if I put on weight, I would continue to have a healthy friendship group, or that I could regain weight healthily. I was scared that if I started gaining weight again, that made me a failure and showed I did not have willpower or restraint.

My medical issues with weight did not really start to go away until Christmas 2014. I remember weighing myself on the last day of school and finding that I weighed about 52kg, and decided that I should try and let myself off the hook at least a little to celebrate Christmas. I managed to follow through on that, with a little guilt, though my eating habits sort of reversed for quite a while. For a few months, I started to have a problem with binge eating, and within a few months I was back up to about 64kg; once I found that this had happened, I managed to make my eating habits more restrained again, and my weight plateaued.

While this was the end of my problems with being at an unhealthily low weight, and I have not put on more than a few kilograms in the 5 years since, I retained an unhealthy mindset, and to a degree, some of the insecurities I had have not quite gone away. When I started university, I made it a habit to eat an extremely low amount of calories on one day and then splurge the next, something I did not get over until my second year (though unfortunately I did so by starting to eat more to cope with having developed depression in late 2016, and my mental state and eating habits did not start to improve until the following year). Even now, I have some degree of body dysmorphia, worrying that I look fat or have a double chin in pictures.

But I feel I’m in a better place now because I understand that not being thinner or lighter than everyone around me is OK, that there’s nothing dangerous about eating things you enjoy, and that exercise is something it’s important not to overdo (I have tried to keep up a habit of leisurely walking about 1½ to 2 miles each day, either to and from my hometown or, during lockdown this year, on my family’s treadmill to keep my concerns about becoming sedentary from getting out of hand).

Being anorexic was one of the most unpleasant phases of my life, and I regret how it warped my sense of body image and made me feel inadequate and stupid when I tried to fight it. However, having been through that experience, I really hope I can help others to see the signs and ensure they understand what is happening and can fight it before it becomes dangerously debilitating to their life and happiness like it did to me, and that my story shows that recovery from anorexia is possible.

Stories of Anorexiaand Testimonies

TESTIMONIALS

Manuela Alper: PERSONAL ENCOUNTER Coming across with the the Elephant in the Room Foundation has brought to the front spotlight a subject very close to my heart. Not because I have had personal encounters with anorexia through my immediate family and friends, rather because I live with what is also considered an eating problem by being obese throughout my adult life.
I’ve been struggling with my weight all my life, trying time and time again to reach a healthy place.
Since my children were born an additional concerned was tossed into the pot, the worry of them first bring over weight like myself and then turning “anorexic” as a reaction to my struggles.

It is by the work of the foundation that I have learnt how this condition is much more complex than a number on the scales. That having an “off the scales” body weight, whether “too high” or “too low” is a result of a genetic pre disposition and the trigger, whatever it may be, is just that. A trigger.

Most importantly, the trigger or the “number on the scale” are not to be the main focus for diagnosis or treatment.

Before I came to know the foundation’s work I considered myself very knowledgable in its subject.
Now I know that what I knew was merely one piece in the puzzle.”

Anna Luiza Cunha Pereira: HELPED ME TO HELP “The work of the foundation has been eye-opening for us all! Not only was I impressed by the new approach and perspective it brought to the problem of anorexia, it also helped me to help others who were facing similar concerns with their children so that they felt that they were not alone. They felt that they could reach out to exchange ideas and have some new light shed over their problems…”

Sabina Asnani: ABOUT EATING DISORDERS “The foundation has taught me a lot about eating disorders. I’ve learned new things about they ways girls think about food and received a lot of information about how it can be a genetic predisposition.
I also learned how, medically, doctors sometimes don’t recognize this condition until it’s too late. Parents need to notice this problem on their own.”

EARLY PATTERNS by Maryam Sayeed “I am very lucky to have Veronica and her shared experiences in my life. Elephant in the Room Foundation enhanced my exposure to this topic which I frankly had little or no knowledge of before I met Veronica. Her experiences helped me gain a better understanding of this topic, and encouraged me to help a friend in a way that would not offend her to speak about the “elephant in the room”.

What I found significantly helpful was the knowledge of how to determine early patterns of someone who may be on this path and how to help them without being too invasive!

I hope others find this as helpful as I did. Thank you Veronica for putting so much effort into this topic.”

Anonymous: HOPE AND GUIDANCE “I wish there had been a Foundation such as Elephant in the Room when a few years ago my family and I were trying to support my sister through anorexia. People’s understanding of the condition is limited to the extremities and misconceptions from the media and certain ‘professionals’ who call themselves experts in the field turn out to be just as ignorant.
Women & men who suffer from eating disorders, and their families, need support, understanding and help to get them through each and every day.
I believe Elephant in the Room Foundation could be the answer to giving hope and guidance in helping people get through this terrible condition that can literally eat away your loved ones. We need to stop them from falling in to the deep, dark well that anorexia brings. We need to hold their hands and let them know that we can help. We need to support Elephant in the Room Foundation to educate everyone and help stop the spread of this often misunderstood condition.”

Reshma Shah: EDUCATE OURSELVES “I was truly shocked and amazed about what I learned concerning anorexia. Although everyone hears about anorexia, I personally felt I did not know half as much until after I received such an insight from the foundation. Learning more through the foundation really helped me as I have family member affected by anorexia.

In my opinion, we all need to support such a fantastic foundation (the Elephant in the Room Foundation) to bring awareness and understanding about the seriousness of this genetically predisposed disorder as well as further educating ourselves so that we can be a helping hand to suffering individuals”.

Isabel Marant: MOST HELPFUL INFORMATION“Wow! This can be one particular of the most helpful blogs we have ever arrived across on this subject. Actually Magnificent. I’m also a specialist in this topic so I can understand your hard work.”

REALLY GOOD POINTS by Author of Lifestyle and Diet Books “You’ve made some really good points there. I checked on the net to
learn more about the issue and found most individuals will go along with your views on this web site.”

AGREE WITH EARLY SIGNS TO WATCH OUT FOR by Lovie “I personally seem to agree with almost everything that ended up being authored throughout Early Signs to Watch Out For. Thanks for all the information.”

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