Eating disorders and OCD with Isabella Fels

Speaker 1 00:00

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Speaker 2 00:20

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Speaker 3 00:32

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Speaker 4 00:47

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Speaker 5 01:22

Hello and welcome to Brainwaves, a well -waved show dealing with mental health and other health conditions. I'm your host, Evan, and today we're exploring eating disorders with my guest today, Isabella Fels. Isabella is a writer published in magazines around Melbourne and she also does poetry and hopefully today she can share some of that and with us together with a story about obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, and how that affects our eating habits. Welcome to Brainwaves, Isabella.

Speaker 6 02:06

Thank you very much, Evan. It's great to be here back again.

Speaker 5 02:11

How have you been since we last spoke about your shopping indexes and before that I think we explored some of your poetry.

Speaker 6 02:19

It's been a lot better, thank God, especially after Christmas, you could say, it's been much... All my Christmases seem to come up once during Christmas, but I've settled down over the New Year.

Speaker 5 02:34

That's great. It's great you could come along again today as well. We only have half an hour show so we might as well get straight into it. How do you define an eating disorder compared to maybe just loving food or being a greedy cat?

Speaker 6 02:52

Unfortunately there's a lot more to it than that, it goes a lot deeper than Vena greedy guts and I have a lot for emotional reasons.

Speaker 3 03:10

Thank you.

Speaker 6 03:10

Yeah emotions play a large part in my eating. Loneliness, boredom, stress and I've had this problem for a very long time. I'm this bad eating disorder but I'm trying very hard. It's been a mixed blessing but ever since having had knee surgery I'm a lot more careful about what I eat.

Speaker 5 03:38

that's great yeah um yeah it's like really delves into how you're feeling a lot of your emotions and and depressed depressive sort of feelings do you think

Speaker 6 03:51

Yes, they all play a big part. I don't even know why the hell I'm eating at times. But yeah, Nate, it's good for me to sort of get back into myself and see what's going on inside. If there are stresses around, if there are relationships not working very well, I turn to food.

Speaker 5 04:14

When do you think it started for you? Was it when you were a little child?

Speaker 6 04:19

Yes, it hit me very hard at the age of 13. I suddenly put on a lot of weight, and the flack that I got from my friends and family was terrible actually, and I felt ashamed of myself that I should be hiding. Basically, none of my Christmases came at once that year on that trip to Spain for Christmas.

Speaker 5 04:46

Yeah, so was there any specific trigger that started it all off, like not just sort of the way you're treated, but any any moment you notice when you just started sort of eating too much or?

Speaker 6 05:03

I've always eaten a lot and I could sort of, it didn't have any effect. But when I hit puberty, puberty was a very big milestone for me. I just couldn't keep the weight down. But I was used to from very young having like up to three or four Mars bars and half a loaf of bread after school. I didn't even worry, I think twice about it. But when I hit puberty and put on all that weight, I became obsessed with food and weight.

Speaker 5 05:34

And so it's linked to ACD, is that as well as sort of affected from medications you have on for mental health?

Speaker 6 05:44

I take Clozaril and that really um sends me over the that doesn't help me at all um with it's great for my mental health but it gives me very bad um compulsions to eat and um and it also increases my appetite so yeah I'm just I'm doing well just sort of staying a stable way with Clozaril um before I used to put a lot more expectations on myself but it's much better um yeah I'm I'm sort of I'm trying to sort of accept myself as I am.

Speaker 5 06:20

That's beautiful, Isabella. You are a beautiful person. It must give you anxiety being worried about food as well as mental health problems and what measures do you try and take to control your compulsions for food.

Speaker 6 06:36

Ah yes, if I land into a depression, I've always got you, Evan, to talk to and Evan's given me great tips, drinking lots of water, walking, trying to sort of take breaks in between meals, vegetables, cucumbers, carrot sticks, other guy, instead of stuffing myself with anything I can find. But yeah, I do have to take drastic measures in my kitchen. I can't have loaves of bread or even packets of muesli bars. I have to get everything very healthy because I tend to devour things in the middle of the night. And that's another problem with that. I don't sleep well either, so because of that, I go straight to the fridge. It's almost a compulsive sort of behaviour.

Speaker 5 07:38

Are there any other measures you've sort of taken to help curb your behaviours, like to help stop the cravings, to sort of working out distracting you from eating so much?

Speaker 6 07:50

I look at my wardrobe and I think, my God, you know, if I had to buy a brand new wardrobe I wouldn't be able to afford it for starters. But I'd feel terrible, it would come at an enormous expense and I really do when I keep fitting into my nice clothes.

Speaker 5 08:07

I suppose living on a busy shopping strip where you do probably doesn't help with the range of choices you have to buy or not just food but also clothing and stuff but and all the takeaways and cafe lunches and things on offer is this, do you find this a hindrance or do you just enjoy yourself?

Speaker 6 08:23

Bit of both actually, I do really enjoy it, but I try to think I'd be better off buying myself an article of clothing rather than having a $25 meal or something like that. But I'm careful too when I go out, I tend to eat a lot of Japanese and Vietnamese, but very healthy things again.

Speaker 5 08:54

So if you could change one thing about OCD, what would you, obsessive compulsive disorder, what would you like different?

Speaker 6 09:03

yeah just to um it's a hard one actually i see that is um very um

Speaker 5 09:11

Take your time, we've got time.

Speaker 6 09:14

If I could change something, I'd love to not have to take the medication, but there's no other option at the moment. I'd love to go back to my youth, you know, when I was sort of at a very good weight. But, you know, that's the cards that life has dealt me.

Speaker 5 09:37

Yep. Yeah, we all seem to, we all have our own thing, don't we? We have to seem to have problems we have to face and try and find solutions. We might just take a break for a minute. We'll be back after a little community service announcement with Isabella.

09:57

Welcome back to Brainwaves on 3CR at 855 a.m. My name's Evan. I'm here with Isabella Fels, and we're talking about eating disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder. And Isabella, can you see hope for the future? Maybe learning to train your addictions or compulsions and overcoming them in the short or long term.

Speaker 6 10:21

Yeah I can... things are already getting a lot better actually even though I pig out at night it's and and I and I feel like a real greedy guts at times I'm much more measured. Actually I don't have like a whole container of nuts or cashews but just a handful or two or just everything in moderation because I'd get so depressed about overeating it was it had a terrible effect on me it would ruin my day sometimes yeah.

Speaker 5 10:54

Yeah, I mean...

Speaker 6 10:56

Sorry. Sorry. My mother also used to keep tabs on my weight. She'd make me go to two gyms, and it was fun. It was very exhausting, but going to the gym is a very good way of being careful afterwards with food, feeling like that I'm going to, because of my knee, because of both my knees having to be replaced, that there's no choice but to be careful with food.

Speaker 5 11:26

Yeah, you can't just go sprinting, I suppose, and do a lot of rigorous exercise. You do some walking and stuff and your gym work, which is great. So, are there outside influences that cause more grief for you to fill the need to eat, do you think?

Speaker 6 11:45

The death of my mother has had a profound effect. I've no longer got her sort of on the other end of the phone or the other end of the bed shaking off my dinner telling me to get on the treadmill or pushing me into the gym. So I've got to sort of do it for myself and that's been very hard and but yeah I realize that no one else can do it but me.

Speaker 5 12:08

That's right.

Speaker 6 12:09

The hard work can't be done with anyone else but me.

Speaker 5 12:13

I think a lot of people find that, don't they? They get a personal trainer and it does help a bit, but it really, in the end, it's up to them to create their own exercise program and do it for themselves.

Speaker 6 12:24

Yeah, exactly right. 

Speaker 5

I know I've done this. I'm not sure if it's the same for you, but when you felt like you can't get a partner for a length of time, you maybe feel low in self -esteem or you might compensate not having a sex life with pleasures of easily obtainable food, which really doesn't replace a healthy love life, but gives you that dopamine hit and temporary relief from that worry. Do you find this a problem for you and contributes to your OCD compulsions to it?

Speaker 6 12:53

I do actually. When I was a lot younger sex was more important than food, but it sort of turned the other way after I got ill and my sex drive went down and lots of things went down. And yeah, so I'm hoping to sort of, yeah.

Speaker 5 13:16

.... [?] ... topic... I'm sorry you don't have to answer.

Speaker 6 13:20

That's okay, as John Travolta says, there are two desires, sex and food, one goes up, the other one goes down, they sort of play on each other.

Speaker 3 13:31

Hm.

Speaker 6 13:32

And I'd much rather have a higher sex drive than a Desiree 8 all the time.

Speaker 5 13:37

Yeah, I've had the similar problem. I haven't had a partner for a long time and I tend, I went through a long period of just compensating for any sort of emotional connection eating, just finding pleasure in eating food.

Speaker 5 13:49

It's just, that's why I brought it up but um, yeah. Um, do you have poetry about eating disorders?

Speaker 6 13:59

I'd love to share it with you, that the eating disorder takes me everywhere into mental hospitals. Um, overseas, I binge, you know, on planes, everywhere I go, and in the Spanish family, too. They have this terrible habit of attacking the fridge. Yeah, some people, so it's a bit genetic, too.

Speaker 3 14:24

Yeah.

Speaker 5 14:26

Yeah, different cultures I suppose have different ways of preparing food and Italians have a lot of pasta and a lot of pizza and I suppose Spanish have similar sort of cuisine that's maybe contributes to that or...

Speaker 6 14:43

That's right, yes yes ... no it was terrible, you know at the age of 15 when i packed on about 15 kilos in less than six weeks it was terrible like early ... but yeah i'm not gonna sort of, yeah i've managed to keep it stable since then he said you only put on like four or five kilos and then taken it off again so that's much better progress and then it was very noticeable before i'd put on stack on 10 kilos in a matter of a month sometimes.

Speaker 5 15:18

There's so much influence on social media now. You see these ads and they've got like huge hamburgers and eating contests and this kind of thing. Do you see those? What do you think of those?

Speaker 6 15:29

It doesn't help, does it? Advertising, I really don't like a lot of advertising because it leads to eating disorders and problems sort of managing and problems with self-esteem too.

Speaker 5 15:44

Do you have some poetry that you got prepared?

Speaker 6 15:56

This is our issues with food. I've written the three little poems and then I've got another one. Eating nothing. Doing nothing. Eating everything. Devouring life. Life too much to take. Midnight binges. The only way I get out of my bedroom. Have a wishing I could be caught out like a mousetrap in between my bedroom and the tea room. Pitter patter off to the tea room in the middle of the night. Feeling myself getting fatter. I was terrible in the mental hospital. I had no control. I'd be searching for food up and down the stairs of the building. It was very, very bad. The compulsions to eat. I ate incredible. I'd have like a whole, it was very bad binges every night and it led me to put on about 10 kilos when I was in hospital.

I wish they'd had better measures. I really do. They had to hide all the food away. Sometimes that's the only way out. Sorry, there was a bit more to this poem here. Pitter patter off to the tea room in the middle of the night. Feeling myself getting fatter. Biscuits scattered. Everything shattered. My life all in tatters. Food all that matters.

Speaker 5 17:32

It's great, Isabella. Not great you've gone through it, but great you can express it so eloquently.

Speaker 6 17:39

And as I eat bananas, I feel like I'm going bananas. As I eat crackers, I feel like I'm going crackers. Eating nuts, going nuts. Nutty or even in a fruitcake, as crazy as a fruit salad. Trying not to spill the beans, eating everything except the greens. Unhealthy in both body and mind. However, after buying chips from vending machine in the middle of the night and being caught out by one of the nurses, I can finally chip away at my eating disorder.

Speaker 5 18:13

That's a bit positive at the end.

Speaker 6 18:16

Thank you. I'd love to share more of my writing if anyone's interested. I've written about, it's called Conversions of an Over-Eater for Eureka Street, and also How to Be a Gym Junkie and a Food Junkie at the same time. That's another article in Eureka Street.

Speaker 5 18:39

You've got quite a few now published in different articles, haven't you?

Speaker 6 18:44

And I hope to keep writing more and helping more people about eating disorders.

Speaker 5 18:49

Great, are there exercise programs to help with weight gain you're doing and does this help with craving? So what's that gym program you're doing?

Speaker 6 19:00

I see an exercise physiologist, and she keeps me very much on track. We do lots of walking, and I just feel I don't want to spoil. But again, it makes me much more careful about what I hate and the consequences of with my knees, you know, I can't afford to. I almost thought I was going to be in a wheelchair at one stage before my new replacement. So the fear of that really encourages me to keep going to the gym, eating healthy. And even if I do pig out during the night, just making sure it's healthy, things like fruit and cucumbers. Again, that's my best bet. Thank you.

Speaker 5 19:47

Thanks Isabelle, we might take another break and we'll be back in just a moment after this community service announcement.

Speaker 6 19:54

Go on out.

Speaker 5 19:57

Hi welcome back to Brainwaves on 3CR 855am on your dial, on your local community radio in Melbourne. I'm here with Isabella Fells, my name's Evan, one of Brainwaves presenters and we're talking about eating disorders and how it relates to OCD and mental health and I think Isabella's got a bit more poetry she'd like to read out.

Speaker 6 20:21

This one's called Eight, it's a bit longer this one, but it channels all my frustrations about food and weight and eating, I get it all out in this poem. 

Eight too much, the rest aren't too much of a good thing, the tables were against me, the food came out splendid, I surrendered, mouthful after mouthful, instead of getting myself and the calories, starting with the salty savouries, then finishing up with the sweet pastries, eating up my hard days pay, going for the chips and chocolate, food for ever come what may, however leaving behind the celery, it doesn't even touch my lips, the chips and chocolate however hit my hips, feeling fat and elderly, on a mission to wipe up simply everything quickly and immediately, heated up lukewarm or cold, even before it has to thaw or be reheated, I can't stand having to wait for the food, however I love being waited on hand and foot and even mouth to mouth, I can't hold off even for a second, yet I then lathe myself over a loaf of bread, the food beckons, my body is limitless, it reckons it has had enough, others treat my weight tough, I feel as beaten as a cake mixture, my fat is now a fixture, that I simply can't fix, sugar is a constant fix, I keep eating up everything not lasting more than a few seconds, my mouth constantly on the wide, my stomach with so much food inside, others giving me even more of a hide at my big back side, however the calories not burning up like wood, this then putting me in a black smoky mood.

Speaker 5 22:24

And you're not really a particularly big girl, really, I mean, you're quite thin, but you just... You were much thinner when you were younger, weren't you?

Speaker 6 22:32

That's right, we have impossible standards, especially in my mother's side of the family. If you put on three kilos it was seen as a disaster, as a major disaster. But yeah, that's why I sort of beat myself up so much about my weight.

Speaker 5 22:53

Yeah, it's a lot, I mean, we've come a long way as a community too about body shaming and seeing bigger people who's beautiful and sexual and it's not always a bad thing putting a bit of weight. Like, I'm not saying it is a bad thing, but it depends on what you want, how you want to look, doesn't it?

Speaker 6 23:11

That's right, yeah. I've heard of poor models sort of losing their jobs at putting on one gear, like, and I feel very sorry for them. I'm sorry for what they have to go through, you know, trying to sort of live up to sort of their impossible standards put forth in the media. I really feel for them.

Speaker 5 23:33

Yeah, I was a very skinny boy and then when I had mental health problems, I put on a lot of weight and I've got a big tummy. I just don't like it. I'd love to have a flat tummy, but it doesn't doesn't bother me that much. Like it's just more the health health problems associated with that, like diabetes or high blood pressure or whatever.

Speaker 6 23:52

I bit myself through about my ways, yeah. I'm a perfectionist and a family, so we feel we all have to have perfect bodies and it's just not attainable.

Speaker 5 24:05

You get to a certain age and I mean, you can put a lot of work in and try and trim yourself up, get muscular. There's a lot of pressure in the media these days for, you know, being a gym, gym person and looking fit and running and some of us were just, you know, you've had knee surgery.

Speaker 5 24:21

It's just not really a reality to be probably like that. I mean, I mean, it's not saying it's out of, out of the realms of reality. I mean, you could, but I'm just very difficult, isn't it?

Speaker 6 24:32

That's right, I used to do a hell of a lot of aerobics when I was younger and I'd love to be able to do that again but I'm limited so yeah I'm just going to try very hard with my diet and just not stuff up as much as I just can't afford to stuff up given my knee condition.

Speaker 5 24:52

So would you like to tell the general public about how to treat people with OCD to help them relieve the pressure of addiction, like you're saying to me that you find shopkeepers tend to sort of push product on you a bit?

Speaker 6 25:09

Ah yes, yes, with food in a way. Yeah, I've been sold diet pills, which I'm sure that I don't think they did anything. I paid like 50 and slimming teas and all sorts of potions and miracle pills. One GP wanted me to go on a $300 diet pill a month, a medication called Conjrave. But yeah, that was why I was at the top, I think.

Speaker 3 25:42

Thank you.

Speaker 5 25:45

So yeah, so do you have any other things you'd like to say just to view it to the listeners about OCD how to sort of make it easier for you?

Speaker 6 25:56

Just not to give up with the OCD, to try to manage it as best we can, to delay and distract every time you feel a compulsion to eat, to ring up a special friend or I can, and I'm very lucky to have Evan in my life who I can turn to when I'm feeling sort of peckish.

Speaker 3 26:15

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5 26:17

Well thanks Isabella, I really appreciate that compliment, it's lovely having a friend like you as well. Thank you. That's all the time we have today with Isabella, keep finding those compulsions. I know you can beat these problems, that's what life's about. Facing our problems, overcoming them, finding solutions if we can. It's worth a shot anyway, you're doing so well as it is. Thank you. Dealing with this on a daily basis, all the best.

Speaker 6 26:44

Thanks very much for having me, Evan. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 26:48

That's all the time we have today for Brainwaves. I'm your host, Evan, and you've been listening to Isabela Fell's story about OCD and food addictions. I hope you enjoyed her poetry too. Do look out for a writing in Q Magazine and various other magazines like Eureka Street. Don't forget to tune in next week at 5pm on 3CR, 8 .55am. I'll listen to the podcast on 3CR website or your favourite streaming service. Bye for now.

Speaker 7 27:16

You've been listening to a 3CR podcast produced in the studios of independent community radio station 3CR in Melbourne, Australia. For more information go to allthew's.3cr.org.au