People have asked me too many times to count: “How can someone just not eat? I LOVE food!” My answer has never wavered. Easily, the answer is because it works and it’s addictive. It is truly my mission to change the idea that Anorexia Nervosa is about being out of control, it is absolutely about calming a painful level of anxiety most cannot or will not ever face in their lifetime. Think desperation, as this is as close to understanding this disorder as most of us will get.
1. Hypersensitivity at a Genetic Level
The origin of anorexia is genetic. Most of these sweet folks have a genetic type of hypersensitivity. means they feel EVERYTHING. If someone in their environment is upset, the hypersensitive person will inevitably feel very uncomfortable and highly anxious.
There is no sense of separation from how others feel with their own feelings, making this person feel out of control with the world around them. As this exists so deeply, anyone attempting to help them “let it go,” makes them feel even more anxious, as they would have done the obvious if it worked. As they feel “too much” and “out of control,” most of the time without being able to turn it off, the first line of attack is to make the situation better, or what therapists like to call people pleasing.
In their worlds, with the issues of the world hitting them on a personal level, the only way to control it is to take it all on. They literally make it their fault in order to frame it in a way they can control it or do something about it. Action about how others feel often leads to impossible states of achievement, and a need to be perfect.
With the subconscious belief that if they avoid making mistakes, no one will feel anything around them but good feelings. With a combination of this not working, and an environment they cannot control, the propensity for developing an eating disorder is almost unavoidable. Now comes the science of the reason starving helps with hypersensitivity and increases the feeling of more environmental control.
2. Becoming Addiction to the Body’s Endorphins
Have you ever become so hungry that you no longer feel the hunger pangs? This is not a fluke, and completely intended by the brain. Hunger signals are actually sent from the stretch receptors of the shrunken stomach to the brain, telling it that food is needed, then as the stomach expands with food, the stretch receptors tell the brain it no longer requires food.
The longer we stay hungry, the higher the chances are that hunger will seem to stop. As the brain catches on that it will not be fed with the signals its given, it dulls signals from the stretch receptors to the brain stomach, and deals with hunger on its own. It tells the body to pull from its stores to give the body energy, and flood the brain with endorphins to decrease the pain of hunger.
When this happens for pain relief of the hunger pangs, it also gives the person a sense of control, and safety from their anxiety. Once the stretch receptors in the stomach are engaged with the sense of fullness by food, the endorphins are no longer needed and cease to continue drugging the brain.
The same feeling of anxiety happens when a drug addict gets down to their last dose. They still have drugs but are scared of losing that high. Even talking about a cheeseburger can put an anorectic into a panic regarding the level of anxiety that would ensue with ending the endorphin rush.
More importantly, the receptors of the stomach tie directly to the brain and anxiety level. Eating disorder professionals typically have the thought that due to this being a control issue instead of a safety issue, they must break the patient down, to allow feelings to surface. As good as the intention is, this approach usually ends with the smartest person getting.
The axon is a long strip of neuronal material with dendrites on the end that look like branches. On the end of each of these branches or dendrites exist terminals where electronically AND chemically, messages get transferred. Receptors on the end of each dendrite, the branch of the end of an axon BOTH give AND RECEIVE messages via the chemical serotonin.
3. Serotonin Deficiency & Re-Uptake In Anorexia
Serotonin is a chemical that carries incoming messages and is excreted (spat out) by any dendrite to the receptors of the next dendrite to get the message fully across the brain and eventually perceived. The difficulty is that all dendrites have receptors, and can send or receive messages from other dendrites. As an example we hear someone say, “Wow! You look great today!” The message enters our ears, and heads right into the dendrites, moving the authentic message directly to the axon, which is normally covered, like the plastic element of an electrical wire, by something called the myelin sheath.
Normally, the message travels quicker than we can blink to and through the dendrites that have to chemically and electrically transfer the message from one set of dendrites to the next. People who have normal serotonin balance would never notice this movement or be swayed by it at all. People with serotonin imbalances experience a glitch in this seemingly easy transfer. Anorexic individuals typically have a depletion in their myelin sheath which is like an exposed wire where the message can get lost.
The easiest way to express the dendrite glitch is that the serotonin is electrically and chemically excreted from the end of one dendrite, and it is supposed to be received or “sucked up” by receptors of the closest dendrite, moving though the axon to the next dendrite, etc. to continue the seamless transition of a message through the brain, and inevitably “understood” by the person receiving this message.
Since all ends of all dendrites contain receptors that can receive or “suck up” serotonin, people with a serotonin imbalance have the trouble of not being able to excrete enough serotonin, or the excretion is electrically too weak to reach the next receptor, so the minimal amount excreted, at a low pressure is often “re-uptaked” or sucked back up by the very receptors that excreted them. This now leaves a blank in the message transfer process, which leaves the subconscious brain to interpret the message.
The brains of people struggling with food-restrictive behaviors often struggle with a serotonin imbalance. The imbalance creates that blank space for the subconscious to interpret a meaning to ALL of the input from the world. With the low self esteem, typical of those with anorexia nervosa, the subconscious fills the blank space with harm avoiding thoughts, which keep the conscious safe.
Scientifically, the serotonin travels through the ears, into the axons of the brain, tries to travel between the dendrites, and gets “re-uptaked” by the same dendrites, relies on the subconscious to interpret EVERYTHING, and comes out with a reaction that has nothing to do with the original message that was sent.
IE: When a person says, “Wow, you look great today!”
The normal person allows it to travel through the brain’s axons and across the dendrites without interruption. The message is received without interpretation in lightning time, costing little to no energy. This individual might respond with, “I got up so early, glad you think that!” The intention and message were congruent.
The person with a serotonin imbalance loses the message the minute the serotonin is released. The dendrites barely extract any serotonin, and the amount that is put out electrically, ends up so close to the output source, it becomes “re-uptaked” or sucked back up by the dendrites that released them.
Now there is a void between the dendrites, where the person has to rely on his or her subconscious to make sense of the message. With low self esteem, the interpretation of, “Wow! You look great!” must be translated when lost between the dendrites. This person often hears the words, and with their low self esteem translate it to, “You know you’re ugly, they are just letting you know you’re less ugly than the last time they saw you.”
Wow…… what a message! None of it was intended, the serotonin just never got across.
The amount of time this whole process takes is measured in milliseconds, so it is truly not noticed in the moment, however, we have seen these individuals immediately scoff, or roll their eyes almost immediately. This is how quick the brain can transfer a message without the use of proper serotonin levels. Miraculous!
This ability of the brain to perform at this speed does not come without cost, as it does use more energy as it consistently interprets the world around them. That same message comes into the brain the same way the world is interpreted. Sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste must all go through this interpretation cycle to get processed. The side effects include exhaustion by the end of the day, because the brain must do this same process to all messages, not just just audial. The colors of the grass can be interpreted incorrectly.
The fact that the brain has to work that much harder than it should, causes exhaustion in a serotonin deprived individual.
By the time the end of the day comes, these folks are mentally tired. Restricting food and flooding the brain with endorphins, makes this process more tolerable, and way less painful.
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