- Hello, everybody! And welcome to this hotel room!
It is me, Stef Sanjati, and I am joined by...
- Kati Morton! - Yes.
- I am a licensed therapist,
and I have a mental health educational channel on YouTube,
and I actually specialize in eating disorders
and self-injury, that's what I do in my practice,
that's what all my training has been in.
- Absolutely. - And that's why I'm here!
- So, I actually want to talk about eating disorders today.
I've talked about this a few times before,
and I'll link those videos in the description box,
but I- Let's just jump right into it.
- Yeah, let's get into it.
- My main big, big, big problem with eating disorder
were more recent, where I began abusing laxatives,
'cause that's a form of bulimia, right?
But, my history started way back when I was a kid,
and it's kind of related to being trans.
- I wondered about that, when we said we were going
to talk about this, like I wonder how's tied in.
- We actually talked about a lot of trans stuff
on Kati's channel, so you can go check that out
if you're interested, I'll put a link to that
and also a card.
Go check it out, it's really cool, it's a great video.
Where it started was when I started puberty,
and I began developing in ways I didn't like,
my shoulders got broader, my face got a bit thicker,
my neck got thicker, like,
I was developing in a way that was...
- The opposite. - Masculine,
or what I perceived to be masculine,
and I was like, I didn't consciously know it,
but I so desired to be smaller,
and have breasts and hips and whatever,
and like, I didn't really know how to vocalize,
or verbalize that, or how to explain that.
That's where that began, and I was really bullied 'cause
not only was I developing in that way, which is normal,
I was also an early bloomer, and I was a little bit chubby,
and I was a little bit short,
and had acne, and bla, bla, bla...
- It's like one thing after the other, just uncomfortable.
- Exactly, I was very, very uncomfortable,
so when I began High School, I starved myself excessively,
like, I was 30 or 40 pounds lighter than I am right now.
It was bad. - Yeah, it's bad.
- It was really bad. But, what I noticed,
was when I was skinny people were nice to me,
and when I was bigger people were not nice to me,
so that really encouraged a lot of behavior
for me getting older.
I actually had a boyfriend that told me
that he couldn't go out with me because I was too fat.
- What? Fuck th- Oh, can I cuss on here?
- Yeah, you can absolutely.
- Oh, I was like "fuck that guy".
- That's where it really began to-
- And saying it, like, saying it again.
- I ate nothing. I'm not gonna say what I did,
because that would encourage that behavior
and I don't want to do that.
- I think like, an important thing,
like not mentioning numbers, and I never mention numbers
or anything, because it's super triggering,
but also because eating disorders really are just hurt.
- Yeah!
- And I was talking about them being coping skills
for something else going on.
- It does not have anything to do with food at all.
It's never food. - They don't care about food,
it's actually about like, whatever represents for us,
whether is numb out, whether is to push people away,
whether it's "I'm so uncomfortable",
all sort of reasons that we use.
- And I think a lot of people have
a fundamental misunderstanding of like,
"Why don't you just eat?" Or like, it's,
you know, fuel, and I'm- at this point in my life,
talking about it as if "Oh, food is fuel,
I need this to like-" that helps me at this point,
but back then, that would've just made me angry.
'Cause it wasn't about that,
it wasn't about sustaining my body,
it was about sustaining my social existence.
- And who you felt that you were,
and it was changing and you didn't like it.
- Absolutely. - It felt out of control.
- Exactly.
So then, I mean, at some point I guess-
I don't know exactly what happened,
but I mean, that relationship ended,
and I just kind of bounced out a little bit, and
it didn't really resurfaced until I realized I was trans.
I was always uncomfortable with the way
my body was developing and changing and was,
but it was then when I was conscious of it,
and I was like "This is what exactly I don't like",
and here's how I can change it.
So then, I was encouraged by-
I wasn't really encouraged by somebody,
but they kind of glued me in to this method,
where if I deprived my body of nutrition
it would began to consume itself,
and my muscles would shrink and etrophy.
Atrophy? - Atrophy.
- Atrophy.
And that was horrific,
and that was when my adult problems began,
and that was- Originally...
- That's a horrible person, by the way.
I mean, they probably didn't mean-
- I think they have a lot of their own pain,
and they do something very similar,
and they don't really understand that it's a problem.
- That it is an actual eating disorder.
- Yeah, so I don't really blame them,
but that was definitely a very trigger moment, for sure.
- And just to be clear, an eating disorder
becomes an eating disorder- 'Cause I think
a lot of people throw that word around
and we don't really know what it means when,
and this is how I talk about it on my channel,
diagnostically speaking, it's gonna be different,
'cause there is anorexia, there's bulimia,
and there's OSFED, it's like essentially
it used to be NOS, Not Otherwise Specified,
which I think it's a better way.
OSFED stands for Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder,
way too long.
Anyways, it's like the catch-all bucket
for all other behaviors.
But overall, with all that to say,
that an eating disorder is an eating disorder
when most of your brain space
is filled with thoughts about food.
- Yeah.
Oh dear.
And that's what it was, it was like
when I was at the big heat of it,
and let's just step back to what you just said
when it comes to different categories of eating disorders,
people can experience several in their life,
when I was in High School it was anorexia,
when I was an adult more recently, it would've been bulimia,
right? - Yes.
- And I think, there's a big resistance to actually saying
they have eating disorders, and I had that.
I was very much insistent. My mom would be really concerned
and be like "Please, you're doing this,
and it's harmful, and I can see it",
and I was just like "No! It's not.
What are you talking about? I don't have an eating disorder"
I was very insistent that it was not a problem,
and I didn't really understand it was a problem
until my heartbeat became irregular
and I could feel it through my chest
and all my bones were sticking out.
I had to physically be in danger
to finally acknowledge that I had a problem,
and a lot of people get there
and they still don't acknowledge it.
- I've had patients who still don't acknowledge,
and I think a lot of it has to do
with stigma and society.
Because eating disorders are manipulative motherfuckers,
and will tell you that you're not sick enough,
that you're not thin enough,
that you don't look a certain way,
so therefore, you don't have an eating disorder.
- I've been there, that's exactly the thought.
- In your brain, which is already ill,
'cause it has a mental illness
called an eating disorder in it,
it tells you "Oh, this is what
an eating disorder person looks like"
and then they like "No. Me? No, not the same".
- Right, and until you get to that extreme,
and even if when you do get to that extreme,
the goalpost keeps shifting, for sure.
Like a bad debate, with yourself.
- Exactly. - Exactly.
- And you can never win,
so I think that's the first component,
and then the second component
that often times, and I've heard this
sadly from a lot of my viewers,
is people would reach out for help
when they sort of got binge eating disorder,
which is another eating disorder to have on our list,
and the doctors will be like
"Oh, you just need to go exercise and lose weight,
you don't have an eating disorder."
Because they're ignorant to the fact that
eating disorders aren't all just skinniness.
I just needed to tell you what an eating disorder was,
most of your brain space
is filled up with thoughts about food.
- Right, and that could be in any direction.
- Then, they can shift between one another,
'cause they are manipulative,
so they want to hang around, so they're like shape-shifters.
Like, friends, I used to work in
an inpatient eating disorder clinic for many years,
and girls that would come in on the anorexia side,
because they were forced to eat,
would start throwing up
or start trying to sneak in laxatives,
and so you just know that's it's-
I think eating disorders is this huge umbrella
and these fall under it.
- And the behavior adapts to whatever
your circumstances are, however you can control that.
- Whoever can still hang around.
- But, no matter what that is,
whatever form it takes, it's still harmful
and is hurting you and it's killing you.
Started with the laxative abuse, got real bad,
and what actually stopped me,
and this, I don't know how to actually think about this
because, in one part of my brain I'm like
"This is really an unhealthy way to quit"
but it still got me to quit,
and now I'm in a place where I see it
as what it was, because I'm healthier now
and I can see it as- - 'Cause you're out of it.
- I don't know if I'm ever going to be out of it,
like, I still struggle with thoughts everyday
about food, like I get very guilty when I eat anything,
but I have ways to telling myself "It's fine",
like "It's fuel" or whatever,
I have strategies and tools to handle it,
but I don't- It doesn't left, and I don't know if you,
in your experience, does it ever leave?
- Yes. - For some people?
For everybody?
- Not everybody, everybody is different.
So like, don't think that all the work
you put in isn't like me,
because, I think the thing that people don't realize
is that it's almost like,
I'll give this kind of example, analogy, I guess.
So I used to always get strep throat, forever and ever,
and then I got my tonsils out,
but even if I get a cold, my throat always hurt first.
That's my weak spot, okay? - Interesting!
- And I think of eating disorders as the same,
or like, let's say we have panic attacks
or self-injury, whatever we struggled with,
when things get really shitty,
and we get really stressed out...
- That the first thing that hurts.
- That will come back.
- Okay... - But, you have your tools,
to be like, "ugh, thought? I'm not interested. Not today."
Like, I did this video with Lindsey Stirling
like a year ago, maybe, and she was like
"You're a wearing different hat,
but I still know you're my eating disorder."
"You're wearing a different dress
but you're still the same one."
- True! - Like, they put on a costume
but I still know who you are.
- Oh my god, that's thoughtful.
- That's what it is!
So you can be like "Nope".
- I love that analogy, and that makes a lot of sense,
'cause I've been like in an emotionally turbulent place.
- Yeah, you've been working a lot!
- Yeah! And it's winter, it's getting to winter.
- And it's really dark and dreary out.
- There's so many factors, but I guess
that makes a lot of sense as to why that would be like,
where it keeps going back.
'Cause there's long periods of time where,
like, months at a time, where I'm like totally okay,
and then once in a while it's just like
"Hey. Guess what? I'm here."
- "Hey, your old friend", and you're like "No, no."
- "No, no, no. Stop calling me, I'm blocking your number."
What I was gonna say then, and that I was kind of like-
Okay, so what actually got me to stop taking the laxatives,
was a surgery I was having, that was-
and I don't really see this as "cosmetic"
I see it as "reconstructive", it was related
to my transition, it was a fat transfer surgery.
In my head I'm like
"Is it bad that a 'cosmetic surgery' was my excuse
to eat because I had to gain weight
or else, I wouldn't have fat to transfer?"
But it sill worked.
- If it worked, and it wasn't unhealthy,
it wasn't like you were binging?
- No...?
- It sounds like maybe yes? - I mean, I think I still do.
And the other thing is, in my head
I don't know how to categorize binging,
'cause I'm always-
- If you eat more- so, in the DSM they'll say
it's like more than what a normal person would eat
in a normal amount of time,
so it's very- it's varied.
- Yeah, like, what is a normal person?
But I think that's fair. - But I would say that you ate
more than what would be considered a "regular portion",
you did more than that in a short period of time,
so like, within an hour or less, you eat as much
until you feel uncomfortably full.
- Oh, yeah. That's the thing.
I always feel uncomfortably full,
if I'm not uncomfortably full, I don't think I'm full.
- Have you ever tried,
and I'm just totally therapizing right now.
- Sure, no, I'm good with that.
- Okay, cool. So, I have my patients do two things.
One, I have them checking on their emotionality scale,
meaning like, zero's like "I'm dead",
10 is like "I could crawl out of my skin,
I'm so uncomfortable with my emotions",
but if you're feeling really emotional
and really maxed out, really stressed,
you might be up in like an eight, or maybe a nine,
you know? It depends on you, but-
So rating that, and then,
rating your hunger fullness,
and if you kept track, I'd be interested to see-
- Like, before and after?
- Before you eat and after you eat.
- Interesting, I think I should try that.
- Yeah, 'cause you can track it
and it's just numbers, and you can kind of see like,
"Oh, when my emotional number is at eight or above,
I end up either over-eating, under-eating."
- Right, depending on what your circumstances are.
Interesting, I think my trend,
that I tend- I eat when I'm lonely, and that's a lot.
And I order an UberEATS a lot,
and usually they give like portions for like two people,
or it's a large pizza for like, four people,
but to me that's like,
one portion is whatever container they give me.
- It's what you got the food about.
- So I have to finish the whole thing,
otherwise, I didn't finish it.
I don't know, it's weird.
- We probably aren't- I don't know if you do,
but most people don't usually think like,
"I have to finish it", it's just like
this is what I'm going to eat. - Exactly, and then-
Yeah, it's not that I like, set a goalpost for myself,
it's just that, I find it difficult to stop.
- When you're full, is that all you can think about?
- That I've eaten?
- That you're full. - Yeah.
Because it's physically painful.
- Yeah, then that might be like you're numb out.
- Yeah. Numb out. So, okay, that's interesting,
I don't know what exactly you mean by that,
but I know that, I tend to like, replace
people with food.
- That's what I meant, like numb out,
you're numbing out feelings. - Numbing out the feelings.
Exactly! That's exactly- - Loneliness, your upset,
your anger, yeah. - Yup! 100 percent!
But then it leads me to another place,
where I'm sitting there feeling angry at myself,
and physically in pain, and I'm like "Oh, my god.
Why did I do this?" And then it's just like self-loathing.
- Which makes the pain more... - So it's just-
Right, so I guess the eating disorder
is just changing hat again, it's just like
"Oh, you're lonely, so eat, and now that you've eaten
and you satisfied that, now I'm gonna torment you
with this feeling." Interesting.
- And that's why it's always a shape-shifter,
and when people are like "Well, I'm not 'sick enough'"-
- That's the common thing I hear from people.
- Yeah, and it's like a con.
It's like it sort of cons you,
'cause it's never happy, it only makes you unhappy.
- Right. Somebody I know has-
Consistently had this thing, where-
and it's not me, I know people say that to be like
"Oh, it's not me. It's for a friend",
but like, I've talked about my experiences.
This is not me, this is somebody else.
They basically won't eat,
and they'll drink ice coffee or chocolate milk,
but I know milk is something that makes you
a little bit sick sometimes,
so I think that's what going there.
They describe food as they don't like food,
and I don't know- I think that might just be like a lie
that they tell people
so they can keep control. - And themselves.
- Yeah! - A lot of people,
when we're like "Oh, that's a lie",
they're lying to themselves.
- But they also say, they would, like-
I've told them my experience, I've said
"This is exactly what I said to people
when they told me I was sick, they said I wasn't sick",
right? And they're saying the exact same thing back to me,
and I'm trying to get them to see that,
but I also don't know if that's helpful.
- You can't make someone want to get better.
- I know, it's so frustrating. - I know.
It's really hard when you care about someone too.
Because, I think the thing that
I'm always telling my viewers,
the best thing we can do, and the only thing we can do
check-in. - Yeah.
- Support. If they want to try to get help,
we can offer like "Hey, I'll drive you to that appointment.
I can wait with you, if you're nervous, I'll wait."
- But I can't help them see that their sick.
- No. - It's so hard to watch.
- It can be really hard and painful.
- And it's triggering too!
For me, when I see somebody engaging that behavior
I'm like, "Oh, that's so easy!
- "I could do that!" - "I can do that."
- Exactly! And that's dangerous,
I'm constantly aware of what that is
and the problems it has but,
it's- Oh my God.
- Do you journal?
- No. - Or videos, maybe.
- Yeah! I guess so.
And I've talked about eating disorders in my videos too,
so I guess that's pretty much the same.
- It is, kinda. I think it's the same.
So I have some of my patients go back to like
an older video, where they were like in the shitty place,
and then if you want to engage in that behavior again
I encourage you to watch that video.
- Oh my God, no. - Because you'll be like-
- (laughs) Yeah! When I go look at those videos like,
I see physical unwellness,
and I see exhaustion,
and I see like- - You could remember.
- Oh, yeah. I can feel the way my heart would beat
through my skin.
- Remember that, because- When you're feeling
a little like, it's tough and the urges are back,
watch an old video.
I know that sounds like-
- I've tried that! - Bad, but
it keeps you kinda-
- It wakes you up to- Exactly.
- "I don't like that. That's not me."
"I'm so much better."
- Exactly. I'm better now. I'm healthier now.
But it's, it's tricky to see that
when you have other mental issues that are like
clouding you out. But I think- - Specially depression.
- Ooh, yeah.
Okay, let's talk about where I'm at now,
like I mean, I mentioned that I used to abuse laxatives,
and I mention- like I had that anorexia about-
and now I'm in a place where
I'm replacing people with food and binge eating a lot.
But I think, my main thing now,
the "hat" it wears, is that guilt.
Last night, for example.
I binge ate, and then I sat there on my couch
and then just wanted to cry,
and I fixated on a specific part of my body,
and then I was like "Because I did this,
that part of my body is gonna become this"
and then like I tortured myself with that thought.
Do you have like a suggestion for something
I could do if I'm in that place?
'Cause that seems to be what's coming at me the most
in my most recent experiences.
If I'm in that kind of a place,
do you have a suggestion for what-
like, how I can shift my thinking or-?
- Yeah, snap out of that rumination, kinda?
- Yeah, is there anything you can offer in that regard?
- First of all, just anybody out there,
we can't focus on any body part.
So I'm not going to tell you like,
shift any focus, or to say positive things
about that body part, 'cause your not gonna believe them.
- No! True. - So the best thing to do is
to actually get up, change location,
like, you're still in your apartment,
but like, if you're sitting on the couch lamenting,
- Move to the bed! - Mhmm!
Just move, and then I would encourage you
to start writing about like three to five things
you're grateful for in your life.
- In my life. Not physical.
- Not physical. Not food related. Not exercise related.
Nothing related to that.
- So shift the fixation from,
whatever your eating disorder is, brute it in to
the positive aspects of my life.
- Correct. And then just distract, distract, distract.
- Okay! I can do that!
- So I have my patients like,
paint their fingernails, that takes a really long time
for them to dry and you don't wanna touch them
and mess them up, do that.
Do your make up for fun, since you're so great
at like, doing artistic things and you can have fun with it,
play with a new pallette, I don't know.
Put on a face mask-
- I play a lot of video games.
- Perfect. - And that distracts
the hell out of me, for like 90 hours a month.
- So limit it to like 30 minutes to an hour.
- Okay, so it's not like, unhealthy escapism.
- Exactly, we want it to be a distraction,
we don't want it to be an escape.
- Okay. That's a good distinction.
- And then also like, adding in,
so do a good distraction, like playing a video game
that totally gets your mind off of it,
and then I want you to, if you can, if it's safe,
if you feel calmed down, I want you to write about
what had happened earlier that day.
- And I only say that- - So what made me upset,
that caused the entire thing to like, manifest,
which wasn't the eating, it was something
that made me want to eat, in an unhealthy way.
Okay, interesting!
- So then we learn, so like,
I think of therapy as like good detective work,
where like, "What happened?"
- Wear the little hat and the trench coat.
Okay. I like that!
- So then, you can see what it is,
what the triggers are, and then you can do your best
to manage them ahead of time,
so that we're not lamenting and overeating-
- In hours later.
When you don't have full control of the situation anymore.
Okay. Wow, that was helpful, thank you!
- Yeah, of course! I'm glad, happy to help!
- Is there anything else, you would like to say
to my viewers, before we depart?
- I have a ton of videos about eating disorders,
so if you have follow-up questions,
I mean, that's my specialty,
I've been on YouTube for eight years
and actually started as an eating disorder channel.
- Wow! - That was like, all it was.
I was super awkward, but they're there, those old videos.
- Hey, you know what? I'm gonna watch them-
- But yeah, if you have any questions,
that's probably the best way to find the answer.
- Okay, great! Oh my gosh. - Thanks for having me!
- Oh my God, my pleasure! Go check out Kati's channel.
I hope you're having a great day,
and I will see you again soon, until next time.
Just remember, you can take the power back.
It is your life, you can have control.
I don't know. You can do this. - You got this!
- You got this! Absolutely.
Bye! (kisses) - Bye!