Monday, April 22, 2013

My take on anorexia


Eating disorders are more and more on the rise, and I think there are lots of factors that play a role in this.
Some see anorexia as a symptom of mercury toxicity, like Dr. Andrew Cutler, some see a connection between autism and anorexia. Sometimes it is also related to food intolerances or general gut problems. And of course, there are a whole lot of other reasons, like traumatic experiences or the media telling us you have to be thin to be beautiful.
Eating disorders are devastating. Not only does your body not get enough nutrients to fulfill all its tasks. It can damage your organs, and 1 out of 7 women with anorexia nervosa DIES (Eating Disorder Statistics).
We grow up in a world where it is "normal", not to like your own body. I am not a fan of the products, but the Dove Campaigns are really nice, to show us how wrong our self-image is.

Two weeks ago (April 2013) I took these pictures of me...

My old anorexic part of me screams: You are fat! And if you compare it to the modern picture of beauty which is told to us via the media, yes, I have few pounds too much.
BUT I weigh a normal weight, and the recovered part of my brain says: Hey, you are a 30 years old woman, you have curves, you are NOT overweight, your are NOT fat. You have a nice ass and you look sexy. YES, sexy!
I won't lie to you, it is not always easy to think this way, and it is impossible if you are starving your brain. That is the vicious cycle of eating disorders. The less you eat, the more your brain gets depressed and thinks you are ugly. Which leads to further restricting.
The only way out: EAT. THE. F***ING. FOOD.

If you restrict your calories, your metabolism will slow down, too, which in the end makes it even harder for you to lose weight, except if you eat even less food. If I would never had dieted in my life, I would not look the way I do today eating my current diet of around 2000 calories. I probably would be slimmer while eating even more calories. Because my metabolism would not be fucked up. Ever wondered about those slim people who can eat as much and what they want? Well, they never dieted, which keeps their metabolism up.

And by the way, the Venus of Milo has been described as the classical vision of beauty:

chest 86,4 cm
waist 78,7 cm
hips 103 cm
at a height of 165 cm
Those are almost my measurements! Okay, I have bigger boobs but that is totally fine with me ;) I have the perfect measures (and I did this only for this blog because I refuse to weigh and measure myself anymore!) of 100-80-100. Ha! 

So what has changed since then? Why is the classical vision of beauty suddenly not beautiful anymore?
I think there are so many reasons, and when it comes to eating disorders, there are even more reasons (see above).
Is it so that we can be better controlled when we starve ourselves to be thin? But then again, in many muslin countries (where you usually think women are more controlled - no offense to anybody!), the picture of a beautiful woman is mostly more rounded and fuller. 
Or do we western women want to appear like man so we can appear more emancipated and stronger and work in man's jobs?

Let me know what you think, why our picture of beauty has changed so much.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

THIN - documentary

A very good online documentary about eating disorders. Check.

Mercury - Brain development - Autism


A recent Japanese study (2012) shows that mercury can cause changes in the part of the brain called hippocampus which leads to elevated levekls of serotonine and dopamine

Many people believe that serotonine is one of the good guys and helps with depression. Which is actually not true. Elevated levels of serotonine can cause severe health issues with symptoms like sedation, helplessness or apathy (Ray Peat: Serotonine), but also restlessness and hallucinations.

The hippocampus is also responsable for the short-term-memory, and a disturbed hippocampus balance can cause attention deficiency or alzheimers. Mercury causes cell death in the hippocampus.
Autopsies have shown higher mercury levels in the brains of ad persons (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed)

And yes, there studies showing the possible relation between mercury in vaccinations and neurodevelopmental disorders (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12773696).

Research shows that autists often have an enlaregened amygdala and also hippocampus which could be because of heightened activity in these areas, or mercury accumulations (mercury is lipophil which means it binds to fat. There is a lot of fat in your brain, especially in the glands like the amygdala. So this is where the mercury preferably binds to). 
The problem is, and that is probably why there is so little evidence so far that mercury can cause autism - how to test it? 
Autistic children often have much lower levels of mercury in their hair or urine than other kids. That is not because they have less mercury in their system, in contrary they just cannot detox it very good, and the mercury is bound mostly to the fatty tissues like the brain. The only way to prove that is to cut open the brains of autistic children - see the problem here?

Autism is a syndrome characterized by impairments in social relatedness, language and communication, a need for routine and sameness, abnormal movements, and sensory dysfunction. Mercury (Hg) is a toxic metal that can exist as a pure element or in a variety of inorganic and organic forms and can cause immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits defining or associated with autism. Thimerosal, a preservative frequently added to childhood vaccines, has become a major source of Hg in human infants and toddlers
http://legacy.autism.com/triggers/vaccine/mercurylong.htm

Most of this information comes from
http://nyinjeksjon.wordpress.com

Asperger Syndrom, Mercury toxicity - an intro

I'm not shy. I'm just totally not interested in other people :)

About Asperger Syndrome and my view.
I am not diagnosed but give me any self-test on the internet on autism and you can bet I get high points. I must say though I tried to get a diagnoe once at a psychologist.

I cannot remember the whole test but he was asking me some general intelligence questions, like how big is the distance between Paris and Berlin. It was just a few questions and in the end he told me that I had an average IQ. Aha.
Then I had to do a test for concentration where there are lines and lines of d's and some of them have one stripes, two stripes or none. And some were actually no d's but b's. Something like that. I had to mark all the d's with two stripes in a certain amount of time. And in the end he said I was much better than the average, faster and no mistakes at all.
Then there was another test on the computer. But I cannot really remember what it was. I had to press a button and make fast decisions about something.
That is all I can remember. In the end he told me it is probably unlikely for me to have Asperger Syndrome. That I can keep good eye contact for example. Well, of course, I was around 25 at that time and of course I had learned that you should keep eye contact. In fact I even did my best keeping eye contact with him because I didn't want to appear as if I fake. Strange, hum? Why should anybody go to a psychologist and ask for a test for aspergers?? If not for reassurance.

Anyway, so I walked away from the building and I was disappointed. I was disappointed that he didn't accept me in the asperger spectrum. So if I am not an asperger, does that mean I am just having HUGE social problems? Where do you draw the line?
After that I didn't try for another test or diagnose. I just thought, okay, I am how I am, and that happens to be quite similar to Asperger persons. I don't need a label. But I must say it would have helped.*

So if diagnosed Aspergers are feeling offended by me writing in this blog about asperger and seeing myself as an asperger, well, then that's the way it is. But why would I spend so much time with this topic otherwise? Why do I have so many symptoms and feel so close to asperger persons?
Some asperger persons I met along the way online, are sometimes really hostile. Or at least they appear to be. I can understand. Most of them (us) have been misunderstood, or even bullied their whole life for being so different. Now they want to defend themselves.

Ok. Understood.

So what is the purpose of this blog post?

As you might have read or guessed already, I am one of the persons who thinks that autism is caused by neurotoxins like heavy metals, and can be therefore treated and improved if not healed.
I do understand, that so far there is no real evidence about what causes autism. There are studies denying that mercury causes autism. There are studies about autism being genetic, or being caused by hormones like too much testosterone.
To be honest, I didn't read much studies about it. I didn't research it a lot, because otherwise I would sit behind the computer even more than I do already now. I could not stop. It is not that I am not interested. I am VERY f**ing interested but I just feel that my time is too precious to waste it.
I did a lot of reading back when I was not feeling okay, like 6 years ago. I was depressed and I had much more signs of asperger than I do have now (or they were just more prominent). I needed to do the reading and studying to find a way out.
Now that I have found a way out (obviously, because I am no longer depressed and lots of my asperger symptoms have reduced) I want to enjoy life. Which doesn't mean party and social life, no, in that way I am still very asperger-like. But I go outside, enjoy nature, I do what other people are doing.

But of course, that should not stop me from informing myself more, and this blog is supposed to be about that. Little by little, I want to study some more and put together the little pieces of knowledge. But I don't stress myself about it anymore like I would have done in the past. In the past I would have been overwhelmed by all the information and I could never see the whole picture. I would get lost in details that I read.
Now I know I have all the time in the world and it is okay if I never get the whole picture, and I can just try my best step by step. NO stress.

But I want to do this, pulling all the information out there together at one spot, because I want to understand more, and I hope to find more information about my theory, that autism is caused by mercury.
My theory is based on doctors and scientists who believe this too and treat autistic children with chelation. It is based on stories from parents whose children recovered from autism based on detoxing and giving supplements. It is also based on my own improvements.

I don't claim to know the truth, but I also know that a lot of the things out there which are told to us, are not truth. My opinion is also, that autism is not a god-given present. I don't believe it is "normal" not to have the ability to communicate with others easily and living in your own world etc. I do see that autism brings some advantages like sometimes higher intelligence or extraordinary talents.
I don't know. Some say that autists would not suffer if the environment and society would be different.  Those are the factors which make autism an illness. Maybe. Maybe not.

And many asperger persons say they don't want to be neurotypical. Of course they say so, because being neurotypical would mean enjoying things that they as autists don't like. It is a little like you cannot miss sex if you don't have a libido. And if you don't know about the joy of sex then why should you be bothered?

But before this gets too long, I want to stop, and start with real studying, ha ha. After all this blog is not only about asperger or autism, it will (hopefully) be a collection about a lot of health topics, though with an emphasis on mercury toxicity because I think it is STILL an underestimated health issue of millions of people.

Thanks for reading.

*Edit: You might ask why my parents didn't notice anything when I was a child. Well, I was very different from other children, and lately I heard some things from my grandparents like "you always used to talk like a little professor" etc. But the thing is, my family had (and has) no clue about autism or asperger - or anything at all. My father was hardly at home, and I would diagnose my mother as an asperger herself, living in her own world. She did notice that I was very sad often, and I remember that she once even brought my to a school psychologist (She had telephone calls with some of my teachers. I even recall her saying on the phone to one of my teachers that she is afraid I could kill myself). So, yeah I have been to a school psychologist, but that lady just asked me if I felt like I needed help, and of course I sad, no. Then she cannot help me, she said. So that was it.
My mother was depressed herself, didn't go out. My parents had almost no friends (they were not even friends with each other anymore). So how could they notice that was becoming the same?
I feel a little strangely jealous for asperger people whose parents have noticed and got a diagnose for their children.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Going outdoors with aspergers

I just haaaad to share this with you as one of my first blog posts. This girl is hilarious!
Not only is she telling about her aspergers. For example in this episode she could be talking about me, I am exactly the same. But at the same time she is sooo crackin funny!
Check out DeadRodentGirl on Youtube!

Going outdoors, not wanting to have conversations with other people, not wanting to eat somewhere alone, or to go shopping alone....yesss I know what you mean girl.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

This blog

This a is a blog about my health story and my recovery from amalgam/mercury toxicity, asperger syndrome signs, and anorexia.
This is also a blog about finding happiness in life after years of depression, worries and fears.

Health and Happinezz