Raising awareness of OCO or Why doesnt anyone see the sick chubbies? Part 2

It wasnt until after I had beaten it that I realised I had an eating disorder. I had never heard of "reversed anorexia" also known as OCO (obsessive compulsive overeating) and didn't know what it was.
I found a very good description on wikipedia ( wouldn't you know!) from a 2008 medical article:
"People that struggle with binge eating are likely to have alcohol problems and engage in impulsive behavior, such as not thinking before acting out. They do not feel that they can control themselves, are typically not close with their community, and have difficulty discussing their problems and feelings. They also have more health problems, a hard time sleeping at night, joint pain, muscle pains, menstrual problems, and headaches. Affected people often have suicidal thoughts, struggle digesting their food, and are stressed. People that have a binge eating disorder are usually ashamed and become very good at hiding the fact that they have it. They become so good at hiding that most people around them, including close friends and family members, do not even know about their disorder."
Once upon a time that was me.

It took years to finally beat the eating disorder and have a healthy relationship to food, which I still don't to one hundred percent and probably never will. I have gone from chub to skinny(my wake up call was when I refused milk because it was "too fat") to work out addict to skinny and to normal. Nowadays I am still quite soft around the edges and just like any average 19-yearold girl - if something goes tits up I reach for the Ben&Jerry's tub, but who doesn't?

I went home to Sweden just before I started university, just a few weeks ago. By order of my loving mother I started to go through my desk drawers which had not been touched for years and definitely not emptied. I started with the bottom drawer and there underneath an old Friends VHS I found a wrapper from an After Eight mint. A 13 year old girl had left me a message. This:
OCO is an eating disorder and yes, it does exist. It is one of the most common mental disorders in the world, fighting with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) for the top spot. During my years on school no one ever talked about it (I eventually I stumbled upon it myself) or knew what it was. I was taught how to see the signs of bulimia in a friend and what anorexia does to the body but no one ever talked about "that other kind". We were told to open our eyes and discover bulimia, see anorexia.
But tell me, who sees the sick chubbies?

No, not every fat kid is sick, just like not every really skinny one has anorexia. BUT...
Please keep tuned, this is not the end of the story.
Raise Awareness of OCO.

Raising awareness of OCO or Why doesnt anyone see the sick chubbies? Part 1

I had a very long discussion with a friend about eating disorders. We are all familiar with anorexia, most people today know someone who has had it. At every school there is at least one girl or boy who sits in a corner hiding a skeletal body underneath layers of clothes. Sitting at the table with an empty plate watching others munch away, obsessed with food but never eating. There is no doubt that this person is sick. Then what about the one next to the skinny minnie? The slightly fat girl who has got her bag full of sweets and always, always has something sugar covered in her locker, would you call her sick?

I used to be that girl.
I have lived with an eating disorder.
The other kind.

Just like an anorexic I lied to my parents about what I ate. It was just the other way around. I bought armfuls of chocolate and bags of pick-and-mix and hid them in my room so that my parents wouldn't know. I had huge portions of noodles as an afternoon snack and I was a regular at the school cafeteria.
Sounds like the average sad tragic fat girl?
I couldn't stop. I cried and ate and ate and cried. I hated myself and my body and to make it all better I ate a bit more. I was spiralling down towards a depression wanting to punish myself even worse. A few guessed something wasn't completely right, but no one knew how to handle it. When my parents told me to stop eating I ate more and by the end of 2004 I started to show signs of what I realised later was bulimia. I was sick.

Photo: The Sun

A sad story of Holocaust treachery

This is little bit off from what normally goes on Scandilous, i know, but sometimes you just have to.
During some research about the torture and murders of journalists during the Holocaust (sadly purely for my own geeky benefit) I came across an article from the David S Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
In this it is revealed (sadly there is no publishing date so I do not know how recent this information is) that American journalism schools and newspapers refused to help Jewish journalists fleeing the terror of the Holocaust. A lot of other universities and university departments aided Jewish refugees but when it came to journalists there were arguments singing the same old Nazi song. 'The Jews will become a threat if we let them come here, they will take over all of our jobs bla, bla, blaha. '.
Not a single one of the circa 40 journalism schools and uni departments in the US took in a Jew. None of the major newspapers hired journalists on the run.

Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, once said that "there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.". I think that goes for journalists as well.

Leaving

Last night's leaving do in Spitalfields B@1 seemed to have been highly successful for everyone involved. My team were the first to leave and I think we tumbled out of there around five in the morning. As we got on the bus back to Clapham J, people were going to work. Messy was just the forename.

After a few hours of not even attempting to get out of bed, a pizza breakfast/lunch/dinner, Harry Potter at the IMAX and a late night kebab I have now packed all my life together. A couple of IKEA bags, two suitcases and a guitar case. My room is a bit emptier and a little bit tidier than usual. Im gonna miss my room so today, apart from being a day of recovery, has a touch of sadness to it. Im probably gonna miss my room even more when I move in to the cupboard sized room down in Kent.