Pica

(Warning: this one's probably a little gross.)

Here's one of the aforementioned pre-typed posts. I've got a lot of others that are half-finished, all about EDs and ProAna and related stuff, but I've been doing research for them. (Who researches for their blog? This one.) I'll post them randomly as I go along. (The next one will be about why I post gross things like the following, ha ha.)

While doing some research on celiac's disease, I saw a mention of Pica (here). Apparently it can be a sign of gluten intollerance in children, and so once again I think back on the strange eating habits in my past.

Pica is a disorder which causes the person to have an appetite for things that aren't food, or edible things that are somewhat abnormal like raw rice or pure salt. It is generally attributed to a biochemical deficiency, for example iron. (And I can assume it has some connection to compultive behavior, too.) Basically, your body knows it needs more iron, so it just starts grabbing.

The only thing I still do is bite my nails and cuticles, but when I was younger I used to do a lot more. Most of the behaviors were "beaten" out of me (by myself), since they're obviously not socially acceptable, and caused me great embarassment even when nobody was watching. There is nothing I hate more than being embarassed.

Besides nails, scabs and dry flakes of skin found their way to my mouth. When I was very young and still flexible enough, I'd try to chew on my toenails as well.

After fingernails, the most noticable issue was hair. I wouldn't eat it on purpose, per se, but I spent a lot of time chewing on the ends of tendrils.(There's a name for this, interestingly: Trichophagia.) My step-father frequently taunted me for it. It seems to have worn off, perhaps because I got out of the habit after cutting my hair very short. Once it was long again, I reverted to repeatedly smelling strands or poking my cheek with the ends, which is still weird but at least a little more subtle. (Preceptive readers will notice my verbal eye-roll there.)

But the weirdest one? Pebbles. Tiny, itty-bitty pebbles picked out of the sand at summer cam, or pryed out of the cracks of my sneakers. I remember them as round and grey, and I'd roll them around in my mouth before spitting them out, or swollowing if they were very very microscopic. I'd totally forgotten about that. I'm sort of surprised I didn't get in trouble. Once again, my propensity for Not Getting Caught rears its head.

The general gist is that all these things seem to indicate a lack of calcium, salt, fatty acids, or iron, which my body instinctively craved. Due to my ADD-induced inability to hault my compulsive behaviors, I couldn't stop my body as it tried to go for the nearest available source. Perhaps I was deficient due to the undiagnosed Celiacs. Perhaps it was because of my picky diet. Who knows.

The important thing to recognize is: It's all connected.

I've heard of other people with eating disorders that also had pica, but I've never heard about anything specific. (I can assume that's because it's so embarassing.) Sources say pica is a separate eating disorder than the others, though it might be connected to malnutrition that comes from another ED.

For me, I think it doesn't have to do with my other ED issues. Perhaps it's the celiac's, or maybe just the ADD. Or maybe something else.

While looking for information about the pica/ADD connection, I came across one concerned parent complaining that his child was sneaking sips from empty soda cans. This rang a bell for me - my younger brother, who also is ADD diagnosed, used to do this!

By the way, nail biting is apparently very common in people with eating disorders. Though some believe it's a sign of dealing with stress, others believe it's a reaction to either understimulation or overstimulation of the mind, which seems accurate in my case. It's associated with the recently named group of Body-Focused-Repetitive-Disorders, which includes anorexia and bulimia, as well as OCD, body dysmorphic disorder, and other related things. They believe now (finally) that these disorders mostly have root in genetics.

In other words, everything I do is because of the weird way my brain is wired. There's no one place to pin-point it.