Peaches Geldof: Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof March 13, 1989-April 7, 2014

Peaches Geldof died the other day. Autopsy results are still pending, but given her family history, many, including myself, are guessing that it's related to drugs and/or eating disorder. She was just 25. Horrifyingly, next to her body was her 11-month old son. When PG's mother died, her half sister, a baby at the time, was also found next to their mother who had overdosed from heroin.

PG had gone off radar, at least for me, for a few years, during which she seemed to have grown up —she had gotten married and became a young mother two young boys. Before this she was primarily known for being an English party girl famous for her druggy antics and her father.

I couldn't help knowing who she was just as I know Paris, Lindsay and Brittney. I've given up being resentful about celebrity culture and accepted that this is the pop culture we deserve; we celebrate the famous for just being famous.

In PG's case she was the daughter of Sir. Geldof. For anyone who came of age in the 80's, his name is difficult not to remember. Her mother, Paula Yates, died from a heroin overdose three years after the "suicide" of Michael Hutchence, the INXS singer, another difficult name to ignore from the same era. And as mentioned earlier, Yates' body was found in bed with her youngest daughter.

I am not interested in focusing on celebrities, but these occasional tragedies provide access points to discuss finer points about the nature of addiction and different forms it can take. Her mother was also diagnosed with an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia, or dependence on stimulants to lower appetite or misuse of laxatives?), so the issue of "heritability" of addiction can be discussed, not just addiction to alcohol and drugs, but behavioral addictions. And is there a positive correlation between early trauma and addiction later on? (My answer? Duh.) Here is an ominous last interview she gave to The Independent, an English newspaper.

In my work, mostly I deal with addictions to drugs and alcohol. But over the years, I've encountered a few clients with eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Always, these food-related, self-image centered issues were just one part of a larger cluster of addictive behaviors to drugs, alcohol, sex and self-defeating relationships (both romantic and social), in addition to poor self-esteem and a history of early loss of a parent, divorce, parental neglect, emotional abuse, and sometimes sexual abuse. Working with these clients (I am not an expert in eating disorders, btw) it felt as if one's body was the easiest, most readily controllable target onto which to transfer unprocessed negative feelings and memories, all of which take time and lots difficult work. Rather than looking inward to dig at the source of pain, eating disorders and BDD forces the body, and ultimately the self, to take all the blame.

History of substance addiction in the Geldof clan is well known, and the experience of losing one's mother at a young age to addiction without the privacy that is afforded to ordinary people, would have made any young woman susceptible and fragile to becoming self-conscious.

Ultimately, I feel PG's addiction to drugs and alcohol was replaced with pathological obsession/addiction to her weight and appearance, and partly at fault is the celebrity industrial complex, whatever that is exactly.

My heart goes out to the two young children who've just lost their mother, as well as rest of Peaches' family and friends.

Rethinking How and Why You Drink

I’ve tried to define risky or heavy drinking in a prior post. Naturally, a post on why one may want to consider cutting back or drink moderately follows.

First, I’d like to distinguish alcoholism from alcohol abuse,
i.e. risky/heavy drinking, by making the distinction between physical dependence on alcohol from psychological dependence.

I am primarily concerned with psychological dependence and its relationship to emotional health. 

The following are the most common reasons/beliefs why people say they drink:

1. Alcohol makes me feel less shy and more social
2. Drinking alcohol makes socializing more fun
3. I am more interesting and fun to be with when I am drinking
4. I am more myself when I am drinking
5. Alcohol relaxes me
6. Alcohol unwinds me from stresses of life
7. Drinking makes me forget my troubles
8. I am more creative when I am drinking

These reasons, for the most part, are valid and supported by the fact that alcohol has been around just as long as we have. There is no denying that ethyl alcohol, the active chemical compound in alcohol, does relax the brain and body, initially.

One possible explanation for how drinking becomes problematic maybe because of habits. Once we hold an idea of ourselves to be true – I am more social and friendly after a couple of beers or alcohol helps me to relax – the repetition of the behavior, or the habit, reinforces the belief which first initiated the behavior. We begin to believe that drinking alcohol is the ONLY way we can be relaxed, be more social and have fun in a social setting. In a sense, we become trapped by the beliefs we have about ourselves. We become the person who we believe we are.

But we can’t be sure this is true, even though it may have been true in high school or college when we first started drinking. But, we can discover new parts of ourselves by doing the same things differently or trying new things.

By questioning established beliefs or behaviors and trying new ideas, we learn new aspects of our personalities, expanding our idea of who we are. As our self-image or self-concept expands, so does our self-esteem, which makes incorporating new ways of thinking and behaving easier.

Practical application of this theory to problem drinking would be to see how it feels to go out and not drink or limit how much you drink so that you don’t go beyond the threshold where alcohol influences your ability to make decisions. 

I recommend to my clients who have identified heavy drinking as a problem to abstain from alcohol for 30 days. During these 30 days, they are encouraged to think deeply about their relationship to alcohol and decide how they might go about changing it. They may decide to stop drinking all together or try to moderate their drinking.

This period of self reflection is not an easy one. Many people will give up, because it would mean dealing with their anxiety and depression. It is demanding work, and change does not take place over night.

To be continued...