I feel like when most people talk about their story with an eating disorder, it all starts the same: I was a happy kid without a care in the world, food was never an issue for me.
I wish I could say the same. Food, and consequently my weight, has always been an issue for me. I grew up in a beautiful upper middle class neighborhood with two incredibly loving parents and an older sister. I didn’t have a care in the world in the sense that I never had a need for anything. I was well taken care of, In was loved. I was always chubby. I love food. Sometimes I hate food, but mostly, I love it.
This might be triggering to some people. If the topic of eating disorders triggers you, please stop reading.
My mom is a petite woman, around 5‘4 and currently around 90lbs. I don’t recall her ever being much different of a size. Physically, my sister took after my mother. She too, is on the shorter side and very thin. My father, however, was a solid 6’, brow shoulders, overall just a big man. I took after him. I’m 5‘11, and my weight has been all over the place, but I’ve always been chubby, then it turned from chubby to over weight, and from over weight to obese when I was in my mid20s. My highest weight being 250lbs.
I first became legitimately aware of my size and how different I was in 5th grade. I was chubby. I had a belly and a double chin. I was happy. I got along with everyone. Then one day at lunch, I walked into a room and heard two people talking about how I was so fat that I looked pregnant. Looking back, i was chubby, but I wasn’t that big. I still remember their names. I’ll never forget how inadequate I felt. I carry that with me still today.
From that point on I wasn’t the same. I became incredibly insecure. I began to hate myself for how i looked. I hate myself for it every day, but the hate i had for myself I took out on my parents. When my dad laid in hospice dying two years ago, I apologized for being such a shitty daughter. It still haunts me to this day. I feel so much shame for how I acted. And it was all because I hated myself.
Back to the story.... I isolated myself. I know now that I am clinically depressed and have also been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Compounded by the amount of hate I had for myself, it was too much.
High school came around. The summer before I was so nervous. Back then it was so incredibly hard to find clothes in the size I was. A 12-14. I felt like something was just wrong with me. Why couldn’t I even find clothes?
When school started, every day I would wake up so early to do my hair and makeup and to plaster a smile on my face for the time I was at school, just to go home and shut off from my friends my family, everything. I tried to eat my feelings. I gained more weight. I hated myself.
I’m friendly by nature, and I am usually very good at convincing people I’m good and happy. I had friends. Everyone liked me. But no boys ever did. I was friendly with everyone, but never had any real close friends. I just knew it was because of my weight. So I made a change.
I started restricting my eating. Severely.
Throughout my junior and senior years, there would be weeks where I wouldn’t eat. I’d live on water and diet coke. That’s it. When you’re already big, most people think it’s a good thing for you to skip meals. I mean, how could someone my size actually have an eating disorder?
It started with just restricting what I ate. Strict calorie limits. Healthy food only. But the calorie limits dropped and dropped, until It was nonexistent.
The first time I went 10 days without eating, I remember being so disgusted with myself for eating a single hard boiled egg and rice cake, that I made myself throw up. I weighed less after vomiting than i did before i ate. And so began the next hurdle to overcome. Purging was now a part of my disordered eating.
I went through phases. Weeks to months of disordered eating, followed by more regular eating habits for a while. Neither would ever last long.
Purging became more common. I hadn’t lost a significant amount of weight, and my lies became so good. I had always been such a horrid liar. But this, this secret, I would do anything to keep.
I had so many tricks to conceal how bad it actually got. There’s a part of me that wants to tell, so maybe someone who hasn’t suffered from such a condition would understand, but I would be consumed with guilt if my post helped anyone else conceal their illness. Point being, the lengths a person with disordered eating will go to, to conceal it, are never ending.
The last 18 years i have spent fluctuating. Sinking into patterns of disordered eating, and pulling myself out. I knew how unhealthy it was. I knew I was destroying my metabolism, my heart, my stomach, the enamel on my teeth from the stomach acid, my esophagus. I knew. But at the depths of my disordered eating, all of that was worth it.
I’ve never sought treatment. I’ve never been diagnosed. But I know I have an eating disorder. I call it Ana. No, I am not anorexic. My BMI is far too high to be clinically anorexic.
Ana and I have a love hate relationship. She loves me, spending her time in my head how great she is, and how much better life is with her. I spend my time either hating her or loving her, depending on the day.
Today? Today I love Ana. She has recently crept back.
Through the years, what I have found brings Ana back, is when I feel like I lost control. Right now, for a myriad of reasons, I feel like I have no control in my life. Food has always been the way I handle my control issues. No one, except for myself, determines what I do and do not eat. What goes in my lips, and what potentially comes back out.
Today I am struggling.
I almost had a full meltdown today, because my scale is dead and couldn’t find the right battery for it.
I’m scared for what will happen as soon as I get the battery.
I obsessively weigh myself when I’m in this side of my cycle. Not having a scale is probably good for recovery, but bad for Ana. Sometimes, I can’t even tell the difference between Ana and me. Is it the eating disorder talking, or me?
Sometimes I want Ana to leave forever. So I can be normal. But I don’t know what normal is. Food is my coping mechanism. But sometimes I wish Ana would stay and never leave.
Right now I’m struggling with what I want (my disordered eating habits) and what I need (to be healthy).
Health though, that’s a whole other entry.
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