Eat to Live IV - support thread for eating disorders

[Azalea]

I'll have to agree with Cissy & Anna here. I know you were just joking around, black humour directed at yourselves and such...but yah...:sweat: I was like that once, and I am not anymore...Sometimes I wish I was like that again, even though I know I'm healthier now...and even though I won the game and came out a better me, I sometimes think of what I have lost. Which, basically, is thinness. Which in itself is useless and harmful, yes, but it's hard to let go.

If that makes any sense :stinkeye:

So, anyway. I haven't posted in a while. I might as well introduce myself for the sake of this thread's newness.

I am 21 and developed an ED in 1999. I opted for recovery March 23 2003.
I classify my ED as ED-NOS but was diagnosed with anorexia. What prompted me to choose recovery was, beside the inherent misery of living with an ED, increasing physical problems. Heart issues and such. And I was tired, sad, terrified and sick of it all. Well, that...and the fact that my parents benevolently forced me to go see a dr. Thankfully, even though I did my indignant protest act back then, not wanting to let go of the ED, this wonderful old friend of mine.
Before that, I hadn't spoken to anybody at all about it, not even online, save for a few un-dramatic comments in e-mails to a Friend.

Exactly what prompted my ED is hard to say. As usual, there are more than one reason why. I went into a depression of sorts (only in retrospect did I classify it as such) when I was 16, battling about problems about what to do with my life and the complexity and meaninglessness of it all and what have you, the usual troubled teen clichés, if you like. I also had other issues that I prefer not to go into here. Then there was fact that I would be moving away the next year to Spain with my family. Against my will. I would be missing out on the last year of school after have to come back and go through my graduating year with a group of strangers. I was an outsider, even in my old class, but an accepted one. I was different, but still part of the group. I felt at home.

I decided I could get some much yearned for focus in my life, some hope for the future, if I made a plan to lose weight. I drew up charts and learned the language of calories

Now unlike many with EDs, I was fortunate enough to have a safe, happy childhood. My mother did have her bouts of nervous breakdowns when she'd threaten to kill herself...but most of the time I was happy.

I am now at the university (University of Bergen, Norway), where I study for a Bachelor's degree in Language. I still live at home with my parents and my 19 year old sister. I eat well, but lately I've been prone to overeat and binge, which doesn't exactly make me sparkle with self-love. I've learned that what makes me gain the most easily is to restrict, ironically enough. Because I lower my metabolism, and then go back to eating more again...and well, you do the math. Kaboom. Suddenly my weight's up another few kilos. Not terribly thrilling. It's a cycle that I tend to get caught up in. I restrict because I've gained, I gain because I restrict. But for the last few months, at least, I have avoided to restrict. I've found that keeping my distance to the scales is what works the best. It's a mild kind of self-delusion, but what the heck...it's what ends up keeping me from messing up my eating.

When I was restricting I though, towards the last miserable months of my ED, that when I finally (because, secretly I wanted it more than anything) recovered everything would fall into place and I'd at last figure out how to deal with life and manage to create a future for myself. Evidently, it wasn't that simple. I eat almost normally now, but I still feel much the same. Sometimes even more...because there's not hunger to distract me and fill up my mind. At 21 I'm still afraid of growing up and moving on and out. But whatever's going on in my mind, my life is still overwhelmingly better than it was in my ED days and years. By far. One obstacle to happiness, the biggest one, has been eliminated, at least. And I'll figure it all out eventually, I think.

Well...anyway. Another mammoth post from me. Ah well...newbies will have to get used to the fact that I too easily fall into an overly verbose track when I post. Oldies are warily aware of that particular fact already, I'm afraid. Sorry about that :p

Take care, everybody!

And also- I want say thank you to that sweetheart Revelsunshine for popping in, as she has done before, to spread a little sunshine. :smitten:

[kristadb]

If you ever make a short post, I will disregard it, as aliens took over your body.

[Formerbaboon]

That's what I was thinking.

Okay, guys, I hate to sound like an ass, but that's extremely triggering for me, and I'm sure it is for others as well.

Sorry, didn't mean to trigger anybody :-/

[kristadb]

Formerbaboon, tell us about your bathing suit. How does it make you feel? How do you move past any negative feelings you get? What things have you done today to help yourself feel good about who you are?

[mer-girl]

mayu- my aunt on my dad's side is anorexic too! wierd. we're twins! well, sort of...not really. no, I guess not. :think:

[Formerbaboon]

Same here! Aunt on dads side.

[Formerbaboon]

Formerbaboon, tell us about your bathing suit. How does it make you feel? How do you move past any negative feelings you get? What things have you done today to help yourself feel good about who you are?

My bathing suit is yellow, and its held together in the middle with a silver hoop. It makes me feel hot, but at the same time I feel totally self conscious. Really self conscious. I avoid swimming in the daytime acutally, I try and sneak in at night. Isn't that pathetic? Sometimes I feel most self conscious around my family, because I always have this fear of my family noticing that I am gaining wiehgt, even though I am losing. I know they are looking at me. I am so paranoid. I haven't done anything today to make myself feel good, because I don't feel good about myself. I really want to though.

[meatless]

Look at that hot son of yours! You should feel good about yourself for raising such a hot son.

[Azalea]

If you ever make a short post, I will disregard it, as aliens took over your body.

:D

[Formerbaboon]

Look at that hot son of yours! You should feel good about yourself for raising such a hot son.

I am proud of myself for raising that sexy little thang..

[kristadb]

FB - you need to eat more so that you stop losing weight. Are you eating 3 meals and snacks yet?

as for making yourself feel good, you won't feel good if you abuse yourself. Eat, read, laugh, do something nice for someone. True, they may not make you feel good while you are doing them at times, but the knowledge that you are making yourself better will.

What sorts of things are you doing to recover from your eating disorder?

[Formerbaboon]

Well, I shouldn't post my caloric intake or anything like that, but feel free to pm me and ask. I eat 3 meals and most of the time, two snacks. I was in the hospital for a week about a month and a half ago for anorexia, bulimia, and self mutilation. I think actually eating is a start for me. I am in therapy too, and they put me on prozac as well. I garden. That sounds really wierd, but when I got out of the hospital, I started this really pretty garden. I love my son, Elvis, too. He's a cat, just to clear things up. I love him so much. Every time I try and type something meaningful, it feels like I am talking in circles. Anyways, I am really trying to break the habit of always feeling the need to justify what little I eat. Like if somebody asks me what I ate, I'll be like "Soup and toast, but I only ate a half cup, and one slice of bread". Does anybody have that same problem as me? I really need to find something positive to do. I have to start summerschool monday, which sucks apples because I am so shy. GRR!

[Cissy]

FB - I thought I was supposed to be in the hospital (Psych Ward) only a week... then only two weeks. I was there for three. But anyway, I know what you said you eat from other threads, and it's no wonder you're losing. Now that you've started eating, you metabolism is going up, after basically stopping due to the EDs. One of my counselors (recovered from AN and BN) put it like this - your metabolism is like a fire. Now that you're putting more fuel in the fire, it's going to burn a lot higher. Also, there were studies on Holocaust victims after WWII. Some of them started gaining weight on normalish levels of food, but some people needed to eat twice a normal amount of cals to gain. Me? I ate twice what you ate to gain. Do you have a nutritionist or counselor? That might help.

I'm feeling okay about myself lately. I finally have a butt, so I feel like I have a waist, which is a good thing :yes: It's still hard to take the size I have to take now, but I'm growing to accept it, I guess. I found a bathing suit I might order that I think would flatter my body. It's a two piece tankini. Pretty covering, but still cute. I even have a dress right now that makes me feel great, especially when wearing heels and my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.

<<<wow, me being positive for once :p

[Formerbaboon]

You're so beautiful cissy. I don't think that anything wouldn't flatter you, and i'm not just sugarcoating things. Guess what I am doing right now? I am searching for a beading needle, because I am going to bead a shirt (it exposes my navel :p) I think it will look great with shiny beads :)

[kristadb]

FB - it isn't about calories, it's about eating. It's good that you are eating meals, work on eating larger amounts or more snacks, so that you will gain some weight (which you do realize you need to). gardening is a good idea.

Cissy, you're positive more then you realize.

[NDvegan85]

Intro huh? I've never really done one in the other threads, but here goes...

I've had trouble with food for as long as I can remember. Even when I was younger, I was always going back for more even if I wasn't all that hungry. I didn't eat very healthy eitherI was at a "normal" weight despite my overeating though. High school was the first time that I really started obsessing about my weight. Freshman year I was really lean and was always sick from working out too much, but I was just overly involved in sports, not an ED over exercising. Then I started diving and stopped running and swimming, but my eating habits didn't change. I was also growing, and I gained a bit of weight. I started hating my body with a passion. I would always try to diet- which meant stop eating, but I would end up eating and that meant failing.

Then in summer after my junior year, I started dieting sensibly and eating more healthfully. I started losing weight, and people noticed and it felt better than anything. It just sort of progressed to less and less food from there. I also used the starving to distract myself from the news that my dad was getting laid off, my doctor thought that my brother might have heart disease, and my mom and I fought every single day. Somewhere along the line, I started throwing up too. I went from anorexia to bulimia several times or both.

Then I chose to recover after a big health scare. I still struggled with restricting and occasional bulimic behavior, but they have subsided for the most part. I would say that now my body is about 90% recovered, but I still have a lot of mental work to do, especially with accepting my body and dealing with feelings. I also have struggled with depression for the last 7 years and am figuring out how to manage that.

Well, I'm sure that's more than anyone cared to know. I've learned that recovery is a long, winding road with lots of detours and potholes, but I am confident that in the end, when I am better, that it will all be worth it.

[meatless]

Well, I shouldn't post my caloric intake or anything like that, but feel free to pm me and ask. I eat 3 meals and most of the time, two snacks. I was in the hospital for a week about a month and a half ago for anorexia, bulimia, and self mutilation. I think actually eating is a start for me. I am in therapy too, and they put me on prozac as well. I garden. That sounds really wierd, but when I got out of the hospital, I started this really pretty garden. I love my son, Elvis, too. He's a cat, just to clear things up. I love him so much. Every time I try and type something meaningful, it feels like I am talking in circles. Anyways, I am really trying to break the habit of always feeling the need to justify what little I eat. Like if somebody asks me what I ate, I'll be like "Soup and toast, but I only ate a half cup, and one slice of bread". Does anybody have that same problem as me? I really need to find something positive to do. I have to start summerschool monday, which sucks apples because I am so shy. GRR!

I know you're trying sweetie. Don't be afraid to eat up. I'm eating piggish amounts of food these days and not getting any fatter, so it's ok! You can eat a lot more than you are now and you'll still be slim and beautiful; in fact you'll be even MORE beautiful because you will have the radiant glow of someone who is taking care of themselves. :)

and FB is right-- Cissy is a fox!

NDvegan- I've been dealing with depression for seven or eight years as well. Even though I'm mostly "ok" I still feel like I am teetering on a bit of an edge. I don't know if it ever really goes away completely; it's all in how you deal with it.

[Peter Parker]

http://www.mirror-mirror.org/athlete.htm

**EDITED to remove lbs for respect to all.**


Eating disorders continue to be on the rise among athletes, especially those involved in sports that place great emphasis on the athlete to be thin. Sports such as gymnastics, figure skating, dancing and synchronized swimming have a higher percentage of athletes with eating disorders, than sports such as basketball, skiing and volleyball. According to a 1992 American College of Sports Medicine study, eating disorders affected 62 percent of females in sports like figure skating and gymnastics. Famous gymnasts Kathy Johnson, Nadia Comaneci and Cathy Rigby have come forward and admitted to fighting eating disorders. Cathy Rigby, a 1972 Olympian, battled anorexia and bulimia for 12 years. She went into cardiac arrest on two occasions as a result of it.

Many female athletes fall victim to eating disorders in a desperate attempt to be thin in order to please coaches and judges. Many coaches are guilty of pressuring these athletes to be thin by criticizing them or making reference to their weight. Those comments could cause an athlete to resort to dangerous methods of weight control and can do serious emotional damage to the athlete.

In sports where the athletes are judged by technical and artistic merit, they are under enormous pressure to be thin, because many of the judges consider thinness to be an important factor when deciding the artistic score. In 1988, at a meet in Budapest, a US judge told Christy Henrich, one of the world's top gymnasts, that she was too fat and needed to lose weight if she hoped to make the Olympic squad. Christy resorted to anorexia and bulimia as a way to control her weight, and her eating disorders eventually took her life. At one point her weight had plummeted as low as XXX lbs. On July 26, 1994, at the age of 22, Christy Henrich died of multiple organ failure.

Athletes with eating disorders can be at a higher risk for medical complications such as electrolyte imbalances and cardiac arrhythmias. They are already engaging in strenuous physical activity and putting a lot of pressure on the body. Having an eating disorder puts them at great risk for sudden death from cardiac arrest. It is usually difficult to convince athletes that they are in need of help because they usually believe that they will become a better athlete, and perform better, if they lose more weight. Gymnastics is one sport where the size of the gymnast has changed drastically over the years. In 1976 the average gymnast was X'X weighing XXX lbs, and in 1992 the average gymnast was X'X weighing XXX lbs.

Im the opposite. by bmi I am morbidly obese. I feel terrible. but I love myself. sadly I research disorders to see how I can lose weight. :cry:

[April]

Ello Heveryone~

In my last monster post, I decribed my relationships in relation to my body image and eating behaviors, but those things certainly weren't the cause of my issues. I've always been kind of 'big', but not what is typically considered fat. From the time I realized I was tall in Kindergarten, I've been uncomfortable with my size. I went through puberty really young- I wore a training bra in 2nd grade. When I was in 5th grade, I grew rapidly from a tall child into a body almost exactly that of a full grown woman. I say almost simply because I'm curvier now in general- I didn't have ankles then, etc.

***I have always had a belly***

When I was a kid (and usually now, even), you couldn't really see it when I was dressed, but I remember repeatedly being told when I was in my underwear that I had better start watching my belly now, or I'd end up looking like my ugly Aunt XXX. I was probably about 7 years old the first time I'd heard that. I also remember when I was about 9 my mom and I were talking about my weight, (and probably my belly) and she said how she cried and cried when she was in high school and weighed XYZ lbs. And not in a "oh, it's so awful to hate yourself" kind of way, but an "oh, don't get to be that big or you'll hate yourself, or at least you should" kind of way. By the time I was 13 I weighed more than that specific number, and I only weighed lower than that for about a month since then, and it was last year when I was in my most restrictive stage. (I'm 24) I wasn't very conscious of the effect of those comments back then, and I really hadn't thought of it much until recently. When I was a young teen and beyond, my mom had gained a good deal of weight, and my dad really gave her a hard time about it. She hated her body and hated him for making her feel even worse about it. She told me if she ever lost a lot of weight, she hoped it would be after leaving him just to spite him. She did lose a lot of weight when they finally separated, but not to spite him.

I remember binging ever since we moved to our second house, when I was 9, and it has almost always been a very private activity.

Today has been a harder one for my body image, because I'm bloated and my belly is just very ominous to me like this. I was planning on having a chai latte for dinner, and although the battle is rough within myself right now, the sensible, self-preserving side tends to win nowadays. I had a plate of pierogies with some Earth Balance and sauteéd onions. :yes:

I really am working on accepting my body, but it's rough...I mean, I'll try to find clothes that flatter me, but my idea of flattering is sucking in my belly. For the most part I like how I look in my bathing suit (which i haven't worn yet!) because I look super curvy in it, but I can't get that "If only my belly...." message out of my head! Agh!

[Formerbaboon]

I had some friends over today, and they were pressuring me to eat all of these foods. I haven't seen these particular friends since I was hospitalized. I was really uncomfortable.

[Dirty Hippie]

It's so nice of everyone to share their stories. I just want to say to everyone here that reading your stuff helps me personally, and I'm sure others here can say the same.

I am so, so not well. I haven't allowed myself to feel this unwell in many, many years. My friends are now starting to see me not being my usual happy hippy self.

I ran 20 miles between Tuesday and Friday and now the "healed" stress fractures in my shins are starting to ache. One of my toenails is about to fall off.

I was in the car with the kids the other day just thinking, "maybe I should just take them and run. Just drive until we're so far away and no one can find us and we'll start all over." But I drove home, and spread sunshine like I always do. I giggled and smiled and was happy like I always am. And everyone expects that, so that's how I am.

[NDvegan85]

hippie- Allowing yourself to feel, even if the feelings are bad, is a good thing. Burying away feelings is not. You have every right to feel sad or angry or hurt, the same as everyone else does.

[kristadb]

I had some friends over today, and they were pressuring me to eat all of these foods. I haven't seen these particular friends since I was hospitalized. I was really uncomfortable.

You're supposed to eat. You won't get better until you stop being afraid of food. You won't stop being afraid of food until it starts going into your mouth and staying in you.

[annabanana]

If you just keep pushing your feelings down,eventually all those emotions are going to explode. Sounds like you had a near-explosion...maybe you should get away for a while, give yourself time to feel what you want to feel, think about things. Mind you, this doesn't have to be physically 'getting away' to some other geographical location, rather it could be a yoga class or something...or a long walk or bike ride alone.

Just because everyone expects you to always be happy doesn't mean you have to be...I always used to do that (less often now) and if I was quiet or not so uplifting all day, people would bug me about it, which is what I didn't need. Everyone has their ups and downs, and it's only fair that you should be able to express these things to someone!

[Dirty Hippie]

Thanks NDvegan and Anna. You are right. Like I said, I am always very bubbly and happy and giggly, but I know there's stuff bugging me.

When I went to OA they were talking about facing the things that are bothering you. You have to kind of fess up to stuff. I know what's bothering me, but I just can't face it. It's so huge and could be so disasterous. So I guess I'm sort of "acting" like everything's okay. I've been doing it for years. I just don't know any other way.

On the bright side, today was a beautiful day!! The kids were out picking up walnuts. As I watch them playing outside I just keep thinking that I have to hold everything together for them. Those beautiful babies, I could never have them thinking that their Momma can't cope.

I hope everyone had lovely weather today as we did and that everyone took the time to do something fun with someone they care about.

Peace and Love,
Hipps