Eating Disorders and life with one - Discussions, Opinions, Advice.

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Looking good Toto, well done! :biggrin:

_________

Conversation earlier-
Dad: Come and watch TV with us.
Me: No, I need to revise.
Dad: All you do is revise, why don't you just stop eating as well!
Me: ..... :facepalm:

Reply 3381

Anonymous #48

Original post by TotoMimo

You asked for it! Chubby cheeked, tummytastic tommy pix hearz!

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l583/totomimotommy/temporary-2390.jpg

As you can see, my arms etc are still skinny winny but my face and torso and smushywushy. But as i keep being told, this will all change with time!

Hot diggity damn. Fantastic work, onwards and upwards :biggrin:

Reply 3382

.snowflake.

Original post by Etoile

Looking good Toto, well done! :biggrin:

_________

Conversation earlier-
Dad: Come and watch TV with us.
Me: No, I need to revise.
Dad: All you do is revise, why don't you just stop eating as well!
Me: ..... :facepalm:

I can't even...

Reply 3383

jazzykinks

Original post by Etoile

Conversation earlier-
Dad: Come and watch TV with us.
Me: No, I need to revise.
Dad: All you do is revise, why don't you just stop eating as well!
Me: ..... :facepalm:

Your dad is an inconsiderate idiot. Sorry, but that's ridiculous. Sounds a lot like my dad when I had an ED. Best thing to do is just ignore them. I know it's hard because he's your dad, but at the end of the day he doesn't have your best interests at heart. x

Reply 3384

Anonymous #39

Original post by TotoMimo

You're looking great, well done :smile:

Reply 3385

Anonymous #102

Just thought I'd share my experience. Basically, I used to be overweight, so I started seriously restricting my calories. I got to a normal weight, but of course I'm sure you know of binges that follow starvation. I wanted to get thinner and thinner, but I was stuck in a cycle of starve-binge-repeat. A couple of times I would 'start eating' again, but they would turn into week long binges, and I wouldn't cope so I'd go back to starving. It got worse and worse, then I started making myself sick after binges. I never got underweight, but I was at a pretty bad place. I was going like two weeks without eating solids, and I had to remind myself to breathe a couple of times when walking up the stairs. Then, one morning, (I know this sounds really cheesy) I sort of realised that I didn't want to do it any more. I'm still finding it really hard, and I can't trust myself with food. Like, I'll buy some cereal bars to have for a snack at break time, but end up eating the whole box. No-one knows about my habits, and I don't want them to. I'm still quite strict with food, and mostly eat child size portions. I still want to be thinner and thinner and still feel my body in the same way (like check thighs, sideways in the mirror, blah blah). I've stopped weighing myself (mostly). My school isn't helpful. It's all girls, and a lot of them are thin and eating disordered/self harmers (which I struggle with as well). I feel normal now, but I don't go a day without thinking about what I COULD have looked like right now. At first it was REALLY hard. I couldn't bring myself to leave the house because I thought I looked so fat. I'm losing weight again, but half healthily. But at the same time I don't want to be healthy. My face is so puffy, and I had to go up a dress size, but it's sort of getting easier. I'm so confused.
Wow, I don't even care if someone reads this or not, but that felt so good.

Reply 3386

Anonymous #48

Subway makes the pain go away, right? :cry:

Reply 3387

Riku

Original post by Anonymous

Subway makes the pain go away, right? :cry:

Sadly, food doesn't in itself make pain go away. But nor does it need to tear open wounds.
You are so much more powerful and beautiful and worthy than to have a frickin' sandwich dictate the course of your life and how you feel. You have every right to say yes OR no to that at any given moment, and it bears no mark on you as a person which you choose.
Deep breaths. Calm. Do you know anything which particularly helps you to relax when you get stressed and your emotions grow intense?
x

Reply 3388

misslaura_bee

Hey,

I was diagnosed with anorexia back in January, these past few months have been SO hard. Recovery is such a long and difficult process and I have only managed to put a pound and a half on in 4 months. I constantly keep telling myself that I am fat and I hate the fact I feel so guilty about food. How is everyone finding recovery? such a horrible process :frown:

Reply 3389

Riku

Well I know this isn't really the amount of a binge, not hugely unhealthy given I'm still eating 3 solid meals/fruit and milk as snacks, and I've been doing well with behaviours all week, but it was under the same mentality and I don't want to fall down the slippery slope again. It's too easy. It's also too easy to think the solution to binging is restricting, first step dieting.

Spoiler

It all begs the question-how does everyone deal with eating under stressful, borderline disordered circumstances that were necessary, and not turn them into a behaviour? I mean eating at all is hard enough for us, so how do we deal with it when there's even a deadline imposed on how long we can eat? No matter what my dad says, I just can't yet eat on the go like him or my mates. It's really not that simple.

Got to say I'm amazed at how hypocritical and double-standardised EDs can make you, especially regarding things like what's OK for "them" isn't OK for you, when it blatantly is. GRrrr

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 3390

LaBelleEtLeBete

Has anyone in recovery noticed how much their ED (anorexia, for me) habits have stuck with them? I'm eating normally (or more normally than I have in years) but there are these stupid habits that I just can't stop. (I'ma spoiler the actual habits as they are rather trigger-y)

Spoiler

So now I look like a crazy person who no longer *looks* anorexic. Stupid brain.
Does anyone else have this?

Reply 3391

Anonymous #48

Original post by LaBelleEtLeBete

Spoiler

So now I look like a crazy person who no longer *looks* anorexic. Stupid brain.
Does anyone else have this?

A lot of your habits are very similar to mine (mind you I have an addiction to takeaway coffee that I really need to crack!) - from a psychology student POV habits are just repeated things that give us security, so removing them can be very stressful - are you under a counselling service or therapy service at all? Some of them I honestly don't think would take a lot of work to crack* (like the smoking one) but others would be better to tackle with the guidance of a professional. :hugs:

*Sorry, that's not meant to be patronising

Reply 3392

.snowflake.

Original post by LaBelleEtLeBete

Spoiler

So now I look like a crazy person who no longer *looks* anorexic. Stupid brain.
Does anyone else have this?

I still tear things to pieces before I eat them if its possible, so sandwiches etc.

Reply 3393

LaBelleEtLeBete

Original post by Anonymous

*Sorry, that's not meant to be patronising

I'm not under a counselling service at the moment (I found it really unhelpful and stopped attending forced therapy sessions when I realised that they wouldn't section me if I didn't stop going), I really just want to get my head around stopping BEING a former-anorexic with all of the baggage it comes with. I just want to be normal and not be the person with obvious food issues.

Reply 3394

iEmily

Original post by TotoMimo

I'd love to open up the floor now to all and any input here into this very diverse topic, to hear perhaps your own stories or any input or advice you can give myself, my peers and anyone else potentially developing one of these insidious conditions.

All my love to everyone and the absolute best of luck in your own daily battles, regardless of what they may be!

Hi, i love reading other people's stories because it makes you realise that you're not alone in what you've been through and that there are other people out there that really understand.

When i finished my GCSE's in 2010, i decided to go to a different school to do my a levels, i went from an all girls school where i was bullied about my weight to a mixed sixth form college. I decided to lose weight so that no one there would call me fat. I lost around half a stone on that diet and it was normal. Then something snapped in me, i think it was due to problems i was having with my boyfriend at the time. He used to tell me that i was ugly because i was losing weight (but i looked great at that time, i was a healthy weight and looked nice now i look back on it). Then my boyfriend broke up with me and i wanted to show him that i could look great and be really skinny at the same time.

Also, around this time, someone had called me fat in a message on Tumblr, and i decided that i wanted to be so thin that no one could ever call me fat. So i dieted. I went from a normal diet to eating around 500 calories a day. I never made myself sick because i couldn't no matter how hard i tried. Which made me feel like even more of a failure. I lost 3 and a half stone from January-June, and ended up with a BMI of 14.5, no periods, hair falling out, clothes hanging off of me, everyone staring and whispering about me, insomnia, paranoia ect.

Then on Holiday my mum noticed that i looked like a walking skeleton, and she made me go to the doctors. But by this time i actually wanted help. But i didn't feel like i was thin enough to have an eating disorder. But my life by this point was totally ruined, i had with drawn from all of my friends, stopped going out, stopped going to college even though i was a really good student, and just locked myself in my head. Because i liked it. My eating disorder was my friend, and i felt like i didnt need anyone else.

But i got help, and i'm now at a healthy weight and i feel great. There are the days that are hard and where i just want to cry because i haven't got my best friend anymore, and i feel like i look huge. But my life is so much better. I have amazing friends, i'm doing well at college, i have a boyfriend who treats me well.

Recovering isn't easy though, the amount of consultants i told where to shove it, the amount of times i lost loads more weight to prove that i just could. But i wouldn't change any of it, because i feel as if it has made me a much better person, i understand how people work a lot more now, and i've also met some inspiring people like my dietician who i couldn't have done any of this without.

There is a life after an eating disorder, it just take a little while for you to actually realise. There's bad days, and there's good days, but at least you can feel the emotions of a normal human being again, you're no longer a robot.
You're not just surviving, you're living life :smile:

Reply 3395

jazzykinks

Original post by LaBelleEtLeBete

Spoiler

So now I look like a crazy person who no longer *looks* anorexic. Stupid brain.
Does anyone else have this?

I don't mean to sound horrible but are you sure that you've fully recovered? Although you may be physically recovered, psychologically it sounds like you still have a few problems because you're really not comfortable around food and being recovered kind of means not having those habits. x

Reply 3396

LaBelleEtLeBete

Original post by jazzykinks

Sorry, I tend to refer to myself as 'recovered' on here because I'm at a healthy weight/no longer starving myself. Which, of course, means that I don't feel comfortable talking about my ED in real life as I no longer look anorexic at all.

Reply 3397

Etoile

Original post by misslaura_bee

I feel pretty much the same as you >.< But I am forcing myself to eat an I'm still losing weight! HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE

Original post by .snowflake.

I still tear things to pieces before I eat them if its possible, so sandwiches etc.

Tiny tiny pieces always :yep:

Original post by LaBelleEtLeBete

Spoiler

So now I look like a crazy person who no longer *looks* anorexic. Stupid brain.
Does anyone else have this?

I do all of that except smoke and drink hot stuff :zomg:

I know my worst habit that I should give up is logging calories on myfitnesspal, but I keep telling myself it's so that I know I'm eating a healthy amount.... :nothing:

Spoiler

Reply 3398

jazzykinks

Original post by LaBelleEtLeBete

Ahh okay. I know what you mean; I initially started out as being atypical anorexic because my BMI wasn't low enough and I felt an idiot being labelled as having an ED despite being a healthy weight although all my behaviours were disordered. I hope you get out of these habits one day :smile:

life on the other side -- fully recovered -- is pretty incredible because you just have the freedom to do what you want and it opens up so many doors when your head isn't full of poisonous thoughts. x

Reply 3399

Antiaris

Original post by LaBelleEtLeBete

Spoiler

So now I look like a crazy person who no longer *looks* anorexic. Stupid brain.
Does anyone else have this?

Not the same things, but I get the same sort of flairs. Still get a couple of 'weak periods' and the self-hating of body image still persists but they aren't so big anymore. If you can control the habits for just a few hours a day, you don't need to think about them the rest of the time. It's very important to stress that you shouldn't be doing ANYTHING to control your eating. You seek some form of control, and eating is the vice. You still have SERIOUS issues, just they aren't really as dramatically life threatening anymore (apart from tongue cancer, lung cancer, etc.)

Pretty much after doing a crap tonne of looking into different therapies I got some reprieve by doing some myself. Learned to confront some people, learnt how my own body works, etc. The thoughts don't really leave, you just get more control over them. From the sound of your issues it sounds like you still have some deep set issues in habit, from personal experience I'd say look into Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. You don't need a therapist even, you just need a good self-awareness. You've recognised where there are ACTUAL issues, you can correct them.

Still got the Anxiety though, that still needs work. :s-smilie: