At the moment, I consider myself in remission from my eating disorder, which gives me great pleasure to be able to say. Anyone who has ever suffered from an eating disorder or knows someone with one will know the deliberating and awful impact it has on someone's life. I suffered with disordered eating for about 3ish years and full blown anorexia for about 2. This is more or less the story of the those two years, partly for your benefit, and partly to help me organise and compartmentalize those experiences.
I suffered from anorexia nervosa (which you can find out more about here and here) and also suffer from depression and anxiety. However, this is the story of my anorexia so far, and I hope that reading this helps you in some way - whether it be through you discovering something new, helping you to help someone you know or gives you insight to your own life.
The beginning 2012 was an important point for me – I was going into year 11 and was really starting to feel the pressure to achieve and do my best in these last two years of school. Not coincidently, it was also the first year that I dreaded going back to school. And by dread, I don’t mean that I didn't want to go back to school, I mean that the thought of school would send me into spirals of panic and generally end with me sobbing on my bedroom floor. That year was also the time I 'discovered' food and the joy of experimenting with it, cooking with it and generally having fun with my tastebuds. Although, looking back on it, it was simply another way for me to restrict my intake.
I also made a resolution – that this year (2012), I would become more healthy. While I was a healthy girl, I really wanted to achieve 'optimum health' - whatever that means. This quest led me to re-evaluate my diet. Again, while I wasn't unhealthy, I felt like I was carrying a few kilos I didn't need - and I vowed to lose them. I was convinced that losing some weight would make me feel confident in my body. So out went the sweets and cakes, which I told myself I didn't miss (but I kind of did). I began to cut portion sizes and reduced my meals to three a day – no afternoon or morning tea for me. I developed very rigid rules about my food - I would get extremely anxious if I had to eat between meals, or I had to eat meals that I didn't know what it had in. This made eating out extremely scary and unpleasant and often ended with me panicking and crying in the bathroom over what to order and how to get out of eating it.
I had very strictly defined rules over what was a 'good' food and what was a 'bad' food. Things with high amounts of fats, carbohydrates, sugar or just high in calories were very, very bad and I just couldn't allow myself to eat them. I soon after made the switch to pescartarian, a decision I'm still not sure why I made at the time, but looking back at it, it's pretty clear - getting rid of meat was another way to restrict the calories going into my body. Up went my fruit and vegetable intake, and down when my carbohydrate intake. My portions got smaller as my mood spiralled further down. My anxiety and stress levels shot through the roof as school increased the pressure, both on performing well at school and forming a plan for post-school.
About halfway three quarters of the way through that year, my friends finally convinced me to go and see someone about my mood – I was disengaged with everything and could not make it through even one day without crying at least once. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
I thought that this was my problem and that my eating had nothing to with it. I began to see a therapist, but she wasn't a specialist in the field of eating disorders and so, didn't pick up on my fairly well hidden (at the time) eating disorder. It's a common perception that people with anorexia are quite smart, logical, and intelligent people and for me, that was true. I was just so good at blowing off questions, fooling people with well thought out logic and hiding the awful truth that my problem went undetected for so long.
Well, actually, it was a combination of that and societies lack of understanding and prevalent myths surrounding both eating disorders and more specifically, anorexia. These provided the perfect cover for me to hide behind. I'd always been a fairly confident girl and had never been outwardly concerned about my weight or body shape. I could easily flick these questions off by saying 'no, I'm not deliberately trying to lose weight. It just happened - it's the stress of this year.' However, my eating habits continued to worsen and early 2013, I finally faced what I had been denying for so long – disordered eating. I went to see a dietician and she put the scare tactics on – at the rate I was losing weight, I would be hospitalised in four weeks. But, even through this, I fought the fact that I had an eating disorder – I put my weight loss down mostly to stress and lack of time – but eventually I began to accept the term that was given to me – anorexic.
I am 163cm tall (5ft 4inches) and at the very depths of my anorexia, I weighed only 45kg. Within a year, I had lost at leaast 23kg from my previous weight of ~68kg. From December 2012 to March 2013, I lost 10 kg. But the craziest thing was is that I actually couldn't see the difference. Obviously I could tell sometimes, when skirts that had previously fit now fell off me at the waist and hips, when I dropped something on my lap and clapped my legs together to catch it, only to have it fall through the gap between my thighs, but for the most part, I couldn't see. I also never weighed myself - which was another handy way for me to be able to divert questions - I couldn't have an eating disorder because I didn't obsess over my weight, right?
I suffered from anorexia nervosa (which you can find out more about here and here) and also suffer from depression and anxiety. However, this is the story of my anorexia so far, and I hope that reading this helps you in some way - whether it be through you discovering something new, helping you to help someone you know or gives you insight to your own life.
The beginning 2012 was an important point for me – I was going into year 11 and was really starting to feel the pressure to achieve and do my best in these last two years of school. Not coincidently, it was also the first year that I dreaded going back to school. And by dread, I don’t mean that I didn't want to go back to school, I mean that the thought of school would send me into spirals of panic and generally end with me sobbing on my bedroom floor. That year was also the time I 'discovered' food and the joy of experimenting with it, cooking with it and generally having fun with my tastebuds. Although, looking back on it, it was simply another way for me to restrict my intake.
I also made a resolution – that this year (2012), I would become more healthy. While I was a healthy girl, I really wanted to achieve 'optimum health' - whatever that means. This quest led me to re-evaluate my diet. Again, while I wasn't unhealthy, I felt like I was carrying a few kilos I didn't need - and I vowed to lose them. I was convinced that losing some weight would make me feel confident in my body. So out went the sweets and cakes, which I told myself I didn't miss (but I kind of did). I began to cut portion sizes and reduced my meals to three a day – no afternoon or morning tea for me. I developed very rigid rules about my food - I would get extremely anxious if I had to eat between meals, or I had to eat meals that I didn't know what it had in. This made eating out extremely scary and unpleasant and often ended with me panicking and crying in the bathroom over what to order and how to get out of eating it.
I had very strictly defined rules over what was a 'good' food and what was a 'bad' food. Things with high amounts of fats, carbohydrates, sugar or just high in calories were very, very bad and I just couldn't allow myself to eat them. I soon after made the switch to pescartarian, a decision I'm still not sure why I made at the time, but looking back at it, it's pretty clear - getting rid of meat was another way to restrict the calories going into my body. Up went my fruit and vegetable intake, and down when my carbohydrate intake. My portions got smaller as my mood spiralled further down. My anxiety and stress levels shot through the roof as school increased the pressure, both on performing well at school and forming a plan for post-school.
About halfway three quarters of the way through that year, my friends finally convinced me to go and see someone about my mood – I was disengaged with everything and could not make it through even one day without crying at least once. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
I thought that this was my problem and that my eating had nothing to with it. I began to see a therapist, but she wasn't a specialist in the field of eating disorders and so, didn't pick up on my fairly well hidden (at the time) eating disorder. It's a common perception that people with anorexia are quite smart, logical, and intelligent people and for me, that was true. I was just so good at blowing off questions, fooling people with well thought out logic and hiding the awful truth that my problem went undetected for so long.
Well, actually, it was a combination of that and societies lack of understanding and prevalent myths surrounding both eating disorders and more specifically, anorexia. These provided the perfect cover for me to hide behind. I'd always been a fairly confident girl and had never been outwardly concerned about my weight or body shape. I could easily flick these questions off by saying 'no, I'm not deliberately trying to lose weight. It just happened - it's the stress of this year.' However, my eating habits continued to worsen and early 2013, I finally faced what I had been denying for so long – disordered eating. I went to see a dietician and she put the scare tactics on – at the rate I was losing weight, I would be hospitalised in four weeks. But, even through this, I fought the fact that I had an eating disorder – I put my weight loss down mostly to stress and lack of time – but eventually I began to accept the term that was given to me – anorexic.
I am 163cm tall (5ft 4inches) and at the very depths of my anorexia, I weighed only 45kg. Within a year, I had lost at leaast 23kg from my previous weight of ~68kg. From December 2012 to March 2013, I lost 10 kg. But the craziest thing was is that I actually couldn't see the difference. Obviously I could tell sometimes, when skirts that had previously fit now fell off me at the waist and hips, when I dropped something on my lap and clapped my legs together to catch it, only to have it fall through the gap between my thighs, but for the most part, I couldn't see. I also never weighed myself - which was another handy way for me to be able to divert questions - I couldn't have an eating disorder because I didn't obsess over my weight, right?
Wrong. I did obsess, I just did it sneakily, and without scales. My obsessions were through the pinching of skin, the grabbing of my tummy, the wobble of my thighs. I did this where no one could see me and I kept this hidden. I officially started recovery in April 2013, and it was (is) a hard slog. I'm not going to lie. Depression is shit, as is anxiety and everything is ten times worse with an eating disorder piled on top. I had my ups and downs – there were times where I just want to pack it all in and give up. At other times, I caught a glimpse of the girl I used to be before all this happened and suddenly, the chance to be that girl again made this entire struggle worthwhile.
I'm proud to be able to say that I look forward to eating out again. I no longer agonise over what to order on the menu and no longer restrict myself to only having a starter as my main meal. I'm proud to be able to say that I can eat cake again. I now can allow myself to eat cakes and muffins and slices and really nice stuff that before I just couldn't - they were too 'bad' for me.
But, the struggle still continued. At home, or when I'm by myself, I slipped up often. I find all to often that I had gone hours and hours without eating anything - which is a really bad thing. I struggle to eat enough on a consistent, everyday basis. But, I kept moving forward.
When I started this blog, it was in part a way to document my progress as I learned to re-love myself, my food, my body and re-learn who I am. It was also a chance to share my experience with others in the hope that my struggle could help others with recovery or just provide insight to this crazy world known as ‘eating disorders’.
And now we reach now, October 2014 and beyond. I can happily say now that I feel I am in no way under influence of an eating disorder. Sure, I have my foibles - we all do. I have a tendency to forget afternoon tea and if left on my own for too many meals, I get left with no ideas of what to eat. But that's the problem with chronic conditions, you have little reminders of your condition scattered throughout your life.
I have to be more careful than the average person in terms of food. I have to be extra careful about eating regularly and in order to manage my depression and anxiety, I need to make sure I'm eating foods that are good for my body and in order to keep my eating disorder from resurfacing, I need to be eating foods that are good for my mind.
My blog now is a celebration of life and my life and lots of things in it. It has a lot of nail art and discussions and food and eating disorders and mental illnesses. It's a place for all my ramblings to go. I hope you stick around and share it with me.
If any of the information in here helped you, or you found similarities to your life in this, feel free to contact me at just_lissa@live.com
If you think you might be suffering from an eating disorder, please talk to someone. Talk to me, if you want. I send you confidence and strength - you have a long hard journey ahead of you, but it will be worth it. If you are currently in recovery from an eating disorder, I send you hope and love and strength - I know you need it. If you know someone with an eating disorder, I send you compassion, empathy and patience - you can't help them without it. But, whoever you are, whatever you are doing, at what point in your life you are at, I send you love and I ask you to take care of yourself and look after yourself the way you deserve - which is the very, very best. xx
And if you would like some resources, here is my (short) list:
YourEatopia (a god send for anyone in recovery - it has saved me more times than I can count)
fyoured
Everything ED
No comments :
Post a Comment
Getting, reading and replying to your comments make my day, so please go and and tell me your thoughts.