So, a fair few users know that I used to struggle with an ED as I am very open about it. I have been tagged in a few threads pertaining to women's diets and the gym and body types, etc and a lot of these threads make me realise just how unawares some people are about this topic and what the effects of an ED are as well as how easily you can fall into one, so I felt that it would be useful share my experience with EDs, how that effected me and still does and how I have (mostly) pulled myself out of it and gotten myself back together.
They started off very slowly when I was around 11, nothing too crazy just would miss meals often and would be just a touch too attentive to the fat and sugar content labels, etc. EDs do not just happen, its a slow process (think boiling frog) and you don't even realise it until you are deep into it.
I had both anorexia and bulimia. I would eat little to nothing for days or even weeks, stupid things like rice cakes and cucumbers were the sorts of things I would eat if I felt like on the brink of passing out. After this phase I would inevitably be swung into a more bulimic pattern after a particularly bad day. I would sit in my kitchen at night until the early hours of the morning eating disgusting amounts of food in an attempt to sort of comfort myself, feel vile after and make myself get rid of it all.
This cycle repeated itself for years, the thing is I didn't even realise how bad this all was at the time. You often try to convince yourself that you are fine and that this is just the way you are, 'I'm just naturally skinny', 'My hair is just naturally thin and dull', 'I'm just tired because I didn't get good enough sleep', you get the picture.
The wake up call if you will hit when I was 15.
Firstly, I am the main carer of my little brother and although we are 4 years apart, he likes to copy a lot of the things I do and that I like or dislike as I guess I'm his most prominent role model. My parents do not eat with us and so it has always been me who made dinner and sat with my brother whilst we ate.
When I was at my worst at 15, I would just sit at the table with nothing while he ate and he definitely had noticed. I watched him slowly eat less and less, until one day he decided to tell me he didn't want anything for dinner as he 'wasn't hungry'. It really hit me right in that moment that my habits have rubbed off onto him and that this would only get worse, I guess it sort of forced me to look at my own behaviours and how bad it had gotten. It really made me want to change, I just wanted to see him sit and eat well like he always did and i knew that I had to sort myself out. I love him to bits and couldn't stomach the thought of doing that to him.
It really took seeing how it affected someone who I care about, someone who I am supposed to look after and be a role model for, for me to really see just how destructive I was being to myself and the people around me. Change only happens when you stop making excuses and you are confronted with a mirror image of yourself. Seeing it for what it really is is really difficult, you feel ashamed, stupid and hopeless for what you have ultimately now done to yourself (from my experience).
I deleted the pictures that reminded me of what it looked like, I stayed away from '0 kcal' foods, set alarms to remind myself to eat, made meal plans, prepped meals so that there was no 'I'm too tired to make food' excuse, got to know what my body needs, when and why (tracking your cycle is a big factor I know this sounds so dumb), I went to the doctors and got a serious reality check and I promised myself that I would stop and it wasn't even for myself at the time, it was solely for my brother who I knew relied on me.
Currently, I go to the gym about three times a week and slowly try to reverse the effects that it had on me physically and mentally, and I'm really proud of myself for that. I do have bad days, although these are becoming rarer and rarer, which is completely normal and okay. I think that talking about it openly and honestly has really helped me come to terms with it all.
I hope that any of the girls (or guys) here that have issues with this can maybe find something useful from this and I hope this helps to de-romanticise the whole mentality that some people have surrounding EDs. 'Starvemaxxing' is a shit idea, these models who live off of cigarettes and coke are not to be looked up to and pushing whole idea of being unnaturally thin is wrong, it isn't, has never been and will never be appealing.
The start of it:
I had two EDs for a number of years.They started off very slowly when I was around 11, nothing too crazy just would miss meals often and would be just a touch too attentive to the fat and sugar content labels, etc. EDs do not just happen, its a slow process (think boiling frog) and you don't even realise it until you are deep into it.
I had both anorexia and bulimia. I would eat little to nothing for days or even weeks, stupid things like rice cakes and cucumbers were the sorts of things I would eat if I felt like on the brink of passing out. After this phase I would inevitably be swung into a more bulimic pattern after a particularly bad day. I would sit in my kitchen at night until the early hours of the morning eating disgusting amounts of food in an attempt to sort of comfort myself, feel vile after and make myself get rid of it all.
This cycle repeated itself for years, the thing is I didn't even realise how bad this all was at the time. You often try to convince yourself that you are fine and that this is just the way you are, 'I'm just naturally skinny', 'My hair is just naturally thin and dull', 'I'm just tired because I didn't get good enough sleep', you get the picture.
The wake up call if you will hit when I was 15.
Firstly, I am the main carer of my little brother and although we are 4 years apart, he likes to copy a lot of the things I do and that I like or dislike as I guess I'm his most prominent role model. My parents do not eat with us and so it has always been me who made dinner and sat with my brother whilst we ate.
When I was at my worst at 15, I would just sit at the table with nothing while he ate and he definitely had noticed. I watched him slowly eat less and less, until one day he decided to tell me he didn't want anything for dinner as he 'wasn't hungry'. It really hit me right in that moment that my habits have rubbed off onto him and that this would only get worse, I guess it sort of forced me to look at my own behaviours and how bad it had gotten. It really made me want to change, I just wanted to see him sit and eat well like he always did and i knew that I had to sort myself out. I love him to bits and couldn't stomach the thought of doing that to him.
The effects:
I had a number of issues because of these behaviours and I feel like listing some of these will really help dull the whole glamorisation of it all.- Development: As I was still yet to even become a teenager at the time i started I grew up flat as a board, no boobs no nothing. I also didn't get a period until I was 15. It sounds stupid but watching your friends grow up and talk about getting their period and having to go buy bras and whatnot feels so isolating, you feel so othered.
- Energy and Strength: I was constantly tired like all the time, getting out of bed is a chore, getting dressed is a chore, everything becomes hard. I was also very weak, my school bag felt like I was carrying a whole half a person on my shoulder all day.
- Dullness: Everything about me looked so horrendously dull, my hair (by this i mean lashes and brows which were so thin you could hardly see them), my skin (insane dryness and redness), my eyes and even myself as a person, it's like literally fading into nothingness.
- Puffiness: Due to the vomiting, my face was constantly puffy and rounded which looked uncanny and strange on me as I was so small at the time. My lower stomach also bloated a lot.
- Emotions: Because of the low energy and poor overall mood I was extremely irritable, I was insanely unpleasant to be around as the smallest inconvenience would ruin my whole day and make me so agitated. Whilst I was more stressy a lot of people get very emotional and cry a lot when in an ED.
- Anaemia: I am still pretty anaemic which makes me faint and tired as well as having the constant feeling of being cold (this not so much anymore as I have a more normal mass now).
Getting better:
I am now much healthier, I have a far better relationship with myself, better social life and I sit down to eat dinner with my little brother almost every night (provided one of us isn't out seeing their friends) .It really took seeing how it affected someone who I care about, someone who I am supposed to look after and be a role model for, for me to really see just how destructive I was being to myself and the people around me. Change only happens when you stop making excuses and you are confronted with a mirror image of yourself. Seeing it for what it really is is really difficult, you feel ashamed, stupid and hopeless for what you have ultimately now done to yourself (from my experience).
I deleted the pictures that reminded me of what it looked like, I stayed away from '0 kcal' foods, set alarms to remind myself to eat, made meal plans, prepped meals so that there was no 'I'm too tired to make food' excuse, got to know what my body needs, when and why (tracking your cycle is a big factor I know this sounds so dumb), I went to the doctors and got a serious reality check and I promised myself that I would stop and it wasn't even for myself at the time, it was solely for my brother who I knew relied on me.
Currently, I go to the gym about three times a week and slowly try to reverse the effects that it had on me physically and mentally, and I'm really proud of myself for that. I do have bad days, although these are becoming rarer and rarer, which is completely normal and okay. I think that talking about it openly and honestly has really helped me come to terms with it all.
I hope that any of the girls (or guys) here that have issues with this can maybe find something useful from this and I hope this helps to de-romanticise the whole mentality that some people have surrounding EDs. 'Starvemaxxing' is a shit idea, these models who live off of cigarettes and coke are not to be looked up to and pushing whole idea of being unnaturally thin is wrong, it isn't, has never been and will never be appealing.
