I'm 29, pregnant, and have had an eating disorder since I was 14 or 15. I know exactly how it started, though I didn't consciously decide I was going to have one. I didn't even know what an eating disorder was when mine started. But it quickly spiraled into one, and I didn't mind.
Before I go further, I'm going to put out there that there might be some triggers in my story for some people, but I am trying to keep them out. To continue:
I was never overweight, nor was anyone in my family. I was always the skinny girl who could eat everything and then some. But food was always a big deal at my house. I'm not going to get into that, other than to say that a lot of emotions were tied up in the food prepared for our meals. At some point, I realized that I was skinnier than all my friends. I knew that it was genetics, but as my girlfriends started to express their envy for the fact that I was skinny and they "weren't", I became obsessed with staying skinnier than all of them. This also tied in with my not wanting to eat what my mom would pack for my lunches. I didn't understand that I didn't get the kind of food my friends got because we didn't have much money, and my mom wanted us to be healthy. So she packed fruits and vegetables and sandwiches rather than chips, candy, or Lunchables. All I knew is that I didn't want it, and she couldn't make me eat it if she wasn't there.
But I had to hide the fact that I wasn't eating her lunches; I couldn't bring them home uneaten, or I'd get in trouble. So, I started throwing them away. It gave me such a feeling of power. I don't recall ever feeling faint from not eating lunch. But I loved that powerful feeling I got from rejecting food. And it just kept going. I weighed myself enough to make sure I didn't break the weight I wanted to be at, and I was always so proud when I was less than that. I started to panic if it got close, so I would eat even less. It got worse, and worse. And food, and thoughts of food, took over more and more of my life. I just had to stay thin. If I gained one pound, I would be fat and ugly and no one would be my friend, no one would envy me, no boys would like me. I thrived on the comments. Being thin was my one true accomplishment, the one thing I was really proud of.
This went on for years. I had teachers telling my parents that I wasn't eating at school, that I never took my coat off, even when it was 70+ degrees outside. I had friends (the same ones who told me that they wanted to be as skinny as me) trying to get me to eat SOMETHING (this made me think they were trying to sabotage me). But I was powerful. I didn't have to give in, I didn't need to give in. But I was also getting more and more depressed. I started hiding from the world as much as I could. I slowly started to realize that I had a problem. It came to a head after I left home for college and was spending hundreds of dollars on food that I didn't eat. That was my first wake-up call. Who buys so much food and then doesn't eat any of it, just gives it away, or throws it away when it goes bad? I ended up moving back home, and then to an in-patient treatment program. It didn't work. I wanted to go, but once I was there, and they started to take away my control over what I could and couldn't do, I pushed back. I stopped wanting the help. I failed.
I did learn some things while I was there, and I tried for a while to get better. But I had also learned some tricks on hiding that I wasn't eating, and soon I was doing them. I convinced my parents and myself that I was ready to live on my own, and moved out again. My relapse became worse than the initial problem. But I finally felt completely out of control of what I was doing. I was terrified at the thoughts that were constantly going through my head. I started cutting myself, and once tried to kill myself. I had no control over anything I was doing, and I no longer felt powerful. I felt completely powerless. But still, it took a very, very good friend to get so mad at my twisted sense of logic on how much I could safely weigh that he pretty much stopped talking to me for a while, for me to get help. Through the help of my church, I was able to get some outpatient treatment at The Center For Change.
Going there was the best thing I ever did for myself. It worked only because I wanted it to, because I was ready for it to work. I went for at least a year, though I'm not entirely sure as to the time frame (my therapist there was my 11th one at that point). I had so much support. The nutritionist I had was great, working with me on finding food goals that I felt I could reach, and my therapist was completely understanding. She was the first one I flat out told that I didn't trust, and if she wanted me to work with her, she couldn't sit there and stare at me, she had to talk to me. My bishop kept tabs on me to make sure I was doing what needed to be done, and there was a group of girls in my church who volunteered to eat lunch with me every day so that I would at least eat something. None of them judged me, and they made it seem like we were just hanging out. No one said anything if it took me a while to eat my food, they just stayed until I was done. And all of these people were proud of me when I accomplished something that seems so small, like eating 3 pieces of pizza and not really thinking about it. I also met my husband during this, and he was, and is, a tremendous help for me.
I'm now in a good spot. I won't say I'm 100% recovered, because I'm not, and I know it. But I'm so so so much better than I was. And I'm grateful for that. I did have to do a lot of my recovery on my own, when most people would have said that I needed to be inpatient. But that wasn't an option for me. If I had gone in, things may have gone a lot faster, but I feel that since I didn't, and I had to fight tooth and nail to even keep wanting to fight, that my recovery is sticking better. Now I am proud of the fact that I can sit down and eat a meal that I made, either by myself or with other people, and not freak out (I do have my days, but they are very few). Most people don't know, and can't tell, that I ever had (and have) an issue with food. I am very, very proud of this.
I want people out there with this same problem to know that recovery really is possible, no matter how you end up having to deal with it. I've done in-patient, out-patient, and a kind of self-therapy to get where I am, and they all work, they all have their merits. The only way any chosen path will work, is if you truly want it to end, if you truly want to beat this. I had no idea that I really wanted that, until after I got past the worst of it. I had a very, very difficult time letting it all go. But being miserable was no longer an option, so I kept fighting. It's possible to win. It really is. I promise.
