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sw33tlemonade · 4 years

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This is the honest ugly truth of an eating disorder, not the glamorous “I became a vegan” or “I didn’t speak up” or “Everyone was so supportive and encouraging”

My earliest recogation of my weight was very young, about 6 years old. I remeber eating a penguin chocolate biscuit in my living room but then runing upstairs because I was afriad that the bully would see me eat from the window. I know, crazy logic! However, she made me feel so inscure in primary school that at the age where you’re supposed to feel so comfortable and free with yourself I was worried about my weight and eating one fricking biscuit.

Again at 8 years old, we were doing an experiment in class about the scales. And pupils were picked to hop on the scales. And at that exact moment I knew that I was just above 6 stone because I had weighed myself that morning, a daily ritual for my 8 year old kid, again logic! And I was sweating, from fear that I would be chosen and everyone would laugh at my weight. I particularly thougt that I would be chosen because I was the obese one in the class at least that’s what my Wii Fit told me. In fact I was a very very normal weight. But the girl that got chosen was ironically one of my bullies and she was 5stone something which made my heart drop. She was noticeably smaller than me. It made me feel like a failure.

Moving to the last year of my primary school when I didn’t want to finish my pasta and sauce. I remember clearly that I wasn’t full, I just remembered convincing myself that I did not want it. And a boy mentioned “what have you got seomthing wrong with eating or something?”. And from that day onwards, I was 10 I have not been able to think about food the same again.

It’s so sad to think that my only memories of primary school were me sobbing on the way home because they had said something about the way I looked, moving to the back of the gym class because I was embarassed or refusing to wear a summer dress. And I truly don’t remeber anything else, I remeber asking for no butter on my toast because I knew it was less calories. Because at the age of frickin 10 I felt the need, 10 year old girl felt the need to know how much calories was in butter!!

It developed from “You should excersie and diet with me” from my very obsessed auntie to “You don’t need to eat healthy you’re skinny already” to “Fat fuck” to screaming and begging me to eat. “You’re not the small one in the family, you have big bones” to “You’ve gone so little”. My family was by far the worst trigger, could argue that they triggered the whole thing in me from the very day I was born.

I started high school with my two very best friends, that had noticed the strange actions very early fair play. I was free, I could eat whatever I wanted at lunch! And my choice was nothing. And if it was something it resulted into bruised knees and a sore throat. It resulted every lunch time that I bit into something more than an apple, it resulted into me needing satisfaction from blood whoozing out of my veins in the school toilet stalls whilst tears dropped on my wrists. If it didn’t take me exactly 15 mins to eat half of the wrap that I had cut into tiny pieces and then attempted to throw up in the bathroom then I would go home and do a plan. Make a plan that if I didn’t reach my goal weight that I would do it. Do the thing that i’ve been indicating for 6 years now. The thing I’ve indiacted for years but haven’t done. You know what I’m talking about, the plan to end it all. All because I couldn’t be in control of my food. I’m talking about school because when I came home it was a blur, I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t concentrate I was wipped and I honestly can’t remeber what I ate when I came home from school. I know that I would crumble some bread cumbs on the floor and butter some knives up to make it seem I had eaten for dinner.

The final straw finally came, well of the many straws to come. The summer of my second year of high school. My two best friends stuck by me. Stuck by me theough the incredible mood swings. Stuck by me through the flipping out over them taking a picture of me. The silent treatment on the lunch table because they would tell me to eat. The concern on their faces annoyed me when I would purpously tell them that I threw up because I pushed myself too hard when runing. I wasn’t indenail, I knew that I wasn’t supposed to pass out. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to feel weak. I knew that a normal kid would be able to run a lap without feeling like they’re gonna die. I knew that I was slowly killing myself. I knew that I was anorexic and I knew that I showed symptoms of bulimia aswell. I had done my research done what every ana or mia girl had done at the age of 11. They go on the interent and self disgnose themselves. The day finally came where they confronted me. They first asked me if it was about my dad. But the delosional 12/13 year old me had never even thought about speaking about the traumatic event of my dad passing away so I responded with anger. They guessed for days, making it like a game. Which I supposed I liked honestly the atenttion was on me I guess no one ever did that. Until I finally told them, and they weren’t shocked at all, they knew. They just wanted me to tell them. But what do they do with that kind of information? I honestly expected them to live like normal to watch me at the dinner table and not say a thing and just carry on eating their meals. I expected my friends to keep my little secret because I was excited that I could confied in them! But obviously they didn’t.

I remeber walking up the stairs heading up to Religious studies and I had this unseataling feeling throughout the morning. And once they weren’t in the class, I knew. They called me to the office and I had a meltdown. I was crying so hard going down those stairs, I pushed my friend against the wall. I yelled and everyone was staring. Until I faced the ugly truth that from now on- my controlled little life of not eating was going to become a hell of 3 meals a day. Hahaha I thought wrong. It started with my auntie starting to cry, I sobbed in her arms thinking how ironic that I have to confide in you about the many triggers you have set. And she asked me “This isn’t because of all my dieting is it?” I looked her in the eye and said no.

I think what was different with me from many other eating disorderd teenagers is that they’re stubborn. They’re stubborness feeds the eating disorder so they can carry on. The stubborness of saying no. However, something stronger at that time than the eating disorder was fear. I was a scared child. I was scared of my mum, scared of any kind of authority scared of my family. And honestly scared of saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing to an unhealthy point. So when they said I needed help, I agreed because I wasn’t dumb I just knew that It was going to be hard to keep my habits. My mum had no clue, absolutely no idea. But my lying was exceptional, so it wasn’t a surprise.

So we got to a therapist and a meal plan. I trully thought my life was over. I had no one in school. I didn’t speak to my mum at all. And the only time I could speak was in therapy, convincing the therapist that I was eating the ful 3 meals and two snacks inbetween. Definitely! I thought that my lack of stubborness would cost me to eat but in fact it lead to worsening. But my crazy ana mind still finds it funny how going to therapy encouraged my anorexia and encourgaed my beahviour. I would sit at the dinner table and have two pieces of toast in the morning, which my mum thought I had eaten everyday! But in reality I stuffed them in my pocket in a tissue, hid them in my drawer upstairs until she left for work and put them in the bin. At school obviously I was being monitored, but no one was monitoring my bag or the floor where i hid the food. And at night my mum never wondered why there was so much tissue in the fire. It came to the point where I was crying on the floor, her having to spoon feed me the yogurt for her to realise that it wasn’t a ‘fad’ or ‘being stupid’. But no one said anything, I literally carried on as normal with my meal plans. I got admitted out of therapy. It’s awful, but I knew what I was doing and wasn’t going to stop because I wasn’t ‘anorexic’ because I wasn’t under the BMI of a healthy girl, and that’s what exactly the therapist told me. Told me that I had ‘symptoms’ but never told me that I had a condition that I knew I had. And just because my organs didn’t fail. Just because I wasn’t admitted to hospital. I was anorexic and I still am. It’s not the weight it’s the illness. And that’s what frustrated me! That I couldn’t get sick enough for people to believe me. And with the combination of binging, purging, starving and restricting my weight could never go down. No matter what I did I would always starve and then binge. Try and purge, sometimes succesfully and restrict. And that had always been the cycle and I feel like it will always be the cycle, because it had been for 6 years. I never almost died in a hospital because I wanted to maintain my weight in year 7,8,9 because I has such a fear of gaining weight I was physically sick of anxiousness. And the following years I wanted to loose wieght.

After loosing my two best friends because of my lack of respect I became depressed. The school became such a toxic environment in my third year. Not only because of the memoreis anyway but because of the people. Everyone was cuting, starving. You name it, someone in my year was claiming they had a disorder . It became a trend and a very very very good trigger for me. I loved being triggerd because it meant it was acceptable for my actions. For me being depressed I had a reason because someone showed me a picture of their cuts I could cut too. Because someone else wasn’t eating I could starve too. Self isolation and mutlation became such a highlight I could say to my life that eating wasn’t the atenttion anymore. I had found another source of control, hurting myself. In any way shape or form. Burning, glass, razors, knives, punching- anything really that would give me a control over the pain. I would say that this was the worst point ever of my self harm and depression. Let’s just say you couldn’t see my wrists or hips.

I went back to the eating disorder specialist, got a group CBT therapy. Got a DBT therapist. Saw the school nurse. Saw the school psychologist. But still I found that confiding in some of the teachers in school was my best option. Nothing changed honestly. I am so thankful for all the work CAHMS did for me. The psychologists, psychiatrists, councellors, therapists. I had gone through the whole team and decided that I couldn’t work with any of them. I couldn’t face them everyday with the pain and them just telling me to do something I enjoy. Because I didn’t enjoy anything. Them telling me to think how I could change my routine.

It’s justs exhausting when all your thoughts have been “I can’t eat that- well I can but I’ll have to burn it offx3- or the easy option just purge it- or just eat half of it” and you end up eating half of it and then you feel guilty so you write “To...” and then debate in your mind who would care enough to even read your suicide letter and then thinking that you can’t die because you would die fat. And everyone would remember you as that fat nobody. “If I died I want to be remembered as the skinny bubbly girl” but then “if I’m her I won’t want to die because I have everything that I’ve wished for”. That battle in my brain for consecutive years drains the fuck at out of you. And hospital admission after admission I just wanted a break. And because there was nothing physically wrong with me I couldn’t stay there. I needed a rest from my life but they made me feel crazy, made me feel worthless because I was ok “it was all in my head”. It took for me to run away from the therapy session and locked myself in a hospital bathroom to try and find a way out for them to believe me. “My story didn’t add up” “I didn’t have a reason to feel that way” that’s what I got. Year after year nothing made sense. And I know why, I wasn’t telling the truth. I was telling everyone that I was sad and I didn’t know why. That I wasn’t eating because I didn’t know why.

Fast forward 10 therapists later, several hospital trips, obvious daddy issues, many inappropriate men, blood being pucked up, thousands of fights, a brakeup, countless self destructing nights, millions of paper crumbled up on the floor later I’m sitting here on the floor crying because I ruined my fasting by eating a bag of crisps.

Because the reality of this is that you’re not going to end up with a perfect life with all the friends you used to have. I pushed everyone away and no one wants to be my friend, and that’s okay because I know and I hope that I will find the right people that will want to be there for me. In reality no one knows any of this and they probably won’t. And it hurts when I see other people opening up and people thinking they understand when in reality they don’t understand the circumstances at all. They don’t understand that when someone is out of character there is more than likely something going on in their life. But until you physically tell them how bad it is no one will ever know, and I’ve just been pushed in the corner by everyone I’ve knows because my mental ilnesses wasn’t “bad enough”.

#self aware comic #mental breakdown #mental health #eating disoder thoughts #helpothers #reality

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