#former anorexic

[st-ivangeline]

i hate you stress eating i hate you emotional dependency on food i hate you self soothing thru eating i hate you binging i hate you eating disorder behaviors i hate you i hate you i hate you

[josiebelladonna]

exact same shirt, two years apart.

(full story under the cut; 18+ please)

i weighed 225 in april 2020, up from 205 in december 2019 (no clue how that happened as life for me barely changed when the lockdowns started); i’m at 266 now, and i gained all this weight in 2021 and a little bit this year, believe it or not. i actually lost weight in quarantine, about 13 pounds: wasn’t eating much and things going on in my social life in the summer of quarantine contributed to the losses. tried getting it back over the winter, and more so when alex entered the picture. then my stepdad passed in april 2021 and all of a sudden, there was a lot more food in the house. i gained 25 pounds last summer, going from 221 to 246, followed by another five over the winter and then 15 spread out over the course of this year.

i don’t mind it: if anything, it feels good. healthy, even. my pants fit better (those old ones in the top pic fell down at every chance: they give me the biggest muffin top now 😅), everything is fuller and rounder, and i can eat a lot more—i feel stronger, too. i was always curious about the world beyond 220 pounds—from 2015 when i hit 200, to 2021 when my stepdad passed, i bounced around that range and i was curious about the 230s. now i’m actually looking at 270. 270 pounds, i should be gigantic (and my mom is planning on making gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies pretty soon here, too. gingerbread, with sugar, there’s also a few chocolate chip cookies and some oreos in the cupboard, and persimmon cookies atop the fridge. and she wants to make bread pudding at some point. and there’s apple pie in the fridge. and there’s chocolate on the coffee table before me. when i said “fuck diet culture”, i meant it.)

actually i kinda am gigantic now. i’m big.

just for reference, this was me in december 2019

and this is me just now

my bras are tighter now, too. i had difficulty keeping them on my shoulders in 2019/2020: they keep everything in place now, like they actually fit.

i felt emaciated back then, too. my stepdad, with all his problems, often snuck food when no one was looking, and objected to my mom and me treating ourselves. i couldn’t eat much—and you gotta eat. you gotta nourish yourself. he passed and suddenly, i could eat to my heart’s content, all the healthy food and all the sweet stuff. 

my body widened out, i now have a definite double under my chin, and i have a potbelly now, and it’s kinda sexy, tbh. i feel really healthy: everything is where it should be and i haven’t had a cold or anything since 2019, interestingly enough. i do have a little snoring problem, but that’s about it, though. i’m not in pain and i’m not “aching” for anything. i was thin before the world came crashing down, but i wasn’t having a good time, though. i love to eat. i love sweet, fattening food. i love vegan food. i love meat and pasta and cheese. i love so-called guilty pleasures. i love mexican food, indian food, chinese food, japanese food, vietnamese food, filipino food, french food, german food, italian food, what the baltic countries do this time of year and just gorge until new year’s… i want to “eat across” a city some day. i love to eat, and i love to eat a lot.

i wish i got chubby as a teenager, if i’m honest. my story would have been so much different (just imagine: a fat field hockey player rather than a gaunt anorexic one, i probably would’ve stuck it out much longer). and i wish i could tell 13-year-old me that it’s really not at all bad because your body actually needs to be fed and that your thoughts are lying to you and the whole world is lying to you, actually, and you can feel good by eating whatever the hell you want, and come with me in unpacking diet culture and all the bullshit that makes women (and men) destroy their bodies all for the sake of chasing ideals which are pointless anyway because to change is to live and be human.

i remember being 19 on a camping trip to the oregon coast over thanksgiving 2012 and the backstory is it was a potluck dinner, and i brought a grasshopper pie because i’m actually from 1960. and no one touched it (one of the boys brought a pecan pie and that was more welcomed) and there was no room in the miniature fridge in our yurt. so, i ate this whole pie aside from two pieces missing. solo. on top of two helpings of thanksgiving dinner. three quarters of this creamy mousse pie made with crème de la menthe, marshmallow, and a chocolate crust. and this was well before i got heavy, too, this was back when i still weighed around 150 pounds, and before i dropped down to 139, too. i often think about that pie, too, how it made my then-slim belly swell up and it felt so right, and if i can do it now. i think that was the moment of clarity for me, in hindsight: the moment i thought, “i don’t want to torment myself anymore.” a fleeting thought, but i do remember thinking it.

in fact, i actually have a pretty distinct memory of being five or six years old and wishing i could eat everything and become fat, like i muttered it to myself when no one was paying attention (i looked at my naked body when no one was looking and i wished to be fat when no one was looking, the belly kink makes a lot more sense now, doesn’t it? 😜). i have no clue what happened to it, but my aunt used to have this old black and white photograph of me wearing denim jeans and cowgirl boots, and i had no shirt on, and i was pushing my belly out as far as i could go.

i wasn’t healthy thin, either. got sick a lot and nevermind b.m.i., it’s ableist and eugenicist and serves no one. you want to go with waist to hip ratio (those measurements divided by each other; you want under 0.80 to be considered healthy. and guess what? mine at the moment is 0.74, which is perfect. yes, even with my belly, i still pull off the numbers).

so, i have literally genuinely felt this desire to be a heavyweight my whole life: 5 year old me wanted a fat belly, 13 year old me wanted to look good, and 19 year old me wanted to feel good. it’s part of my truth. it’s just one part of who i am, and i’m finally just comfortable enough to talk about it.

so, as i write this, yes, i don’t feel negative about it (if anything… you want the truth? i don’t feel fat enough. it’s not like i’m lazy or sedentary, anyway: i’m gonna eat a big slice of apple pie with ice cream and whipped cream right now and then all my mom’s cookies, and everyone obsessed with dieting—and covering up—can die mad about it).

the last time i posted pix of myself, a bunch of people unfollowed me and blocked me. their loss, i say, especially when you see these:

(that faith no more shirt has been through so much: of course i love wearing it now)

another kind of interesting thing about gaining all this weight? i feel more tomboyish than ever. i’ll go through the fat-related tags on here sometimes and i’ll look at fat women, and they’re all very feminine. whatever rings true for you, absolutely (the one dress i have, i tried it on and from the side, i looked pregnant with my well-fed belly 🤷🏻‍♀️) but i think it’s interesting that there aren’t a lot of “sportier” girls such as myself. i want to keep wearing shirts and sexy camisoles and skinny jeans and flared jeans that accentuate my legs and my hips.

yeah, man. this is all me.

all 266 pounds 😈🥵😘

[theastralbard]

I know it's not as bad as being overweight (or healthy body types that weirdos call overweight) and being on the internet. But being underweight on the internet fucking sucks too. I'm trying to put on weight rn and the internet keeps shouting at me "DIET DIET DIET BE SKINNY STOP EATING"

[takinglifeabreathatatime]

I love my life right now. I wish I could pause it now! :-D im not a statistic! I fucking winnnnnnn!!!!

[junglejim4322]

I don’t block eating disorder blogs because I figure my normal posts on their dash do them better than having an echo chamber I’m like narcan for pro anas but I hope you all know you don’t come off as a tragic fragile doomed coquette waif you come off as a delusional weirdo. You’re not Cassie from skins you’re the joker doing standup while nobody laughs

[hugh-lauries-bald-spot]

you know what im mad about today. how shit like disordered eating is recognized as a mental illness and simultaneously given the "just dont!" treatment. bro its not a choice i promise you the anorexic people know anorexia sucks ass.

[stargiirl27]

hate the way some of you people talk about anorexia as if the victims of it are evil fatphobic monsters and not (usually) young girls who are suffering from a MENTALL ILLNES, a DISEASE if you will, you lack compassion and you will not see god

[prairiies]

ik u proana girlies r sick in the head and have a deluded sense of self BUT life is legitimately so much better when you just eat whatever you want… for me it was wanting to have control over something in my life bc i felt so powerless in everything else, but idk it’s very freeing knowing you DONT need to have control…

[chronicplay]

The way this one got me weird vague angry anons is so fucking funny

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

At this point the homies at the plasma place are gonna have to tattoo DONOR ADVERSE EVENT on my face bc I’m just minding my business reading my damn K2 fanfiction and then I can’t fuckin see and then I’m passing tf out and these poor busy phlebotomists are sticking ice packs on me and giving me a barf bag and I’m having stupid South Park related thoughts while they’re asking me what I ate today and “what’d you weigh in at when they did your intake” like dude I didn’t look I don’t wanna know. And then WORSE the super cool dude who checked my vitals and complained about traffic with me comes over and is all “yeah she’s barely within the weight range we should probably have her on 1/4 speed” like ok again I didn’t need to know that my bony ass was a Nuisance (sry to the plasma clinic homies I swear I just wanna be a human juice box and read thank you for your time)

During all of this Un Pietanza Per Due by Courtanie was open on my phone, in my lap, I’m fully out here in fanfic mode.

[jokes-on-dee]

Sometimes I just can't with yalls dennis fanfiction

[cam1lla]

Two things I will elaborate more on when I’m not in agonizing pain:

1. Chronic Illness and “Spoonie” communities are full of Pro-Ana ex-pats who use being the “sickest” and having the most mobility aids or trips to the ER or stints on the feeding tube to fill the competitive void and desire to be sick, frail, doted on, and loved of their former ED, and this would be less of a problem if people with restrictive eating disorders were not silenced and forced into submission but instead were given space to be open, honest, and truthful about our struggles and what we go through.

2. People with restrictive eating disorders should be included within disability and chronic illness advocacy because many of us ARE rendered disabled or chronically ill because of eating disorders. Harassing, shaming, mocking and harming people with eating disorders, I especially see this happening with regards to extremely chronic low-weight anorexics, should be considered ableism and discussions of ableism should include people with chronic restrictive eating disorders and the complications, co-morbidities, and physically disabling symptoms that come along with them, even after recovery.

[dhaaruni]

Something funny is that there's very little literature on former anorexics and pregnancy and then I realized that's because it's super taboo for women to discuss possible tradeoffs to pregnancy and motherhood, especially when those tradeoffs are "I may never be a size 4 again."

Btw I'm subtweeting pro-natalists who can't fathom why women are wary about motherhood. I'm scared of my body changing in ways I can't control, don't want my career to stagnate, worry I'll pass on my brain, and fear I'll be a terrible mother. And I want kids despite that!

[tanadrin]

I would like to add to your bodily autonomy to discussion that there are important reasons why doctors should take caution in situations like eating disorders. If a patient had free reign to 100% bodily autonomy during a severe relapse of an eating disorder, they may request medications and procedures that are harmful to them. In the case of most eating disorders, dysmorphia is not cured by moving towards their “goal” size and continuing to engage in disordered eating and related behaviors. I get a lot of what you’re trying to say but I don’t think making a 100% blanket statement is the most helpful thing to do bc there are a lot of holes in your argument, such as eating disorders, which affect tons of people.

I think that would fall under a similar category as body dysmorphia--my understanding though is that there are therapeutic strategies which help with both eating disorders and body dysmorphia (unlike BIID), which I think is relevant. Because therapy isn't magic, and there isn't some super secret therapeutic technique just waiting to be discovered that might be able to cure (say) transness. But the fact that dysmorphic preferences can be resolved by talk therapy seems to me to indicate they are reflective of deeper preferences which can be resolved, or at least partially addressed.

Preferences of the dysmorphic class and the dysphoric class seem different in fundamental ways--the former can't be satisfied even in theory, and the latter can't be resolved except by being fulfilled (and thus seem more like a typical strong preferences). And because the former can't be satisfied they often go awry--e.g. AFAIK people who are anorexic aren't necessarily suicidal as such, even though continuing not to eat will endanger their lives.

But I think it's worth noting that even when it comes to treating dysmorphic conditions, there are (or should be) limits due to bodily autonomy! Force-feeding someone suffering from anorexia would be traumatic and cruel.

[mousemilf]

any former anorexics who can describe that weird feeling of accomplishment/control/progress that comes with anything unpleasant or painful and how thats transferred to other areas of your life outside of food issues and leeches into literally everything you touch? started making connections that certain destructive and weirdly compulsive behaviors feel emotionally similar to starving but im not sure what to do w this information or how to stop it. ie for a harmless example i get the anorexia feeling when i let my gas tank get fully empty or stay late at work when i don't have to. what the fuck is this feeling tho like does anyone know what i mean its like. close to pleasure but very dry/cold if that makes sense to anybody.

[2fiorello]

hot take thom yorke is talking to his eating disorder in weird fishes/arpeggi thom yorke you should know that any (former) anorexic can fish out another anywhere. its like gaydar thom