My Story (Long Version)

So you’ve decided to read the long version of my story? Sit back and relax as this could take a while…

Early Days

So many of our issues begin in our childhood. But thinking back, I cannot really recall any food related memories that were troubling, but I can tell you that because my father worked all the time, I was at home with my mom and became unhealthily attached to her. She spoiled me rotten; I got everything I wanted, and in return my mom was able to dress me up in frilly dresses and make-up and had me be the little, perfect performer. I knew what beauty was at a very young age: “sexy” clothes, curly hair, and make-up. I remember a video of me at three years old, dancing for the camera, and my mother telling me to pose “sexy.” To her it was cute, and I’m sure that’s how it looked to everybody on the outside, but I think this contributed to my eating disorder later in my life.

The unhealthy attachment to my mother and her unhealthy, perfectionistic expectations of me were constant growing up. I was expected to look nice, act nice, get straight As, have a clean room, etc., etc. I loved this woman dearly and would die without her, but at the same time I hated her putting so much pressure on me. The world would end if I got a rip in my stockings or my hair was messed up for picture day. All Hell would break lose and my mother would go on a serious rampage. Thank God I was never physically abuse (aside from a time she bit my thumb for not being able to play the piano correctly) but I was emotionally although I did not realize this for years after she passed.

I was practically an only child despite having three older brothers; they were much too old to play with me growing up, and by the time I was a pre-teen, all three were moved out of the house. My relationship with my father was non-existant. I resented his presence because I wanted my mother all to myself.

All the while my mother was suffering from Lupus. She had been in and out of hospitals my entire life. One of my greatest fears in life was being punished by her, and the other was losing her to her disease.

My eating disorder tendencies didn’t really pop up until I hit puberty. As stupid as it sounds, Britney Spears was very popular at this time, and I idolized her body and my biggest wish was to have a flat stomach like hers. I had always been underweight, so I never had a weight problem, but to me even being underweight was not good enough.

On-Set of Anorexia

I started only eating when I was hungry, and I remember cutting some of my meals in half. One time whenmy mother took me and a friend to breakfast, I did this and as soon as she realized she force fed me in front of everyone. At this point I had been intrigued by eating disorders and wondered what it would be like to have one. I think I would have developed one much sooner if I wasn’t so scared of my mother finding out, as well as health consequences.

Anyway — a week before 9/11 happened my mother finally died of Lupus. I was devastated of course, but at the same time this immense pressure was lifted and her death gave me the green light to start restricting my food and losing weight. I don’t really recall when I made this definite decision, but there were a lot of things that fueled it: I think the week I returned to school after my mother’s passing was nutrition/eating disorder week in health class. The only thing I remember is hoping everyone would think I had one because of my weight. We were weighed that week and I remember being 93 pounds with clothes on and having everybody be jealous.

My mother’s death of course was the real reason my eating disorder began, whether I thought at the time it was a choice or not, but it was in October I began an eating disorder diary and followed other girls actively in their anorexia.

I began restricting my food at first, and then eventually it got to the point where I was going six days straight with no food consumption at all. Eventually the bingeing began to kick in, and the dreaded cycle began. I lost 13 pounds; not a significant amount of weight, but enough to stop my period for fourth months.

First Attempt at Recovery

At this point friends at school began noticing I had “issues,” mostly because I tried to make them aware of my problem for attention by reading eating disorder books and constantly complaining how fat I was. It was also at this point where the starve/binge cycle was driving me insane and I didn’t think I could continue for much longer. It had only been about three or four months with this behavior, but I remember just crying and crying alone in the bathroom. I decided to tell my dad what was going on. His reaction was not what I expected, and I think to him it was more of a phase than a serious problem. He reluctantly agreed to put me into counseling, but made sure to always let me know how much money he was paying for one to see me. This made me feel guilty but also fueled my resentment towards him and I decided that maybe I wanted to keep my anorexia for a bit longer. (At this time my father moved another woman in the house and I was not too happy about that either).

Talking to a therapist was nice, but I didn’t want recovery. I lied to her and wrote down food I wasn’t really eating. After about three months I told my dad I was “all better” and he immediately agreed to stop taking me to the therapist. She desperately tried to get me to stay, but it wasn’t hard to convince my dad that everything was okay.

At that point the starvation lead to the compulsive overeating. I was convinced my body could no longer tolerate starving and I had become weak and disgusting. I failed to realize that I was suffering from another eating disorder because I thought that all I needed was a little willpower to get “back on track.”

Well, long story short, I spend months trying to get back on track with the starving. I gained all my weight back and no longer considered myself anorexic. My period returned as well. I think by that time my sophomore year in high school was over and both EDs calmed a bit.

Eating Disorder Tendencies and Introduction to Self-Harm

My junior year in high school I fell madly in love with a boy who never loved me back. I was severely depressed at this time in my life and felt that my whole world would be perfect if he would just return the feelings. I hopelessly stalked him (pretty much to a point where I probably could have been diagnosed with a mental illness, literally) and wrote countless poems and diary entires about how I wouldn’t feel so ugly if he just loved me.

At this point I still had the anorexic/compulsive overeating tendencies. I would starve during big occasions (homecoming, prom, etc.) and then binge after the starvation period was over. I used laxatives at this point as well. The guilt and shame that accompanied this was immense, and it wasn’t too long after that I began self-harming myself. I don’t remember what exactly lead me to choose this mode of coping (I had read about it online, but never thought I would actually do it), but when I would feel super mad or guilty or shameful or fat, I would scratch my arms up with a pair of scissors.

Late fall I got a boyfriend (not the one I was in love with) and he was, you know, “Mr. Right for right now.” We were kindred spirits as he was depressed with suicidal tendencies and we often shared with each other the self-destructive things we would do to ourselves or the fact that our lives just royally sucked (except each other, of course).

Three months later I got tired of his depression and clinginess and dumped him.

The rest of the year was more starving, bingeing, laxative abuse, and cutting. I carved the word “FAT” into my arm right before one of the proms I went to. It was at this point as well that my father caught me starving and told me he didn’t want to deal with it anymore. So even if I wanted help, I no longer felt like I was able to ask for it.

Senior Year and Some Recovery

That summer I knew I could no longer live in my eating disorder. I was miserable. So without knowing what it was, I surrendered and became open to eating food no matter what the consequences. The more I ate moderately, the less I binged, and the better my mood became. My depression lessened, and I was much happier than I had ever been before. The boy I was hopelessly in love with, as well as my ex, had left for college and I was finally able to just focus on myself.

There were always the tendencies, but it wasn’t such a vicious cycle. I believe at this point my weight was stable around 96 pounds.

My senior year was wonderful, mostly in part to the people and support that I had around me. It was at this time I met my now husband, and I think he contributed to how happy I was that year.

That summer the drama with my now husband and his ex-wife began, although I didn’t know exactly how much it would impact me until much later.

My First Relapse

Starting college was scary. At that point I had never lived away from home. I had never done my own laundry, made myself dinner, or gotten gas for my own car! I had never paid a bill, made myself appointments, or balanced a check book. Needless to say, all this stress on top of being away from home, I gave myself permission to be anorexic once again. It was at this time I decided that anorexia was a lifestyle choice, and that I was going to accept that it was just apart of who I was and I was going to live with it forever. Until I started seeing my now husband.

I don’t remember exactly how much weight I lost (it wasn’t a lot) but I think my weight was around 85 pounds for a long time. At this point I was with my husband, and I didn’t feel the urgency to lose a bunch of weight. I also, once again, would have felt guilty for doing it because I just couldn’t lie to him. I think I must have been in some heavy denial, because as much as I told myself I didn’t have anorexia anymore, I was still only eating one meal a day. But I had been on this anorexic path for such a long time that I felt one meal a day was normal for me. I can’t believe my body functioned with one meal for so long.

My Second and Worse Relapse

In 2006 I started an eating disorder Web site. To get more traffic, I searched out girls with eating disorders on a popular social networking site. Needless to say, the profiles of these girls triggered me and I started one of my own. At first it started out as an experiment. I told myself if I could just beat my lowest weight in high school, I would have the satisfaction of knowing I was disciplined enough to do so and then I could go back to eating normally.

Well, I ended up beating my lowest weight by two pounds, which put me at 78 pounds. I tried to eat a sandwich to prove to myself I could go back to eating normally. This ended badly and I knew I had royally fucked up.

My family noticed how skinny I was although did not state much concern. But I knew I needed help and asked my father to pay for me to go into outpatient treatment. He reluctantly agreed, again, but this time he was willing to be a little more open minded. It was also around this time my husband and I were battling pretty constantly, so life wasn’t that great.

Outpatient and Residential Treatment

I don’t want to get too much in depth with my experiences in these places. If you find that you need to know, feel free to contact me. I will say that outpatient just wasn’t working for me (I tried getting a way with every little thing in hopes of somehow keeping my eating disorder) and residential was a whirlwind of emotions, battles, tears, frustrations, fights, pain, fear, and anger. But at the same time I learned a lot of great things and met a lot of great people.

After six weeks I came home. I weighed 93 pounds. And I was determined to stick with recovery this time ’round.

Third Relapse and My Rock Bottom

After leaving residential I finished my outpatient program and stayed in therapy for quite a while. But at this point I slowly lost ten pounds but still felt like I was “in recovery.” My therapist however disagreed and told me that if I didn’t start going to 12-step meetings, she wouldn’t be able to see me anymore. This got my butt moving and I eventually tried some out.

I was striking out with the meetings I attended but was desperate to continue seeing my counselor. I knew I was back in ED behavior AND the self-harm tendencies were back.

Anyway — a couple weeks later is when my house burned down. And it was then I finally, finally hit rock bottom. My relationship with my husband was toxic, I wasn’t eating, I was cutting myself, I was out of control with anger and rage, and I felt so mentally unstable it was ridiculous. I knew I had to do some major changing or else I was going to lose everything.

Overeaters Anonymous

I finally found a meeting that fit…and the rest was history. Long story short — it made my life totally better. At some point I finally surrendered the food and weight, and was able to be abstinent from anorexia for two years.

Fourth Relapse to the Present

In the summer of 2010 I got a job that didn’t allow me to go to my regular meetings. I eventually felt like I didn’t need them anyway and stopped going completely. At this time I also felt like I was gaining too much weight and began a “healthy” diet. I ended up losing 16 pounds, six more than my intended weight loss goal, and decided I was actually in a relapse.

Since then I’ve continued to lose weight, but have been stable now for almost a year. As for recovery, I’d say I’m “in” recovery for those around me, but realistically, I don’t believe I am any closer to attaining recovery than I was before I ever entered treatment. I believe I’m managing it to the best of my ability, but still have ambitions of losing more weight. I still feel like recoery is an option for me, just now at the moment. I feel sad it has come to this, especially as this blog started out as a pro-recovery blog. I feel like I’ve let a lot of readers down, however, this relapse is still apart of my journey.

If you made it this far in my story — bravo. I hope you found something you could relate to. Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or insights.