Inspirational notes from a recovering anorexic/bulimic/compulsive overeater

[T82]

Hi,

I've been flipping through the posts on this massive bulletin board, trying to see where I can dip my toe in and get involved...usually, you'd find me in the chat room on this site but I felt like something different today.

I came across this particular part of the BB and really fell like I can relate to those of you who are or have suffered from any type of disordered eating. I went from being healthy once upon a time to being anorexic, then bulimic, and then a compulsive overeater. Now, after a couple of years of struggling through all that, I have spent all of 2004 recovering from all of my disordered eating. All I can think of to do here is tell my story and maybe someone out there can see themselves in what I was/am going through...

I started off restricting foods to lose weight. I didnt count calories. I just plain didn't let myself eat certain foods. The "bad" foods of course: chocolate, candy, breads, baked goods, chips. My father had just passed away and I had thrown myself into my first year at university. This was the start of me hating myself...

I went through 2 years of not allowing foods. There was constant voice in my head saying "don't eat that! You'll get so fat!" At first, I lost weight and was at the low end of a healthy weight for my height. But after a while, I was so starved that I started giving in to eating all those "bad" foods.

Over the next year, I struggled with constantly wanting to lose weight despite the fact that I was at a healthy weight for my height. I ate fairly badly, started bingeing on all those "bad" foods I hadn't let myself eat for a couple of years. I started to feel huge guilt for eating these foods and started finding ways to purge myself of them: over-exercise, fasting, and throwing up.

Over that year, I started to gain weight quite rapidly considering my body had been in starvation for so long. Everything I ate turned to fat on my body. The second I would eat a "bad" food, I would binge figuring I had screwed up anyway. I started having a hard time keeping up with all the bingeing I was doing in terms of purging. Eventually, after scaring myself by almost taking ipecac to throw up (a potentially deadly thing), I stopped purging but continued bingeing.

The bingeing got more and more intense. I was a bottomless pit and I hated everything I had become. I felt as though I were fat, disgusting, alone. I had moved away from my family and isolated myself in a new city. I became so depressed I couldn't even make it out of bed some days. Showering sometimes zapped all the energy I had. I didn't want to see people or talk to anyone. I was drowing myself in food - alone.

The excessive bingeing was interrupted by very sporatic fasts; an attempt to still feel as though I exercised some form of control over myself. During December of 2003, I had been fasting for 10 days straight on nothing but water and gum. One of those days, I got to my bachelor apartment and collapsed from exhaustion. I was a wreck and called my mom (who lives 4 hours away). She told me to come home. I got home the next day...

Over Christmas, I didn't want to see any of my relatives like I usually do. I didn't go to Christmas dinner. I stayed at my mom's place alone in my pyjamas, bingeing on chocolates. I still felt like a bottomless pit. Nothing could satisfy me no matter how full or fat I got. That was the turning point. I realized I was killing myself slowly. I had gotten so far from the girl I once was and I wanted to start finding my way back.

I stayed with my mom for a few weeks after Christmas before coming back to my own place. I needed the support. I made the decision to start taking an antidepressant - Prozac, under the supervision of my doctor. I also decided I definately had things to talk about, so I started therapy. Specifically, I signed up for a grief counselling group because I knew all this went back to when my father had passed away 3 years ago.

It was slow but it got better and better. I stopped going to university for a program I hated and was just doing for my dad. I started working at a job I like and am good at. I did A LOT of therapy and talking with various people; my therapist, a new friend I had made, the people in the grief counselling group. Febuary was easier than January and March was easier than Febuary. That's how it went...

Now it's November and and I find myself looking back to nearly a year ago when I was collapsing in my apartment here, alone and so so down. I am still taking the Prozac; I am talking to my doctor about tapering off of it in the new year. In the later part of this year, I have started exercising again like I used to and it has made me feel even better. I have UN-isolated myself and am now making friends in this new city I live in. I have a new boyfriend and I let him look at me naked with the lights on. I have totally re-built my self worth, self respect, and attitude towards weight.

Furthermore, my weight has stabalized as I have been "allowing" myself to eat whatever I want for the past year. At first, yes, that means I did binge a lot. But once it sunk in that I could eat more chocolate tomorrow if I wanted, I started wanting less and less of it. I still eat chocolate nearly every day but it takes little to truly satisfy me. I have gone from 140 at my highest weight during last Christmas to a current 119. I haven't been on any diet. I don't count calories or carbs. I don't weigh myself once a day, or once a week, or even once a month. In fact, I don't own a scale.

I see myself in a lot of you that have shared your stories here. Or those that I have talked to in the chat room. I know that if I hadn't turned around last Christmas, I would be heavier, more miserable, and still dying inside now, today.

Part of my turning point were books that I read early this year. The author is Geneen Roth and she has about 5 books out now about compulsive overeating and the like. I learnt so much from reading about her experiences. I recommend her books to everyone who suffers from this sort of thing; they are what turned me around and kept me going when it got really tough. And it was really tough A LOT. It still is some days.

I am posting this here, on a low carb site, because I kept trying to do low carb when I was sick and desperate to lose weight. I'm not knocking low carb at all, but I know that at the point I was at, no eating plan was going to help me whether it be low fat, low carb, or whatever. I had to really truly start from the inside and work out. I didn't start to lose weight until I truly started accepting myself at whatever weight I was at to begin with. I was trying to "fix" my disordered eating by going on diet after diet. As you know, it just got worse, and I just kept getting fatter. So I'm not out to put down Atkins or any other plan for eating. But I do want to bring to your attention that your weight problems may go much deeper than just trying to "get some willpower" or "find that plan that's right for you." The plan you may need right now is a soul-searching one rather than one that focuses on your weight.

Most sincerely,
T82

[MaryMary]

T82

Thanks so much for sharing your story. I have read Ms Roth's books and agree that resolving inner conflict along with spiritual healing goes a long way to finding permanent relief from disordered eating.

Wishing you the best in your journey.

[maybell]

Hi T82!
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I definitely relate to a lot of it and I will search out Ms. Roth's books.