Triggering: Why did your eating disorder start?

[Kindred]

Motivation from this thread adn the belief that sharing stories can help, massively.

Why did you start being disordered about food? When? Did anything trigger it?

For me it was a mixture of wanting to be physically smaller so I was protected, and so I had an excuse to myself to fail. If I didn't get 100% on a test, I'd soothe myself by saying I had an excuse, I had Bigger Things Going On and that it was understandable I wasn't on top form. I think I just needed something to blame all my mistakes on.

Your turn

[Fenzy]

For me it was a mixture of loneliness and wanting to be thinner. I was alone a lot at my house and I felt that there was nothing really for me to focus on. I wanted there to be something significant about me that people would notice. I was also just really curious about the concept of an eating disorder because I would watch documentaries on mental health and stuff like that. I wish I had never gotten into it but I feel like I would have sooner or later because I really just didn't like my body at all. Not eating was such an easy and fast way to lose weight. I'm still fighting to not slip back into that lifestyle.

But yeah, overall, just the aspect of loneliness and needing to feel something is what fueled the disordered eating.

Great thread idea <3

[Bem]

Personally, I was always the chubby kid, and got mocked. It began with me skipping lunch in school when I didn't have time because I didn't notice the difference. Then, I started going to the gym, lost over a stone, and had people start to notice and comment, which spurred me on to eat less and less, lie that I was eating fine, stop eating in school, become a bit obsessed. It got to the stage where I thought being skinny, being small, would solve al my problems, and if not, at least it gave me a reason to be screwed up. I'm a fraction of the weight I was when I was a foot shorter, but I still see myself as the chubby kid who everyone thought was too fat to be pretty.

[Astrophile.]

I felt unstable, insecure, and disgusting. I wanted control, and I felt as though not eating would be a good sense of control while making me thin and beautiful. That never happened, and I don't suggest it at all. It became a wild and dangerous addiction. So. Yeah. That's really all.

[Le Papillon]

for me, there were multiple tiggers. I had been.. larger for most of my life due to my asthma, and i wanted to lose weight to see if it would help that. There was also constant bullying from everyone(friends, family, strangers, bullies, ect). That made me feel disgusting, and I wanted to fix it. So when I started eating healthier and excersising, I ended up micromanaging and thus, an ED developed.

[mindflower]

I like the idea of this thread, just being able to talk about it.

I am currently recovering from an eating disorder, EDNOS, and I think what started it was seeing all of my beautiful friends, and how not only was I attracted to them, but were the guys that I liked as well (I'm pansexual). I have struggled with eating on/off for the last year and a half now, and it gets worst when I stop SH for a while.
It sounds weird, but when one is in control, the other is insane.
Not fun.
Meh.

[Celaena-Sardothian]

The day before I specifically remember thinking that I wasn't going to eat I had seen one of my friends mum's in the supermarket and she said that I'd lost weight and that I was looking good. I actually hadn't lost weight (not purposely anyway) but that compliment felt so good. I wanted more people to say that to me. And, I figured, if I can lose weight without trying, then I'd be able to lose even more if I was trying! Then it kind of turned into an alternative to SH.

Originally Posted by Harlequin.

If I didn't get 100% on a test, I'd soothe myself by saying I had an excuse, I had Bigger Things Going On and that it was understandable I wasn't on top form. I think I just needed something to blame all my mistakes on.

This was a huge factor in why my eating disorder started. I didn't do very well academically during my freshman year of high school and I would often use food as an excuse to help myself feel better. I secretly wanted people to find out about my disordered eating because then they would "understand" why I was doing so poorly and help me. Of course, no one ever did find out about it because there wasn't really any visible evidence and I kept it hidden. I was a binger and sometimes a purger, so I never lost a lot of weight.

Other factors were loneliness and anxiety. I felt really inadequate when I first started high school, being in a new place and not really knowing anybody, so I turned to food to console me. I would try to restrict during the day, only to be so famished by the time that I got home that I would binge. Ever since I was little, binging has been my emotional outlet. I remember being a young girl and devouring boxes of my sister's Girl Scout Cookies and downing cartons of ice cream. The purging piece came in when I was older (15) and I started to become afraid of the possible weight gain. (Although I was always a normal weight growing up, if not a little underweight.)

As others mentioned, it was also about control, even though my binging left me feeling totally out of control. Quite the conundrum, eh? But whenever there was any intense emotion I didn't know how to cope with, I'd turn to food. Especially anger. If I was angry, I would binge and purge as a kind of silent "F* you" to whomever was upsetting me. I realize now that I was hurting no one but myself, but at the time it seemed like the "perfect" solution.

So: control, communication, anger, and an excuse.

[Alice_99]

I had always been made fun of for my weight in elementary/middle school and I felt really fate because I ate food at lunch with my anorexic friends and I felt like a fatty.... Ever since then I've struggled with my weight and I'm easily triggered. I hate it and I'm so weak... Someone plz message me

[Validity]

All my life I was a particularly picky eater.

But I think I started because I felt like it was the only way to try and get attention from someone whom left me. But then it didn't matter to me that attention, I wanted to get smaller and smaller, and then I just started doing what I do.

Jay.

There were a lot of factors that contributed to it. I always struggled with my weight and with my eating in general and this caused my weight to yoyo. As a younger child I would skip meals just because it felt good to not have no food inside and then as I got older I would over eat. I eventually started gaining weight which led to me compensating by not eating and it turned into a cycle of binging, starving and then I eventually I started not purging.

There were emotional factors that went into it such as my need for perfection and control and some other stuff.

Honestly, I've never been diagnosed so I really cannot say I have an Eating Disorder. Although it's likely that I have EDNO's so I'll just share a bit.

Ever since I was around 10 or 11 I've hated my self-image, weight and appearance so to fix the weight problem I had with myself I just started skipping meals as much as possible because I felt so ashamed in my body. I wanted to be thin and pretty like all the other girls you see on TV and movies. I wanted to feel pretty and special... Since self-hatred is a big issue for me I thought this would fix all my problems. And honestly, a small part of starving myself is the feeling of control as well. I feel thin when I have no food in my stomach.

[simplyjill]

My eating disorder started when I was nine. I binged and purged. I got really badly bullied last year, and I stopped eating alltogether

[hocus pocus]

I had always hated my weight. I'm muscular, but I've always seen that as fat.

In seventh grade, I became tired of the bullying. So I decided to do something about it. It actually started as anxiety. I had anxiety about going to school and various other things. The anxiety lead to nearly puking on a daily basis and I had a fear of vomiting. So I figured that I might as well not put food into my mouth. After I realized I had lost a lot of weight, I wanted to keep going

EDNOS turned into Atypical Anorexia. I'm not in recovery yet. I'm still considered to be a normal weight, so I haven't gotten as much help.

The problem for me is the number on the scale; to me it's more than just a number. Now it's just an alternative for SI. If one is under control, the other isn't. I always lean on one of the two.

[shebby]

I haven't been diagnosed, but everyone I talk to says I have an ED so whatever. Anyway, I don't even really know why it started. I was the most popular girl in school along with my best friend. We were friends with everyone, they all liked us and we did everything together. So it's not like I was feeling bad about myself or anything. When I was in grade 7 is when it started. I began to lose my appetite and everything. That was also when I started cutting. The main reason why I, as well as others, believe it started was because of my dad. He used to physically and sexually abuse me when I was about 7 years old. As I got older, he began to tell me that I couldn't do things or get a certain haircut because I wasn't skinny or small enough. I haven't talk to that piece of shit in years but my eating problems are still with me and I still struggle with it every day.
So, I guess that's how it happened.