Quote:
Originally Posted by Shades of Silver
Usually a dissatisfaction with one's body and a deep desire to lose weight is an indication that there is something else going on in their life. It doesn't necessarily have to be about control, per se, but I do think that EDs are a symptom of underlying issues and not all about weight in itself, whether those issues are obvious or not. (Coming from someone who has struggled with bulimia.)
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It would be wrong for you to presume you know what someone elses eating disorder is about, to be frank. Eating disorders tend to be an accumulation of numerous things, control is sometimes one of them, weight is sometimes one of them.
I don't know how to reply to this thread. So I am just going to share this with you.
I did not write it, I read it somewhere online.
A guide to being anorexic
I met Heather, a 13-year-old girl that wanted to become anorexic. Naturally being 17 and having dealt with it in my past I was all too happy to lend her my advice. So this is the story of how I taught a girl to become anorexic.
"Give me a day with her." I told the mother. She was worried sick about her daughter who wanted to become an anorexic. So she agreed to send her daughter with me for just one day. "I hear you want to become anorexic." I said as we drove to my place. "Yeah, so what? Don't try to tell me all the bad things about it and how it will kill me and...." "Oh no you got me all wrong. I'm here to welcome you into the club!" She looked at me shocked and overwhelmed. "What are you talking about?" "I said I'm here to welcome you to the club. I was anorexic once. Now I just recruit new girls." She seemed amazed and stunned.
When we got to my place I gave her a pen and paper. "Now write down everything you enjoy and love in life." She looked at me blankly. "Go ahead." She did as I told her. While she was writing the phone rang. It was Shawna. She and Nikki were going out for pizza and wanted to know if I would come. I told them about Heather and that I wanted her to come too. They said fine and so I got stuff ready to go. "All done." She said laying down the pen. "Let's see. you've got friends, family, and guys. Is that all? Let's put down life and your future too. Ok?" She nodded. "Ok now we're going out with some of my friends to eat pizza. I hope you don't mind." "No not at all." She said smiling. I slipped the paper into my purse and we left for the pizza place.
When we arrived Shawna and Nikki were waiting with the pizza already on the table. We sat down and I reached for a slice. Heather also reached for one. "You can't do that remember? You're anorexic." I said to her pushing back her hand. "But you're eating!" She exclaimed. "That's beside the point. Besides I just recruit anorexics now, I'm not one." "UH!!!!" She slouched back in her chair. In a few more minutes five young teens walked into the pizza place. They all seemed to recognize Heather and came over. "Hey!" She exclaimed. "Oh hi are you Heathers friends?" I asked them. "Yeah. You wanna sit with us Heather?" one of the girls asked. Heather started to get up but I held her arm. "I'm sorry but she can't hang out with you anymore." I said returning to my pizza. "Why?" One of the others exclaimed. "Because she's anorexic now and she can't have friends." I said. "What are you talking about?" Heather shouted. "No need to get upset. You may as well start out right. Anorexics don't have time for friends. Do they Nikki?" I said. "No you didn't have time for us." She agreed. "Sorry Heather but anorexia is your only friend now. You want to stay thin don't you?" She lowered her head. "Sorry guys, maybe some other time."
On the drive home I went very slowly. We passed a couple on a bridge kissing softly. "You see that Heather?" I asked. "Yeah." "Well mark guys off your list because you won't have any now." I said. "Don't anorexics have boyfriends?" She asked. "Some do. But they don't really have time for love. They're too busy thinking about their weight." Then we passed an old woman sitting on her front porch. "Look at that Heather. At least you won't have to worry about being like that." I said. "But she looks happy." Heather said upset. "True but you won't be happy or old." I said. "What do you mean?" She asked. "You'll die before your old enough to even have a future. Speaking of which get that piece of paper out of my purse, will you?" She did as I asked. "Ok now take the pen in the dashboard and mark off friends, guys, life, and future." She looked up at me. "All that's left is family." I looked toward her. "Mark that off too." "WHAT!" She screamed. "Well you can't expect to love them can you?" I said. "I love my family ok? And if you can't deal with that I don't care!" She began screaming and banged her fist into the door. By that time I had stopped in front of her house. "But you won't have time for." "Don't tell me that because I will! I will have time and you know why? Because you're crazy! Being thin isn't worth all that!" She screamed as she got out of the car and slammed the door.
An eating disorder is not something you want. An eating disorder is not something you can control. When you're sick you have nothing. Its depressing, isolating, consuming.
You have this: You are thin. Whoop-de-fucking-doo.
I'll just show you this article which I wrote probably 2 years ago now, it just shows you what life is like with an eating disorder.
You can't win medals for being the best at bulimia. Only coffins.
I get out of bed, an achievement in itself, over the last few years there have been many days when I did not. I wash and get dressed. I've taken to crying when I look in the mirror, certain I look awful in every item of clothing I own. I go downstairs, I eat, I do not throw up. I drag myself to college, to work, to see my friends. I put myself through the paces in the hope that one day, it won't be such a chore.
It's far from perfect. Each day I struggle with my own body, my own thoughts. Each day I am reminded of the thin barrier that separates me from the rest of the world. Each day I realise, all over again, that I'll never be normal. I'll never be able to eat a pizza without wondering what the toilets are like. I'll never be able to eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet without the urge to keep eating and eating. I'll never be able to see my reflection without wishing that my cheeks, my arms, my thighs were smaller. I'll never lose the temptation to go back to how it was.
This is what recovery feels like. It's not health. It's not some magical revelation. It's just me, remembering to put one foot in front of the other.
I didn't see it as a big deal. I didn't think of it as disgusting or appalling. It was simply something I had to do. Ironically, it was the people trying to help me that gave me the idea. I told them I starved myself in an attempt to make myself thin. I say 'attempt' because it never worked, I never truly managed to stop eating. Everyone eats, even anorectics. I considered that failure. They considered me a liar. I was set aside, sent home with a few informative books and left to ponder over my situation.
In those books I read about bulimia, about how people ate and ate and then clawed that same food out of their stomach with their left hand, with the end of a toothbrush, with sheer will power. I wasn't thinking "how upsetting", the way any sane 11 year old would. I was thinking "what a good idea". I was sure I'd just stumbled across the only way to eat and stay thin. Here was a way I could eat what I wanted without feeling guilty, gaining weight or losing control. If I were in English class right now, I'd call that dramatic irony.
Of course, once I started reading I couldn't stop. Biographies, medical journals, biology textbooks -- I binged on books in the same way that I now binged on food. I can remember being asked how I knew everything I did. I shrugged a reply. "I read a lot”, I said.
"Girls don't read those disorder books in their room
to derive strength or inspiration, but to learn
the tricks, the tools, the tactics on how to burn
away more beautifully."
More recently there have pro-anorexia sites and eating disorder forums. I'm far more knowledgeable on the subject of bulimia nervosa than I'll ever be on empirical formulas, yet it will hardly contribute to my University applications. I can tell you which foods can be purged easiest, how to ensure you've got everything up, how to prevent your teeth rotting. I can recite the calories of any given food, yet I cannot remember my timetables. I have a pool of information in my mind that I wish I could forget.
Time is a peculiar thing, possibly the only constant thing in life, yet strangely deceptive. The time spent on bathroom floors seemed to crawl by, yet looking back they blur, they raced by whilst I was oblivious to everything happening. Days, years, events -- they've all blended into one. My memory, now, is inconsistent and unreliable.
After time, my bulimia was no longer a secret. I forgot to lie, I forgot the tricks of the trade, I forgot to hide what I was doing. It was just too much effort. I admitted it, openly. In a complete reversal of roles my mother started tricking me. Milk in my XX calorie a mug hot chocolate, feeding me avocados, cream in XX Calorie a bowl soup, any means necessary to get nutrition into my tiny frame. By this point I was having counselling. But by this point, I was crazy. I hardly slept, hardly kept anything down, hardly felt. I dragged razor blades across my arms in an attempt to feel something, anything. I took paracetamol after paracetamol to prove to myself that I was human, human enough to die. Now aware of what fat looked like, I tried to cut it out of my body.
I tried to die.
Numerous hospital admissions followed. They weren't helpful, they weren't detrimental. They were just somewhere I stayed, where I was forced to eat, until they released me to return to surviving on crackers and toilet bowls. My vomiting sounds politely ignored.
October 16th 2006.
A close friend committed suicide.
I realised I had to change.
When sick, I turned away from health. Ran in the opposite direction as if sickness would prove my worth. The damage to my kidneys, the murmur in my heart -- it proved I was human. I can be damaged if I chose to be. Sickness was my perfection. Health would have been failure.
Her death changed this. I realised there is nothing to gain from sickness, aside from death. You can't win medals for being the best at bulimia. Only coffins. I realised, eventually, that sickness is suicide. Health became my success. I idolised health as I once idolised bones. Health took over my dreams.
At 16, I'd known my community team for five years. My nurse gave me all the support she could. These days, we spend an hour a week laughing. It's the best therapy I could ask for. But, at 16, I realised: I had to reach health myself. Recovery is a path that's only one person wide.
Before I recovered I had nothing. I had food and I had the toilet, I existed in the twilight zone somewhere between the two. Progress into a more meaningful existence was slow and painful; I had to fight my way out from the inside. I forced myself into life, forced myself to keep busy. I put myself in a position where I had other things to do than eat and puke all day. I managed to keep a meal down, then two. It took over a year, but I finally started to see my own potential. I found life and discovered I enjoyed it. I found a way to deal with life without the toilet bowl. I found a way to exist outside bulimia; I found that to be more enjoyable.
It's not perfect. I will never know what I could have been without my illness, but I did, and I do, survive. I fought against bulimia and I won. I remember to get out of bed. I remember to put one foot in front of the other.
This, is only the beginning.