Past eating disorders. *triggering*

manny_bee

sooo.. back in high school i suffered a bout of ed. not hospitalization-85-lbs-dying anorexia. but hair-failling-out-vistion-blurry-dizzy-spells-almost-fainting bad. with the help of some amazing friends i recovered... or rather switched vices. and began secretly binging. so i went from a size 3..... to eventually a size almost 18.
that is a huge. huge. huge. gain. and i have been battling this for years.
well this year i saw a picture of me from easter. around a size 14. and i couldnt take it anymore.
so onto now
i am completely disgusted with myself. i ate so much today. it is taking every ounce of my selfcontrol not to purge. this keeps getting harder and harder. everyday i talk myself into eating because if i dont i wont at all. and if im not concentrating on trying to not not eat, then im gorging myself because the food is there. it's either restrict restrict restric or binge. i'd rather restrict. i can control that. but these binges....well i dont know what to do anymore. i cant cut back my calories anymore than i have and stay healthy. but i cant and i mean i CANT eat anymore. i will end up destroying myself in the gym. i am sure there are some of you out there who have been where im at. please tell me what you do to get by, to lose weight healthy without restricting until youre dizzy or binging and purging when you cant restrict any longer. because i dont know how much more control i have left...

LauraMarie37

This is SUCH a hard battle, and congratulations to you for starting it. It took me three years from the day I acknowledged I had an ED to the day I felt like I had a somehwat normal relationship with food, and even now (7 years later!) I still have times I fall back into negative thought patterns.

I had a book that was super, super helpful in accepting myself and understanding my disorder was not an inherent part of me, like my arm, but a diease I could live without - I'll try to find it tomorrow ans share the title.

But for me, step one was being able to binge and still love myself enough to not purge. To binge and not be so disgusted that I felt like I had to get out of my body. Once I did that, I could move on to becoming healthy in other ways. But that first step took probably a good six months and I gained even more weight. I had to accept that and myself.

Good luck - you can do it!

suzycreamcheese

i just wanted to send a hug, and to wish you lots of strength

xxxx

TheGoktor

sooo.. back in high school i suffered a bout of ed. not hospitalization-85-lbs-dying anorexia. but hair-failling-out-vistion-blurry-dizzy-spells-almost-fainting bad. with the help of some amazing friends i recovered... or rather switched vices. and began secretly binging. so i went from a size 3..... to eventually a size almost 18.
that is a huge. huge. huge. gain. and i have been battling this for years.
well this year i saw a picture of me from easter. around a size 14. and i couldnt take it anymore.
so onto now
i am completely disgusted with myself. i ate so much today. it is taking every ounce of my selfcontrol not to purge. this keeps getting harder and harder. everyday i talk myself into eating because if i dont i wont at all. and if im not concentrating on trying to not not eat, then im gorging myself because the food is there. it's either restrict restrict restric or binge. i'd rather restrict. i can control that. but these binges....well i dont know what to do anymore. i cant cut back my calories anymore than i have and stay healthy. but i cant and i mean i CANT eat anymore. i will end up destroying myself in the gym. i am sure there are some of you out there who have been where im at. please tell me what you do to get by, to lose weight healthy without restricting until youre dizzy or binging and purging when you cant restrict any longer. because i dont know how much more control i have left...

I've never had an ED, so I really have little idea of the torment you are going through but I can imagine how excruciatingly difficult things must be at the moment, and I am so sorry you are suffering. Can you get some form of professional help? Would that be a viable option? Often we really do need others to help us succeed.

You're clearly capable of it - it must have taken a great deal of strength and resilience to kick the anorexia. And OK you gained a new problem in the process, but you *can* do this. You need to believe it though. And remember that you are not alone - let others help you again.

Sending my most heartfelt hugs to you. xx

Sofitness

Hi

I can relate to some of the things you wrote. As I started loosing weight, I've developed myself an ED (it wasn't very severe and I'm still in doubts that it was an ED, though) and even now it's hard for me to cope with the thoughts sometimes.

However it's not my story that I want to talk about. Have you ever heard of Intuitive Eating? I've unfortunately never read it all because I can't order stuff from Amazon, but I did read principles and a few chapters that were free online and even that changed my relationship with food and helped me on my way significantly.
It talks a lot about psychological reason behind bingeing, and most of all, it rejects the diet mentality completely - calorie counting included. I have followed it fully for couple weeks to reconnect with my body, to understand that I'm not a failure for eating over set calorie limit and only me and my body knows what I need, not a calorie needs estimator.
I still follow most of the principles now, and even though I do log my intake and calories in, I do it for my general health and because I want to make sure that I fuel my body in the best possible way, not because I want to beat myself up whenever I eat 1208 calories instead of 1200.
I don't know you or your situation very well, but I admire you very much for your post, because that's something I probably couldn't do back then, and I think that maybe letting go of the scales and calorie obsessions absolutely and focus on how you feel for some time would be the best thing to do (it did wonders to me AND I lost weight without even trying to), because sometimes, calorie counting, when used for wrong reasons, may set you up for the biggest binge episodes.

However you decide, I wish you the best luck on your journey! Be strong and if you'd need anything, feel free to message me.

littlemili

I had an ED when I was 12-13 ish. I lost about 3 stone in as many months. I regained to a normal healthy weight age 15-16. Then got overweight very quickly from some kind of ED-related psychological issues age 17-18 and gained over 2 stone.

This website is quite bad for triggering I think, because it is so much of a numbers control game, and because it is almost competitive if your mind works that way (I join loads of challenges and then if I'm not "best" at losing I get obsessive). I can't offer any help but I can offer some understanding.

My only advice would be to get a lot of friends on here who have good relationships with food, and watch them lose weight while eating and exercising in a "normal" way, that has helped me because I can see how weight loss can just be normal and not take over your life. Unfortunately that's how it feels to me at the moment. If you are really in trouble, please try and confide in someone, be it a friend/parent/partner/doctor/gym trainer. For now, maybe it's best that you DO overcontrol things, but in a limiting way. Eg, decide exactly how many calories and minutes worth of exercise you are "allowed" per week. Ditto calories, but as a minimum value (such as "I will eat at least 1200 calories per day and eat 1400 on exercise days". Also overfocus yourself on getting your nutrients and water. That has helped me hugely to focus my attentions on the healthy aspects of diet rather than the scale or calories.