"Everything fits you so well."
"You are so lucky for being able to eat anything you want."
"Well you don't have to worry about food."
"You are so skinny you fit into everything."
"How are you so thin?"
"Skinny people are always cold."
"You don't even have to worry about food."
"Do you work out?"
Cold. Painful. Staring at myself in the mirror. Comments, that make the eating disorder hold on to you. Avoiding food. "I already ate. I am going out later. I don't feel hungry at the moment. I already ate, I don't like this. Doesn't matter. I would just like to get something fresh. I ate so much yesterday."
I feel how my hip-bones sink into the mattress. I can see my fingers closing around my arm. My face is skeleton-like and skin is gray-ish. I am tired, so tired. I feel the need to constantly walk and to know how many steps I have taken. The next day I have to walk even more. Burn more calories.
I get upset when I have to eat unplanned food. For example there is cake at work for someone's birthday. Candy to be handed out at a meeting. Cake offered by a friend when I am visiting. Coundting steps and calories. Working out later because I ate "too much". This is my every day life.
This has been my every day for a long time already. And it still is, even though I am at the place that should help me. But I am scared of change. I like my thin body, I really do. And why? Because I still get compliments. I see people who envy this kind of body. I have left an impression that everything is easy and that I am naturally really think like this.
How did it all start? How has it come to this? I have three theories.
FIRSTLY. I was always the bigger one in my group of friends. The one who never fit next to others on a sofa. The one who was always too big to borrow someone else's clothes. The one who never went to stores, because she did not want to see, how numbers 40 and 42 were the ones mum picked out disappointedly. Mum's comments about her still being size 36 or S. I wasn't that small. Finally others did understand it as well, but previous behaviour left an impression hard to shake off.
SECONDLY. I went on a trip to Norway and of course there were pictures taken. I wanted to upload them, blog about it. But seeing these pics it also hit me that... I was a bit bigger than even I myself was used to. My face was so round, my belly was bloated. I felt so uncomfortable when I looked at the pictures. If only I had made peace with my face, but no.
THIRDLY. My face. My teeth are not straight and pretty. My eyes don't look interesting, they are just normal, blue-grey-ish colour. My nose - bigger than average and my bad skin, big dark pores, acne. But mostly my teeth as they are the most difficult to change and it requires money, a lot of it, and time, even more of it. Thus I wanted people to pay attention to me for other reasons. I only saw aspects o myself which I hated.
I stopped adding sugar to my tea and coffee. The beginning was so small and innocent. That was, though, all it took to spiral to where I am now. I am so obsessed with my body that I cannot even enjoy life any more. No fully.
At the beginning it wasn't too bad, though. I was healthier for sure. I enjoyed the taste of pure tea and coffee. I didn't miss all the bread and chocolate and cookies. Being healthier gave me some purpose. My weight dropped off fast and I didn't change much in my eating or working out regimen.
I still ate everything I wanted, for example it was mandatory that my Friday date nights had huge pizza from Pizzakiosk. We also added some ice cream and chocolate to our date nights. Weight was still dropping off. I wish it just kept going like this.
At one point I got too restrictive. I think everything was okay until I ran a marathon, which also showed that I was pretty strong despite my weight dropping quite a bit.
But of course there had to come the time where I got too much. Something changed in my head. I before my weight was just a number, what I was interested in sometimes, then from that moment, it meant too much, it was my main focus. I was okay if the first numbers didn't change, but for example if 53 kg became 52, of course it was no allowed to pass 52,9 kg.
I suppose most of my friends understood something was wrong. They saw if before I admitted it to myself.
I don't have strength for running any more, not to mention working out in other ways. I wish I could go back. Back to where I was; when I could run 5k just as "easy warmup" before Body Combat class. The time where I could have entire pizza without dying of guilt. The time where my clothes actually fit me. The time where my bloat was not issue, when I could eat pasta or whatever I wanted. Just... give me back this me.
I have never really told anyone this. I have no clue how many people know or suspect how extreme I sometimes was. When I only worked out in gym using machines that would show how many calories you burned. When I had to walk 10k steps every single day. How I kept looking up healthy cake recipes instead of just enjoying a piece of cake. I don't know how I can get over this, it is engraved into my brain.
It is so difficult to be in the hospital. I eat more, move less. Nurses write it all down, the things that I eat. I am being weighed but not told the weight. I feel as if I have gained tons. I want to get rid of this eating disorder, but I am so used to it. Yes, you heard it, I am used to anorexia and it is no joke letting it go.
Control that is missing from my life is sort of found in my ED. I have picked it to fill the void in myself. Weird, I know.
Maybe next post will be still of my ED, but I am surely going to write more about the treatment I am getting here, too. Now... all this is out and in the open. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Thank you. For reading. For maybe understanding me a bit more. I could never muster the courage to tell something like this from face to face. So... yeah.
Tomorrow I have another ECT; it will be interesting as I am proper having amnesia currently.
But I wanted to say one more thing - I hope none of my friends or relatives ever has to go through the same. I really hope so.
