I’m a recovering anorexic.
Also, due to med changes and endocrine issues, I’ve gained over thirty pounds in two months. I feel stuffed. Disgusting. Trapped inside a fat suit. I hate going out in public; I feel–No, I know people are judging my appearance and internally commenting on how much weight I’ve gained.
I’m repelled by my appearance, but I don’t avoid mirrors; I stare at my reflection as punishment. I feel smothered by my own body…like my fat is going to suffocate me in my sleep.
The cruelest joke is that after the fat kid got an eating disorder (and I was really good at anorexia, I mean I was a functioning anorexic, and I’ll explain what that is in a moment), and lost weight, and then recovered from that and maintained a healthy weight for years, this happens. I haven’t changed anything…my eating habits, my activity level. The fat kid who got skinny blows up again and there is NOTHING I can do.
I have cut out bread. I have cut out sugar. But the danger in every calorie I count is the need to Play the Game.
Anorexia.
If you don’t or haven’t had an eating disorder, then you won’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m going to explain it the best way I can. The eating disorder is like a lifestyle…a voice. And this lifestyle is the ONLY way to be…everyone else is wrong. They’re going to die of heart disease, obesity, etc. You don’t share with them your secret to weight loss because they wouldn’t understand it. It’s just for you.
Complicating my issues is that I also had exercise bulimia, so the weight melted off.
The dragon started waking late last year, and I was far smaller than I am now. It was after one of my doctor’s appointments (ex doctor now). She called me back to her office. I thought there was something seriously wrong, and naturally, having anxiety, began to panic. She told me she was concerned about my weight. At the time I had gained five pounds in six months (she would really love me now). She asked me where I was eating lunch, berated my choices, and sent me on my way with a diet sheet.
The diet sheet was incredibly restrictive. No sugar. No bread. No gluten. The main component of the diet was No, of which you could eat all you wanted. I was determined to be successful, so I tackled it with fervor.
Thaaaat’s when things started to go slightly sideways. Recovering anorexics cannot do restrictive dieting, and I was so stunned I didn’t have time to tell her this would not be good for me. Things went down hill quickly.
You see, I’m a little too good at dieting. The dragon, who has hibernated thankfully for many years now, can awake at any time. The obsessive thoughts started. It’s not hard for me to give up anything once I decide to do it. With the dragon’s help, I can do anything. So I gave up bread. Wouldn’t touch it. Wouldn’t look at it. Then I started to creatively define other foods as bread too, until the bread column was so full I was only eating proteins and drinking water.
I realized I was in trouble when I was at church and couldn’t take the communion wafer.
Anorexics all have their regimen. When I was fully embroiled in the disease, I focused on fat grams. My magic number was six. Six grams. Six grams per day. That’s all I wold allow myself. I didn’t worry about calories so much as fat grams. I had reasoned in my mind that fat grams made you fat (anorexia also doesn’t make a lot of sense most of the time) and restricting fat grams was the key to staying thin.
Also, I ate little bits of food at a time, all throughout the day. Several small meals a day is good, but I ate maybe, a half cup at a time. And I’m talking a half cup of green beans (from the can, no seasoning). And because the world didn’t conform to my dietary lifestyle (because they were wrong, obviously) I took my food with me in a insulated bag.
This was all well and good and like I said I was a functioning anorexic. I am a petite person, so while I was super thin I didn’t necessarily look sickly. I didn’t feel ill (although I stayed hypoglycemic). I wasn’t hospitalized, and I never went a day without eating. Eating such small amounts throughout the day left me in a perpetual state of hunger until my stomach shrunk enough to adapt to my eating habits and again, all was well.
Until I began focusing on other aspects of the nutritional label. Calories suddenly became important. Calories became CRUCIAL. I began restricting calories and fat. When anorexics start restricting across categories, that’s when things get messy.
This rocked on well into my college years. Most of my waking mind was spent meal planning. Where could I eat, what could I eat, and if I was with a group, what could I order that would prevent my companions from saying something about my awkward habits.
Until it all just became desperately too much.
Fast forward fifteen years. Here I am at my heaviest weight since high school, with anxiety and depression, thinking about restrictive dieting and the last time I tried it.
The communion wafer. The obsessive thoughts. My poor body image and my fat self.
I don’t have answers. I wish I did. I want to lose weight, but I need someone to help me do it the right way…a way that won’t throw me back into a spiraling descent of a not great time in my life. I have a hell of a lot of history to reconcile with this Stay Puft shell. I hope it comes in time.