Post by JeRegretRiens on Jan 4, 2009 17:39:06 GMT -5
One of the many things that makes me tick and makes me (in this instance unfortunately) who I am is the eating disorder I share my life with. I'm an active member of the pro-ana movement, but I'll get to that in a little bit. Please don't make assumptions. I want to post up a whole overview of my views on food, versus what I -wish- I had as a relationship with food, and basically let everyone pick it apart as and how you wish.
I have never been clinically diagnosed with a disorder. But when I wake up in the morning with food on my mind, I go through the day with food on my mind, go to sleep with food on my mind, I feel crushing guilt every time I put something in my mouth, and usually vomit anything I swallow, I can't accept this as 'normal'. But because I haven't been given a clinical diagnosis, I prefer to not give it a clinical name. I cannot go more than five minutes without my thoughts turning to food, what I plan to eat, how I plan to prepare it, then successively, the guilt associated with something passing my lips, and deciding that no, I really didn't want that anyway. And then the cycle repeats. Until there's a snag in the cycle, the guilt doesn't kick in fast enough, I decide I'll eat something I'm 'allowed' to eat, and I eat. Except I lose control, I eat easily upwards of 4, 000 calories in one sitting, and I purge it.
My attitude...even worse. I used to carry a body fat analyzer in my handbag, and check it periodically throughout the day. I only stopped because it broke and I haven't found a new one. The scale is my god, though I'm not allowed to own one since my accomplishments for the previous day are decided entirely by that little number. If it's gone up, I have failed. If it's gone down, then nothing changes.
I am clinically overweight, I am over 33% body fat. I buy my clothes in the plus size section. I had been larger, doing more binging, less purging, no restricting. But when I tipped the scale over 200 lbs, I switched. Little food, therefore little puking. And so it goes.
I have a goal weight, and mini-goals in between, even rewards for when I reach my mini goals. As for when I reach my ultimate goal...I have no idea what I'll do. I'd like to think that once I get my binge cycle under control, and manage to lose weight all the way down there, I'll have 'beaten' binging all on my own, and I'll be normal. Except...I think that's naive. There's a lot of information on the pro-ana movement, and most of it is either scaremongering, or little reactionary sites made -because- of the scaremongering. But if you dig deep, you might find us on the internet. Somewhere, those of us that really are the pro-ana movement, we're hiding very quietly in the shadows, hoping nobody will find us and confuse us with the scaremongers' false image of us. But what we are...we're a little group of scared people, mostly young women, who wake up each day and think, "One day...I am going to die because of the demons in my head." And that more than the food we supposedly despise scares us stiff. So we band together in little groups where we can find ways of coping with our eating disorders, ways that aren't as terrifying as going to a hospital and being forced to eat and keep it down before we address what's going wrong in our heads that's making us not able to do that.
I wish I could just accept that food is not the enemy, eat a balanced diet, exercise a bit more, and call that good. I wish I could restrain myself when there's sweets around. I wish I could have a moderate, respectable amount of said sweets and not rush to the bathroom. And I wish I didn't need help to get there.
But...I do. And I haven't found that help yet.
I have never been clinically diagnosed with a disorder. But when I wake up in the morning with food on my mind, I go through the day with food on my mind, go to sleep with food on my mind, I feel crushing guilt every time I put something in my mouth, and usually vomit anything I swallow, I can't accept this as 'normal'. But because I haven't been given a clinical diagnosis, I prefer to not give it a clinical name. I cannot go more than five minutes without my thoughts turning to food, what I plan to eat, how I plan to prepare it, then successively, the guilt associated with something passing my lips, and deciding that no, I really didn't want that anyway. And then the cycle repeats. Until there's a snag in the cycle, the guilt doesn't kick in fast enough, I decide I'll eat something I'm 'allowed' to eat, and I eat. Except I lose control, I eat easily upwards of 4, 000 calories in one sitting, and I purge it.
My attitude...even worse. I used to carry a body fat analyzer in my handbag, and check it periodically throughout the day. I only stopped because it broke and I haven't found a new one. The scale is my god, though I'm not allowed to own one since my accomplishments for the previous day are decided entirely by that little number. If it's gone up, I have failed. If it's gone down, then nothing changes.
I am clinically overweight, I am over 33% body fat. I buy my clothes in the plus size section. I had been larger, doing more binging, less purging, no restricting. But when I tipped the scale over 200 lbs, I switched. Little food, therefore little puking. And so it goes.
I have a goal weight, and mini-goals in between, even rewards for when I reach my mini goals. As for when I reach my ultimate goal...I have no idea what I'll do. I'd like to think that once I get my binge cycle under control, and manage to lose weight all the way down there, I'll have 'beaten' binging all on my own, and I'll be normal. Except...I think that's naive. There's a lot of information on the pro-ana movement, and most of it is either scaremongering, or little reactionary sites made -because- of the scaremongering. But if you dig deep, you might find us on the internet. Somewhere, those of us that really are the pro-ana movement, we're hiding very quietly in the shadows, hoping nobody will find us and confuse us with the scaremongers' false image of us. But what we are...we're a little group of scared people, mostly young women, who wake up each day and think, "One day...I am going to die because of the demons in my head." And that more than the food we supposedly despise scares us stiff. So we band together in little groups where we can find ways of coping with our eating disorders, ways that aren't as terrifying as going to a hospital and being forced to eat and keep it down before we address what's going wrong in our heads that's making us not able to do that.
I wish I could just accept that food is not the enemy, eat a balanced diet, exercise a bit more, and call that good. I wish I could restrain myself when there's sweets around. I wish I could have a moderate, respectable amount of said sweets and not rush to the bathroom. And I wish I didn't need help to get there.
But...I do. And I haven't found that help yet.