Eating Disorder First-Hand Stories - Eating Disorder Stories
Sue Age: 33 Binger |
Funny thing is, compared to now, I wasn't really that fat then. In fact, I'm still not obese. I'm about 20 pounds overweight.
Back then, I tried to diet and started to binge. I would go to three different vending machines to get junk food, then sneak it into the library. For awhile, I alternated between dieting a few days and all out binges. Then, I descended into bulimia. I discovered laxatives could make me feel "clean" again after my binges.
Until I was 22, I binged once, sometimes twice a day, using 10-15 correctols at a time. I remember visiting a professor and having dizzy spells; I almost fainted. After a few more near-misses, I realized the laxatives were taking their toll. Through student health (I was in a graduate program), I went through some eating disorder group therapy. It enabled me to quit using laxatives, but the binges were still there. I relapsed into laxative use for a brief stressful time, but overall since then I have managed to stay off them with only a few one-time use lapses a year.
When I began therapy, I was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, or manic depression. I started to see the first of quite a few psychiatrists and to take medication. For a while, the binges lifted to maybe one a week, and then they'd come back. I find it interesting that my moods don't really coincide with my binges. I could feel happy and still binge, and be depressed and not. I have had periodic remissions of the binge eating for a few months at different times over the years, and I don't know why.
The most recent thing I tried was a Breaking Free workshop by Geneen Roth. It worked for awhile. What I have come to realize is that sometimes the binge eating is useful and it helps me get through the day. Sometimes I allow it to exist. Other times I want to fight. I find that the chat room at this site has helped me resist binges. Someday I will beat this thing, I just need to keep trying different ways.
Letters of Pain
| Anna Age: 19 Anorexia |
At times I have to make myself eat and at other times I just have to decide that I won't listen to people's comments..
People's comments are what triggered this whole disease for me. I have always been skinny, but not as skinny as my older sister. I would look at her and think that I had to be skinnier than her since I was younger. People used to tell me that I was going to be fat when I got older. It was a big joke to a lot of people, but it affected me more than they will ever know. They made stupid comments like," Anna, you are getting so big that soon you won't be able to fit through the double doors."
Of course, I was not gaining weight but I just had to prove to everyone that I was not going to get fat. In the summer before ninth grade, I stopped eating. I tried to see how long I could go without eating anything.
I remember, one time I didn't eat for three weeks. I would chew gum and drink water, but never too much water because I thought that I might gain weight from the water. I liked to let people know that I had not eaten in three weeks and that I was just not hungry.
No one, except my sister, seemed to care that I was not eating. Her boyfriend's mom was a nurse so she talked to me about what I was doing to my body by not eating. I really didn't listen to her at first. Then I realized that by not eating I was not getting the attention that I wanted. I realized that there was other ways to get attention rather than starve myself.
At the beginning of the summer I weighed 105 lbs. By the end of the summer I weighed close to 85 lbs. and yet no one was really concerned about me.
I never had any treatment, but I wish that I had. I still have to make myself eat at times. I try to ignore people's comments. No matter how small they may seem, I know that they will affect me.
At times, I find myself not eating so I force myself to eat. My boyfriend knows all about my problems with eating and he strongly encourages me to eat. He knows when I haven't eaten in awhile and he makes me sit down and eat with him. I have problems eating with a lot of people especially if they are strangers.
Lisa Age: 35 Compulsive Overeating |
I have suffered from an eating disorder for about 8 years now! I am an overeater and a binger. When I get nervous or depressed, I tend to stuff my face with everything in sight until I get sick or diarrhea. Then I look at pictures of when I weighed between 110 and 120 and I go into severe manic depression.
Sometimes I just stay in bed for days and don't answer the phone or the door. When my kids and my husband ask me what is wrong, I just cry and tell them that I am a failure at everything and I wish I was dead! Of course, I then find solace in food or cigarettes. At other times, I go on diet binges and practically starve myself for days. Most times, I hide food from myself and everyone else and late at night I sneak out of bed and gorge. Then the cycle begins again!
I look in the mirror at myself and want to throw up. I am so disgusted with myself. Everyone that knows me says that I am a beautiful giving woman with a heart as big as Texas and that there isn't anything I wouldn't do for the people that I love. I just look at myself and see a butt as big as Texas!
This has caused many problems in my marriage and with our sex life. I won't let my husband even look at me with the lights on and our love making has dwindled down to practically nothing. Then I start thinking that he doesn't love me anymore and wants someone else because this has affected his performance too! He is afraid that if he can't perform, I will start thinking that it's because of my FAT! This is usually a correct statement. Thus, no sex life!
The kids really pussyfoot around me and basically stay out of my way or wait on me hand and foot when I get this way. I know I have a problem. I just don't know how to solve it! I have been to psychiatrists, counselors, doctors, and talk groups. I have tried every diet that has ever come out, even the quick weight loss program designed for patients who need surgery and starvation diets. I have tried exercise programs and walking. I have even tried taking laxatives!
PLEASE HELP me if you can, although at this point I feel there is no help! I am not a rich person and I don't have Richard Simmons helping me like I see all those people getting help on all those talk shows!
My family thinks that I am being silly and that I don't have any reason to feel depressed, so I keep it inside and eat some more.
reviewed by:
Harry Croft, MD (Psychiatrist)
Medical Director, HealthyPlace.com
Created on December 03, 2008 Last Updated on March 09, 2012
In Eating Disorders
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