What does it feel like to suffer with an eating disorder

[Alison Jenkins]

This is a very moving You Tube clip about what it is like to suffer with an eating disorder. YouTube - life with an eating disorder The mental torture is described so beautifully. What is your experience of an eating disorder? Mine was a living hell

The good news is that you don't have to carry on suffering, you can change that. I did and I have no regrets about it

Alison

[Leesah]

So glad to hear you made a full recovery from your eating disorder. Can I ask, how many years have you been without it?

I am recovered/recovering from anorexia, but still in the early stages I suppose. I started recovery (not for the first time, bloody relapses) a year ago and I've been totally ed-behaviour free & regained my weight for around 6 months. But I still have the desires, the urges, the compulsion and the distorted body image. I feel very uncomfortable with being this "fat". I'm not sure how long that takes to go away, or if it ever does? I have in the past recovered for over a year (behaviour wise. I have not ever got rid of the ed-thoughts since it began) and then had a bad relapse (my last one), so I'm a bit uncertain right now, but trying to remain positive that "this is it" this time.

My experience was also a living hell. I think that's a good way to describe it. It's the most terrifying, miserable existence I can imagine. Take severe depression (which comes hand in hand with eds) and add to it the fear that you may die. Add to that the mind-**** that the reason you may die is because you're killing YOURSELF. And then the fact that you can't tell anybody (fear, guilt) & you have to go to major effort to hide it & lie about it. And that the eating disorder thoughts are on your mind the ENTIRE TIME. Every. single. hour. You can't do anything else, you become a mass of calories,weight loss, food, measurements, restricting and bingeing and purging. Nothing else matters. And you know it's illogical, you know you shouldn't do it, you know you don't need to do it... and you have no idea how you can know that and still do it. It's like having a split personality. You don't want to do it at the same time as you do want to do it.
It's a head-**** x 10,000.

I often think it's like having an addiction, much like being an alcoholic. That's how I've heard it explained anyway. That, an alcoholic will always want that drink, they will have the desire to drink but they make the decision to resist it. They may not be drinking but they will always be an (recovered) alcoholic. I think anorexia/bulimia may be like that, but I'm not sure because I've never really talked with a person who has actually, long-term recovered from an eating disorder and has rid themselves of even the desire to starve.

Do you think that's possible?
I know people on here have recovered, but to what extent? How bad was their ed and are they really 100% without it now? Right now for me it seems a strange concept to be able to not even think in that way. If I have to resist it for the rest of my life then I'm determined to do that, but wouldn't it be lovely to not be having to resist it? To just simply not have the inclination to do it at all.

[spacecadetglow]

Originally Posted by Leesah

I often think it's like having an addiction, much like being an alcoholic. That's how I've heard it explained anyway. That, an alcoholic will always want that drink, they will have the desire to drink but they make the decision to resist it. They may not be drinking but they will always be an (recovered) alcoholic. I think anorexia/bulimia may be like that, but I'm not sure because I've never really talked with a person who has actually, long-term recovered from an eating disorder and has rid themselves of even the desire to starve.

Do you think that's possible?
I know people on here have recovered, but to what extent? How bad was their ed and are they really 100% without it now? Right now for me it seems a strange concept to be able to not even think in that way. If I have to resist it for the rest of my life then I'm determined to do that, but wouldn't it be lovely to not be having to resist it? To just simply not have the inclination to do it at all.

I know that it's possible, because I've done it. I was anorexic in my teens, recovered for a few years, but had a relapse a few years ago. This time it transmuted not into an obsessiveness with calories but with the "purity" of foods. I linked the food I ate to my emotional state, and tried to come up with the best combination of foods for optimal mental health. I googled all sorts of symptoms and convinced myself I had every disease out there. This went on for months. It was more of an ED/hypochondria hybrid, but there was still strict adherence to extreme diets and all the self-flagellation that comes with an ED. The obsessiveness, the neuroticism, the self-blame. It was a dark time.

Am I totally free of body image issues? No, but I think it's unrealistic to expect that you should absolutely love how you look 100% of the time. Everyone struggles with this insecurity, so don't beat yourself up if you still have those thoughts, Leesah.

I don't know how severe my EDs were. Probably mild, comparatively. I weigh like 125 lbs now and at one point I was down to 100, if that means anything. And each time, I had the ED probably for less than a year. I was never hospitalized or on the brink of death, though. But I know what it's like, and I know that it's hell.

They say that an ED never totally goes away. I mean, I still am a little obsessive but I know I'm being obsessive and I can shrug it off. I can step outside of it and see it for what it is. I no longer am trapped in those thoughts, you know? Regular meditation has helped me tremendously in this area. Perhaps it would help you too.

I can tell you that wishing the thoughts would go away or resisting them tends to only make it worse. Allow yourself to have the thoughts, and then let them go. Don't let them dictate your behavior, you know? The thoughts haven't gone away for me yet totally, but I can manage them much better.

Good luck to you.

[faithsdaddy]

Hi Alison

Glad you're in happier times. I can only imagine how hard it must have been. I've read how eating disorders affect every part of your life, not just eating. It must have been a living hell.

To Leesah and Spacecadetglow. I'm wish you the best too. Reading your stories, I can see that the problem never really goes- that you just manage it.

Love and respect to you all.

[butterflyeffect]

I truly believe it is possible to fully recover from an ED and not have alot of those thoughts and impulses.

I have been dealing with my ED since I was 13 and I'm now 21. I got really really sick, I was in hospital over ten times and I have blocked most of it out. It was clear how much I hated myself.

Now I am at the end of that journey. But after doing alot of meditation on unconditionally loving my body and therapy I have stopped hating it. It has been really slow but now I will look in the mirror and like my body.

I used to have a pro ana mentality about fat people truly believing they were a cult. I was particularly suspicious of the medical profession believing them to be pro obesity and couldn't touch food for fear of absorbing the calories. I ate all my meals in the bathroom and couldn't eat with others, ever. Now I just laugh because it was all so bizarre. I look at overweight people with compassion, I see beauty in cury and straight size individuals. I used to want to binge every second of the day/ starve/ purge/exersize and now thats going.

I have too much time on my hands!!!!! I go to the shops and find food boring. I don't want to vomit, I don't want to starve, I don't want to binge. I am working on the exersize.

But its going. Most of those original impulses that would drive me are now gone. It was hell getting to this point but I am here now. It was all about resisting. It got easier (slightly) everytime. I believe everytime you resist counts.