am I developing an eating disorder/anorexia?

I rarely reply to posts but yours hit a nerve. Please I beg you get help NOW. My problem started at aged 18 and I did exactly what you did. I had also been a chubby child. Now age 43 I am STILL in the grips of anorexia. 25 years of torture. My life has been ruined as a result - no husband, partner or children as anorexia has all consumed me. I thought it would be the answer - I'd stop being haunted by being a fat child and I'd get care love and attention. It backfired big time. I am lonely and still fighting. I've tried to end my life a few times and been hospitalised twice which was awful. I SO wish I'd got intensive help when I was 18 as maybe my life would have been very different. You won't be fat or chubby again I promise. But please be a healthy weight with a healthy mind. I don'tknow if you are in the UK or elsewhere. If you can't get help for free please see if there is any way you can go private. But get help NOW please. I am so sad that you are struggling and anorexia has already got its teeth into you but with help and determination you will be able to beat this easier than if you wa it 25 years when the grip is so much stronger.

Take care xx

Please do seek help NOW - I too started at 18 - being a chubby teenager - and I too started just cutting back a little here and there - lost weight and felt great. This rapidly followed the pattern you describe and developed quickly into a full blown case of anorexia - which wrecked my life. You are at the stage when you recognise you have a problem - that is the first step to recovery - so please do get to your GP - ask for specialist help - and don't let them fob you off - you need professional help as you have an illness which needs urgent treatment. Please don't wait and think you can do it alone as I did - my life was destroyed - don't let the disease do the same to you.

This is the slippery slope of anorexia, the trouble is it feels good at first but there will be a price to pay

Yet you seem to have some lucidity and this will save you if you want it to you can defy the urges it will bully you but persevere

Some people refer to their anorexia as a demon which sounds a bit spooky but I knew someone who got rid of their anorexia by their Christian faith whatever you decide to do good luck

You need to get angry for this illness taking you down this path. I just recently joined the group. How are you doing now? Yes, as a severe Anorexic since 14 and now 54 I know your struggles all to well. I have recently recovered and living free. It is not easy but I am doing it. Living without Anorexia after being controlled by it. It told me what to eat or drink. It told me how to feel. It was a life of hell and torture. The ultimate goal of this illness is to destroy your body and mind. It did that for me. I now have gained my weight and restored my mind and I love it. I face battles with it often. Recovery has given me the tools to fight this monster and the voices it says to you. My mental doctors say 'THEY ARE BITCH ASS LIES'. Yes, and I listened for forty years. I now turn off those lies and do what I want. YOU HANG IN THERE AND FIGHT. YOU CAN CONQUER THIS DEADLY MENTAL ILLNESS TOO. LOVE YOU AND THINK POSITIVE.

I will add to this. When those old voices of Anorexia talk. I don't just talk back in my mind. I talk out loud just as if it were sitting next to me. It destroyed 40 years of my life. I get pissed and talk verbally to it. That is called fighting back. I want it to know that I am mad and hate every aspect of that illness. It is deadly and I have conquered it. GOODBYE TO ANOREXIA YOU are out of my life. I don't talk to it verbally when around others. I have a conversation when alone. You are not insane. You may think you are because of how the illness attacks the mind. We are far from insane. You can ask my doctors.