At what age were you (or your loved o... - Talk ED (eating d...
At what age were you (or your loved one) diagnosed with an eating disorder?
Hi there everyone,
I became at about eleven and a half and it has taken me until now to truly realise the damage I have done to my body, several spinal fractures down the line and then I had a seminal moment recently when I knew I'd dropped some weight. I stepped on the scales for the first time since 2005 and was astonished to see myself at what had also been my target weight for so so long. My "old" AN voice would have rung loudly in my ears letting me know I could easily drop back to where I "felt safe" but for the first time in 44 years the words that rang in my ears were "Oh my word, I must NOT lose any more."
Strange, you may all think coming from a chronic anorexic but it has taken this length of time for me to believe the doctors and go along with the thought that my metabolism would kick in and I would find my balance of my proper weight. Every time I tried, I got to a point and then restricted again, never giving my poor metabolism a chance. Earlier this year I started to eat breakfast and then a light meal in the evening, including protein. was it scary? yes, to some degree it was, and the thought of a holiday with my very slim sister-in-law in Kos was partially responsible for me to keep eating properly because I would have hated to inflict on her my "food foibles". I kept plugging away with it and the *ping* in kicked my metabolism and I lost weight, weight that I had mostly gained due to pain meds I'm on for a chronic pain condition! and as I said earlier, I could not possibly be more surprised !!
I must point out that two years ago my father died, and he was part, but only part of the cause of my desire to retrieve some control in my life ( the only way I knew, by stopping eating of course) . So now I no longer have him undermining my confidence in me - the other perpetrator lives in Malaysia and I am pleased to say I will probably never see him again. So now I am, at the age of 55 a freed being, able to do things the way I want to, without always looking over my shoulder for criticism, yes, I will always have things I can't cope with eating, but I can cope with far, far more than ever before. For the first time I can now consider myself something I could never imagine - a Recovered Anorexic - which for so so long had been a completely unattainable and probably something I never even wanted to be called, but now I do and now I am enjoying my new found freedom in life realising how much precious time I gave to starvation and self hatred and loathing. I now want to live however many years of my life that are left as a "healthy" person, not someone who wants pity, but as me, in my own right, and a person formed and made by God, who has stuck with my through all this and brought me out the other side of this pernicious and insidious nightmare of AN.
If what I have written here can give any one of you hope, that you too can free yourself of this burden, then I will be one very happy bunny. The going will be tough I can assure you, but it CAN be done.
Finally, my plea to you all is to look forward.....forward and not back and think of yourselves when you are passed say 40, and are unable to move at all, having just sustained a compression fracture in your spine. From my own experience I can tell you it is more frightening than anything, anything at all you can think of ........ perhaps you are at a point where even taking a mouthful of food seems the most frightening thing in the world to you today, then think forward and hear what I have just said ........ think that that one single mouthful of food could help stop you suffering in the way that I have, take courage by the hand and please, please, don't follow the path I have trodden and end up being the mess I had been for so so many years. Eat and avoid osteoporosis, you may well think, "oh well it won't happen to me" - that is what I thought for so so many years and the suddenly it did and as I have said already, it is the most horrendously painful and disabling thing I have ever suffered. A replacement shoulder - a breeze, a walk in the park compared to waking finding yourself unable to move at all for several days, and the painful treatment which follows.
I give this to you with care, compassion and deep, deep understanding of what you are going through and in no way negating your problems and the cause of your AN, please know, the voice in your head tell you lies, hideous ghastly lies which can, if you want it strongly enough, can be shown out of the door and you can step through another door to a much more fulfilling and wonderful life than you ever imagined !!
Foggy x
Sent from my iPad
Hi there everyone,
I became at about eleven and a half and it has taken me until now to truly realise the damage I have done to my body, several spinal fractures down the line and then I had a seminal moment recently when I knew I'd dropped some weight. I stepped on the scales for the first time since 2005 and was astonished to see myself at what had also been my target weight for so so long. My "old" AN voice would have rung loudly in my ears letting me know I could easily drop back to where I "felt safe" but for the first time in 44 years the words that rang in my ears were "Oh my word, I must NOT lose any more."
Strange, you may all think coming from a chronic anorexic but it has taken this length of time for me to believe the doctors and go along with the thought that my metabolism would kick in and I would find my balance of my proper weight. Every time I tried, I got to a point and then restricted again, never giving my poor metabolism a chance. Earlier this year I started to eat breakfast and then a light meal in the evening, including protein. was it scary? yes, to some degree it was, and the thought of a holiday with my very slim sister-in-law in Kos was partially responsible for me to keep eating properly because I would have hated to inflict on her my "food foibles". I kept plugging away with it and the *ping* in kicked my metabolism and I lost weight, weight that I had mostly gained due to pain meds I'm on for a chronic pain condition! and as I said earlier, I could not possibly be more surprised !!
I must point out that two years ago my father died, and he was part, but only part of the cause of my desire to retrieve some control in my life ( the only way I knew, by stopping eating of course) . So now I no longer have him undermining my confidence in me - the other perpetrator lives in Malaysia and I am pleased to say I will probably never see him again. So now I am, at the age of 55 a freed being, able to do things the way I want to, without always looking over my shoulder for criticism, yes, I will always have things I can't cope with eating, but I can cope with far, far more than ever before. For the first time I can now consider myself something I could never imagine - a Recovered Anorexic - which for so so long had been a completely unattainable and probably something I never even wanted to be called, but now I do and now I am enjoying my new found freedom in life realising how much precious time I gave to starvation and self hatred and loathing. I now want to live however many years of my life that are left as a "healthy" person, not someone who wants pity, but as me, in my own right, and a person formed and made by God, who has stuck with my through all this and brought me out the other side of this pernicious and insidious nightmare of AN.
If what I have written here can give any one of you hope, that you too can free yourself of this burden, then I will be one very happy bunny. The going will be tough I can assure you, but it CAN be done.
Finally, my plea to you all is to look forward.....forward and not back and think of yourselves when you are passed say 40, and are unable to move at all, having just sustained a compression fracture in your spine. From my own experience I can tell you it is more frightening than anything, anything at all you can think of ........ perhaps you are at a point where even taking a mouthful of food seems the most frightening thing in the world to you today, then think forward and hear what I have just said ........ think that that one single mouthful of food could help stop you suffering in the way that I have, take courage by the hand and please, please, don't follow the path I have trodden and end up being the mess I had been for so so many years. Eat and avoid osteoporosis, you may well think, "oh well it won't happen to me" - that is what I thought for so so many years and the suddenly it did and as I have said already, it is the most horrendously painful and disabling thing I have ever suffered. A replacement shoulder - a breeze, a walk in the park compared to waking finding yourself unable to move at all for several days, and the painful treatment which follows.
I give this to you with care, compassion and deep, deep understanding of what you are going through and in no way negating your problems and the cause of your AN, please know, the voice in your head tell you lies, hideous ghastly lies which can, if you want it strongly enough, can be shown out of the door and you can step through another door to a much more fulfilling and wonderful life than you ever imagined !!
Foggy x
I started with an eating disorder when I was 18. I was finally diagnosed in my 40s. It took me loads of courage to tell the DR. I expected really good treatment. I would describe the help/treatment that I was offered was at its best inadequate and at its worst incompetent.
I have just gone to the GP again and being offered a dietician and a weight loss class. I thought that you cant treat a binge eating disorder with a diet.
I haven't actually been to a doctor yet,I have been like this for about 3-4 months and I only just told my friend today, not sure what the next step is
Hello!! Here we go again! I hit the wrong button and puuff gone! UGH!! I was diagnosed at age 33 and had been since about age 15. I am 47 now. That day changed my life forever!! I never knew that anything was wrong with me, not really anyway. I mean I knew that others didn't need to carry a paper bag with them so when their hearts raced they'd go to bathroom to use to get it back down or when eating have to go to bathroom to get sick. For me it was just how I lived, it was what it was. I saw no problems. From what I can remember my lowest weight was 70 lbs and I was 5'7".
I was a long distance runner in high school. I'd run about 15 miles a day. Then I got shin splints and couldn't run anymore!! I hated it! Running was my escape from my alcoholic home. So after I couldn't run I partied along with everyone else. To this day I say thats why I'm still here...pickled my innards. : )
I went from alcoholic home to domestic violence marriage. At the time I got married I weighed 91 lbs. My husband told me I was fat. He already had 2 sons but I was 10 years younger than him and I wanted my own child. I had to gain weight and we spent $12,000 to get pregnant. I left that marriage and like most went from the frying pan into the fire and married into domestic violence again. This time at least I didn't stay as long nor did this asshole about kill me. But this guy wanted to have children so we spent $60,000 on fertility treatments. Amen nothing came of them!! My body was hardly sustaining itself letalone a child. At the fertility clinic they do many tests on you. One is for bone density. There they just did the test where your foot is put in water and the density is tested by the back of your ankle. When my regular gyno got the notes from fertility clinic he couldn't believe what they said so he made me have a bone scan. When the results came back he didn't just write me a letter, he made me come in....at the age of 33 I had bones of someone 88...that is D day for me...everything I enjoyed was taken away from me..no exercising, no walking, no roller blading, no jumping on the trampoline, my heels were to be done as well but I kept them!! My doctor took away any dr I was seeing out of town, blood tests were taken, I was told I had to do this and that...
My counselor was in constant touch with my dr about results, my weight, you name it. Made me go to dietitian, of which I hated and she fired me and I was fine with that! I had to write down daily what I ate. again I hated that! My counselor called the cops on me 3 times!...This is where not only my life changed my sons life changed as well. He couldn't go home either. He'd sleep with me and slap my face several times a night to make sure I was still alive, he'd have to tell me what day it was, remind me to pick him up from school, how to get somewhere......I have much guilt about that...a mother doesn't want her child having to go through this....but that's what ED does.
I had endometriosis so I had to be on medication for that and finally ended up on depo provera and I tell you what, that medication is awful!! It saved me but it's awful!! I gained 60 lbs on it which saved me from having to go to treatment, which now I wonder if I should have, but I wasn't leaving my son for any length of time. I also had no support and was not sending him to his dad's! So I was at a healthy weight and we moved out of town. It took 2 1/2 yrs for the depo provera to wear off!! I knew because I started spotting of which I hadn't done in years. Then old jeans started to fit. I was so happy!! I thought I was eating enough but found out I wasn't. I collapsed on my boyfriends kitchen floor. He had to call 911. I was told if he'd waited 5 more minutes I wouldn't be here. So I wasn't at the healthy weight I thought I was anymore because the depo provera wore off. I needed something because of the endometriosis so the dr talked me into the mirena, I knew better but she reassured me, yeah right bitch, but I got it and again here comes the weight!! Then I had a hysterectomy and my stomach has not gone down since!! I don't know if its my IBS or what it is but I am going to find out. But I am still at a healthy weight..Oh I got a boob job too cuz I wanted to look human.
I've been very lucky with ED as especially with the domestic violence I could have been in a body cast but I wasn't...my bones are bad, my teeth, my hair, I have memory loss, but for the length of time I had it and to the extent I'm very lucky..the effects from ED get worse as you age...you don't "bounce" back like you used to! I also would have been able to think straight and not be in domestic violence relationships.
I will say I'm at a healthy weight, but my mind is not at a healthy spot. I firmly believe how long we have had ED and when diagnosed makes a dig difference in our recovery both healthy weight and healthy mind. As much as I know about ED the voice in my head still is there stronger than anything....The voices are there constantly, I get no break even sleeping as I have dreams. Maybe someday I'll be able to tell the voice to shut the fuck up but today I can't. I hope anyone that reads this and is young that they get help ASAP because I don't want anyone to have to live their life like I've had to do!! It's really suffocating and controlling!! Be young and live free and well!!!
I was diagnosed at 27 and hospitalised in mental health ward, very frightening experience, i do not want to repeat. 20 years later still having treatment. It is good though this time because i desperately want to recover so am hopeful.
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