I started this about 10 months ago, but never finished. I'm starting it again... feel free to participate. I will be posting one reflection from the book each Saturday morning. If you participate, be sure to link up so we can discuss our answers! :)
I'm reading a self-help book called "Telling ED No!". It's a book that helps you work through your thoughts as to why you have disordered eating. I definitely do. At the end of each chapter, there are reflection questions which help you overcome your eating disorder. I am going to answer said questions here.
Looking back, what are some of your earliest memories of disordered thoughts and/or behaviors related to food and your body? How did Ed grab your attention? What age were you? Was it a gradual progression?
For as long as I can remember, I've had disordered thoughts about eating and about my body. The earliest memory that I have is from when I was about ten. I remember thinking about how all of the other girls looked great in their swimsuits, but I was just a chunky mess. We had a big list of exercises we had to do (in and out of the water) during practices, and I couldn't do some of them.
I also remember hoarding food. I've always been a food hoarder... When my mom would bake cookies, I would take several of them into my room and hide them. It would be disgusting when my mom would finally get through to me that I had to clean my room because we'd find stale cookies in a random drawer... or usually in my computer desk. Gross. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and going to the kitchen and eating while everyone else was asleep. I've always had a passion for string cheese and when my mom would buy the good kind (the kind that is not individually wrapped but all put together in one package), I would wake up at two or three in the morning and go eat four or five string cheeses and some chocolate milk and then go back to bed...
When I finally got old enough to have a job and have some money, I would go out and buy the fattening stuff my mom wouldn't let me have and hide it in my room or in my car. My glove box used to be full of candy... gummy bears, chocolates, etc. I still buy and eat fattening foods when I know I'm going to be alone. One of my favorite things to do is go to the store and buy sausage and cheese fried ravioli and some marinara sauce. Then I come home and eat the entire thing. I always feel guilt after eating like that... though it's not technically a binge... it's just overeating. *shrugs* To this day, I'll still buy cookies or Little Debbie snack cakes and hide them in my car and take them to work so I can eat them all... or I'll hide refrigerated foods in the bottom drawer of the fridge.. or one time, I had a box that had frozen hamburger patties in it and I hid ice cream in it once we ate all the patties so I could eat it on my own and in secret.
I don't really remember having any disordered body thoughts before swim team. I've always been on the chunky side and Ed didn't really grab my attention until middle school. He first made an appearance in several of my friends. One of my best friends became bulimic in middle school. Her sickness caught my attention, but not in a disgusted way... more of an intrigued way. Ed didn't fully grab my attention until the summer between my eighth grade and freshman year of high school. It was pretty gradual. I mean, I didn't want to be the fat friend anymore. I wanted boys to like me. I was going into high school and had never been on a date or kissed by a boy... I also wanted my mom to get off my back. I know she meant well, but she was forever saying, "Crystal, if you don't lose some weight, you'll not have any stylish clothes to wear... They only make the cute clothes so big and you're in that size!"
Eventually Ed changed me. I went from binge eating and hoarding food to not eating at all. I always say that I wasn't technically anorexic, but I don't know if that's the case. I remember at one point, I went a week with eating only 200 calories. It wasn't a conscious decision on my part. I didn't wake up one day and say, "I think I'll be an anorexic now." It was more so that my anxiety and stress about school got a hold on me and eating made me feel sick... I felt physically ill. In all honesty, I threw up stomach acid just about every day of my freshman year... Because of Ed's transformation in me, I dropped about 75 pounds in five months... I looked like a walking skeleton. My mom had to basically force feed me to get me to put some weight on...
Ever since then it's been a battle of yo-yo dieting... especially in high school and college... There was a huge trend of starving myself and then binge eating... However, since I graduated from school, I'm proud to say that the anorexic side of Ed is gone. I still have a problem with overeating, but I no longer feel like a compulsive overeater... like an person in AA is always an alcoholic, I will always be an overeater and will always want to binge. As of today, I have been 180 days binge free. I still overeat... quite often actually, but I haven't felt the hopeless guilt that I used to feel on a daily basis. Now I just need to conquer my overeating... My weight, my health, and even myself deserve it...
congrats on being 180 days free of binge eating, that is wonderful.
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