Hi all.
I used to be a regular member of RYL and used this forum a lot, when I was suffering with severe anorexia. I don't think I have been on here since 2008, or earlier... But I haven't forgotten all you lovely people, and just wanted to share my story with you, in case it helps just one person to catch a glimpse of that light at the end of the tunnel.
I started with anorexia at university. There were various triggers, looking back - I had always been a perfectionist, wanting and needing others approval and admiration to make me feel somehow worthy. Worthy of what? Uni was stressful, I had a falling out with a friend that upset me, and I had always had some issues with my body - having always lacked in the chest area, I was convinced that my tummy stuck out more than my boobs, and so I must look ridiculous. One thing led to another - dieting, skipping meals, obsessing more about my weight - and before I knew it, I was sucked down into the ever-descending spiral into loss of control and anorexia. I won't go into details, because many of you know - can empathise, perhaps are in the grips of this horrible illness now - but to cut a long story short, I spent most of my twenties caught in its grip. At times I improved a little, at other times I had severe relapses. I was in a deep, deep, dark place, with no hope of ever getting out of it. I was broken, and in despair. Nobody could help.
Fast forward. I am 37. I am happily married to a wonderful man (we started going out when I was 20, and he has walked this path with me throughout), we have two beautiful children (I didn't have periods for many years), I am a GP, and I have been FREE of anorexia or any other eating disorder for EIGHT YEARS. I don't obsess about food. I don't crumble and fall apart if I gain a couple of pounds. I do choose to stay healthy, but I eat well and enjoy treats. I love running - but I love it now because it makes me feel awesome, not because I HAVE to exercise obsessively. I don't feel bad if I don't - in fact, I'm currently injured and haven't been able to run properly for several months. I want to model a healthy relationship with food and eating and body image to my children. I want them to grow up feeling confident that they are beautiful, because of who they are, because they are loved, they are enough, and there is no such thing as a perfect figure anyway - some guys / girls might be attracted to thin people, but some are attracted more to curvy people. How do you know what your future knight in shining armour prefers?! And more importantly, he (or she) will love YOU, not your shape, or your size, or your hair. There is so much pressure by the media to look a certain way, but how does that many any sense when we all like different things, and have different concepts of beauty?
I am digressing a bit. I really wish I could give you the magic key to unlock anorexia and to conquer it once and for all. I didn't get better overnight. There wasn't a magic formula that I suddenly found the answer to. I probably had good and bad days and wavered between those on my rocky road to recovery. I started my recovery journey when I had hit rock bottom. I wanted my future to have children in it, but that looked hopeless when I couldn't even have periods. I didn't have the energy to fight anymore - and bizarrely, instead of sinking even further into the depths of the illness, I no longer had the energy to fight the desire to sometimes eat something. I was too tired to feel the usual self hatred following putting a little bit of food into my stomach. And gradually, I began to realise that that bloated feeling you get after you eat anything, where your tummy feels like it sticks out a little more than it did before, was simply because there was something physically in my stomach for a couple of hours after eating. Not because the food had magically and instantaneously morphed into body fat that had attached itself to my belly 5 seconds after swallowing. This meant my panic attacks got better, and my need to purge after eating faded. Gradually it became less weird to put slightly more food into my mouth, and so on.
I realised that - so ironic - I never conquered my 'reason' for extreme dieting in the first place, because I thought my tummy stuck out more than my boobs, as that was simply my body shape. As I shrank and my weight fell, my boobs disappeared altogether and yet I was always convinced that my tummy protruded slightly when I looked down. Of course it did - my entire gut and organs are in there, it isn't a hollow space! (I learned something at med school). I have been a normal BMI for eight years, and my body shape is still the same! Slightly more boobs (not much). I learned I had better learn to be happy with my body shape, because it is me, and that is who I am - and it's not bad, actually!
I won't go into it in detail, but I am a Christian and my faith helped me a lot. It is a lie when the illness tells you you aren't worthy, you aren't loved, you aren't special, you're failing, it's your fault, you're not strong enough.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading this far. I just wanted you to know that anorexia is not unbeatable. I could cry for everyone who is in the depths of the darkness that I have been in, and thought there was no way out of. Hold onto that light at the end of the tunnel. Don't let the darkness tell you it isn't there. Keep going. You're ALL of you worth more than this, and there IS more out there. Love you. xx
xx
