Ok the other day I was sitting and thinking on my ed, how there are more and more moments when I notice that it is actually no longer totally in my control, the restriction and the purging are both compulsions now, compulsions I am not always strong enough to fight even if I wanted to. I was wondering how this happened to me, how now, at 22 years old, I have redeveloped the eating disorder I had been briefly afflicted with as a preteen and young teenager. But at that age, I had not lost control of the ed. It was still something I woke up and actively chose to do, and I got out of it quickly enough after losing a bit of weight and regaining a bit of self love. Now I have truly lost control and I’m sitting wondering how and why I once again have this disordered eating happening again. And as I’ve pondered this over the past few days, it became clear. especially as I flew home for the holidays and to my childhood home where I found nothing but cakes and cookies and chips and other chips and sugar cereal and sugar yogurt and a few pieces of untouched fruit I had requested be there when I arrived. I began to see where the obsession with food came from. My whole kitchen is covered in food. I get picked up by my best friend. We hang at the beach and end up at McDonald’s. Having obsessively watched Supersize Me for the hundredth time last week to punish myself for craving a double cheeseburger from my nostalgic childhood favorite, McDonald’s, this was stressful. Driving with the family up to NH to be once again brought to a McDonald’s on the way to a house that is covered in organic gourmet foods, but foods none the less. And of course, come Thanksgiving day, a day to completely obsess over food, I found myself disgusted by the excessive food, the gluttony, the calories, the poison to our bodies. And we sat down to dinner, with the obligation for me to at least clear 1 plate so as not to insult my aunts cooking and incite a riot, my body already crippled with guilt as I begin the first bite, she sets in to a discussion on calories and weight loss. Now, bear in mind my aunt is and has always been 100 pounds. She sits in a room full of people who struggle with their weight. Me even more than I’m sure she realizes. And she proceeds to go on and on for 20 minutes about her size and her health and her biometrics and how her app says she’s all in the green and it finally clicked. The whole puzzle came together listening to her spew words of advice on a topic she has never attempted to empathize for the other side of. She acts like I don’t remember her telling me as a child that I’d regret not losing weight sooner, that I was chunky and she wasn’t afraid to say it even if it hurt my feelings because I should do something about it, that she would outlive me because I was so unhealthy. Now, a decade later, my body giving over to a disorder I can no longer control, 74 pounds down in the few months since I have seen her last, she embraces me with excitement, remarks how she can reach her arms around me (note that I have never been so large that her arms didn’t fit around me), and her encouragement for me to keep it up. This eating disorder was home grown, and it took a village. It may manifest itself even when I’m in my own home, 1000 miles away, among people who are health centric, don’t count calories obsessively, eat healthy foods when they’re hungry, don’t discuss weight or numbers, but it was planted and sown right here on cape cod where the first thing everyone has asked me was exactly how many pounds I’ve lost. So this thanksgiving, I am thankful to have the answers on that. I totally completely 100% see why I have this disorder and I feel like I just saved so much money like do you know how much I would have had to pay for a Renfrew therapist to tell me that one day when I’m at rock bottom??? Now I can just walk in the doors and declare oh yeah I totally know where this came from so let’s at least start from there instead.
Interesting post from my ED blog from right before I hit rock bottom
