Eating Disorders

[emoboi]

For anyone who has an eating disorder

Posted on: July 15, 2008, 04:30:14 PMok i have an eating disorder anorexia and im kind of tired of feeling like this but i dont know what to do if i eat much i feel horrible and fat so......

[Elwood]

I think I might have a minor case of anorexia. I denied it my whole life but now I'm giving it a second look.

Today I was really hungry. But as soon as I stuck the sandwich in my mouth, I felt sick. I wanted to eat more than anything, but I couldn't stand chewing and swallowing. I eventually made myself eat it, so I'm okay... I don't know if that's anorexia or something else but it certainly is an eating disorder.

Sometimes I ration my food. I am afraid if I eat a lot when my estrogen is high (around the period I can literally feel/see the signs of estrogen increase) that my breasts will get larger. So I eat less during the period for 2 reasons; 1) I don't want it to be contributed to feminine development and 2) I feel pretty sick the whole period... I don't get cramps or irritability but I do get nausea.

I also am a very anxious person, so I often just won't "feel like" eating. I will skip snacks or meals hoping that dinner will be bigger. I believe that if meals are bigger, my body will save the fat.

Wait, save the fat? That's right. I want to gain 20 lbs. I weigh 83. If I gain weight, I can use that fat reserve to build muscle. So in reality, I really want to gain a lot of weight. But I have next to no appetite a lot of the time. Then sometimes I have a gigantic appetite and I'll eat more than the 200 lb man next to me.

I don't know what it's like to feel fat. I don't look at myself and think, "Omg fat!" Instead I go, "Omfg skinny, I wish I could eat more but I have no appetite."

It's horribly confusing. I can be REALLY hungry but have no appetite. Meaning, my tummy's empty and screaming but I don't have the actual desire or ambition to eat. When I try to make myself eat, my body acts like it's full. I really don't know what this is called but hopefully I soon will. I'm going to see a medical doctor sometime (next month maybe) if my weight doesn't improve. I've actually been eating a lot more lately because I force myself to eat... I rarely feel sick afterwards but during meals I feel pretty gross.

[emoboi]

wow 83 lbs i wish i was that light i weigh like 96 lbs and still feel fat i look for stuff to eat but i just dont want any of it
then if im feeling bad or fat i will eat less and im scared of gaining weight then ill just feel worse and might as welll die
i get horrible cramps the first two days of my period it hurts so much i dont like it

by the way not good at expressing myself so i dont type a lot 

[Elwood]

You do not want to weigh 83 lbs. I'm serious, man. I am so weak it isn't even funny. And my bones are tiny! I'm afraid I'll never pass.

I think you need to talk to a therapist and resolve your anorexia. It's totally curable. I hope you can come out of this and not feel fat. Because I think you probably look hot. 96 is a sexy number.

[Kimberly]

Discuss food and the throat closes off. Cook something one normally likes then pick at it and the puppies end up with half? End up not eating much an when something actually does sound palatable or even good, you JUMP on that and make that with haste then try and eat it before it gets cold?

Yeah, I know that. No clue what it would be called, but it isn't fun at all.

Anyway more to why I post, the best way I have found to deal with this is as mentioned if something looks good do not delay, make and eat that NOW, and do NOT think about it, just do.

... An I am glad I just put something in me tummy because I would not be able to eat now, heh. (See above about not fun at all; but .. we know this.)


Oh, as far as the other side goes, I am 130lbs, 5'9" or so. I know I am gaunt, yet have had NO luck increasing my weight. I WANT to look better but 130lbs just seems right to me and I do not want to weight more. ^*headdesk*

[emoboi]

awwww thanks i feel so ugly though

[Yochanan]

I've been struggling with food issues for a while now. I've had minor bouts of anorexic and (once or twice) bulemic behavior. I discovered, however, that once I began binding my breasts, the feelings of "OMG SO FAT I WANNA DIE" disappated almost completely for some reason. I still watch my weight and some days I eat little or nothing, but I am making an effort to eat right, exercise, and NOT worry when the numbers on the scale skyrocket. I weighed 118.5 today--but I remove six pounds for my breasts. 112.5 is a good number, to me.

I hope things get better for you, emoboi. Feel free to PM me if you need/want to talk.

[emoboi]

awww thanks 

Posted on: July 16, 2008, 12:03:06 PMwell today is already not i good day i feel huge and bad
i know what im gunna eat for the day
its like 550 cals if i eat the whole thing though so still kinda a lot

[tekla]

Eating disorders are very serious and you should see a doctor about them today.  They have wide-ranging and long-term consequences, some of which may well affect your ability to transition, all of which will profoundly affect the quality of your life later on.  Really, go see a doctor.  Now.

[emoboi]

I see my doctor in mid august though i really dont want to go but i have to

[tekla]

Please try to move it up.  Every day you do that is another day of damaging your body.

I used to try to tell my students at least one really depressing thought a day, one of the most depressing ones to them was this:

Your health after 40 depends largely on what you did before you were 25. 

Being under 25 for the most part they hated it, but I think they really hated it because they realized the underlying truth in it also.

[emoboi]

I cant move it up and i dont want to get "better"
I know that sounds bad but i cant deal with getting "better" right now

[Kate]

I cant move it up and i dont want to get "better"
I know that sounds bad but i cant deal with getting "better" right now

I hear ya, but as everyone says... this is a serious problem. We've done a few polls/threads about it in the past, and it seems eating problems aren't unusual at all around here.

I barely ate anything from like birth through my early 20s. I'm serious, I existed on ice cream, apple sauce, mashed potatoes... odd stuff. I was so thin, people would *gasp* when they saw my bare arms.

I still dunno why I was like that. I was literally *afraid* to eat. Can't explain it, it wasn't rational.

I met my wife in my early 20s, and she started introducing me slowly to the concept of food, lol. We started with Chinese food, where I literally ate one piece of rice at a time. Then two. Then three...

Fast forward to today, and now the joke is how I NEVER stop eating. All day. Everything. Like a shark, lol. I LOVE food. It's soooooo... sensual

So there IS hope. But I couldn't tell ya what changed with me. Maybe just my wife's compassion gave me a "safe space" to begin exploring...

~Kate~

[NicholeW.]

I cant move it up and i dont want to get "better"
I know that sounds bad but i cant deal with getting "better" right now

Most anorexics don't want to get better. Most seem to see the weight-losses and their own emaciation as positive things, or negative in that they are not yet quite skinny enough. And it's a means of enacting some control in a life that may be outta control for them emotionally and rationally.

My best friend in grad school had suffered through it since she was 14 (she's 25 now.) And yes, she has some major problems with it physically and psychically. She struggles to eat a lot of the time. I last saw her in May at graduation and she was having another bout with it, had lost about 15 pounds in the two weeks we hadn't seen each other between class-end and graduation nite.

She also already has osteoporosis and a severe cardio-vascular disorder. She's beautiful and intelligent and very adept at academic-work and at therapy work. She just cannot seem to get and keep a handle on her body-image problems.

And she wants to get better most of the time: runs an eating-disorders support group in north central Jersey. *sigh* But, when I last saw her she was talking about checking-in once more at a clinic.

There are times when we know that what we are doing is probably hurting us, but we do it anyhow.

I feel for you, Emoboi, I hope you can get a handle on the anorexia, with or without a lot of desire to do so. But, I also know from spending the past two years with my friend and some of my own problems with "seeing" myself that the struggles are hard & not as cut-and-dried as they might seem to someone who stands on the outside looking in at another.



Nichole

[emoboi]

Well what i had planned to eat didnt happen i feel like crap

[Fer]

I think its quite difficult to say exactly whether you have an eating disorder. If, as you are saying, you starve yourself, this is certainly a well recognised symptom of anorexia. But it can also be that youre using food as a convenience to deal with things in life that you may not be happy about. Very often with peeps who have found themselves in similar situations to yours they concentrate hard on improving and regulating their eating and diet only to find that something else becomes sort of a crutch the common ones being drugs or alcohol. Of course this doesnt mean Im implying your situation is anywhere near as serious as this; the important thing to understand though is, that whether you have an eating disorder or not, if the way you are thinking about food isnt making you happy, if its affecting your health and you find that you are doing this compulsively then you could do with some help to get through this problem by someone who knows about these sort of behaviours and helps treat people in similar situations.

And finally you have asked for help; this is something some peeps never have the courage to do so you should feel pleased with yourself for having taken this step.

[Dolce]

Seriously...if you don't want to deal with brittle bones (osteoporosis), potential heart arrhythmias, and depending upon whether or not you're bulimic-  severe dental damage, esophageal damage, stomach damage....you need to get some help.  Please, please try to get better now...