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lokeanrampant · 5 years

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So. I apparently have a trigger. It’s an ugly one and it hits hard and it returned me to a very unhealthy place. Long post and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified ahead.

And thank you, anon, for your words. I hope you’re right.

I have recently been diagnosed with a few things and have medications which are helping, but this particular medication is having an amazing and GOOD effect on me. I am awake and aware, I don’t need to do three things at once to focus on something, I actually can focus, so much good stuff. But yes, it has an effect on my appetite. I have fantastic willpower and I generally really, really hate anything that fucks with my appetite cause that will generally lead to me not eating enough. So that’s what I’m dealing with here. I probably wasn’t eating enough, but I felt good and I was basically grazing, so I figured, okay, we’re still okay.

Only...the doc who prescribed pull that trigger fucking hard.

So the medication works for ADHD and though I have a sensory processing disorder, she can’t quite say I have ADHD. But she can put in her notes that she is prescribing it for “binge eating,” not because I have it, but because she thinks the med will help. And it has. I felt better than I had in years. So I’m on this for about a month and doing great. My therapist was THRILLED with my progress and we were going to really work hard on my BDD.

Then I had the follow-up appt. Where the doc kept harping on how well the med worked for my binge eating and controlling cravings and overeating. Like over and over and over.

Let me tell you a lil something about me.

I’m a stress-starver. It comes from my teens where I was constantly told that, being overweight and trying to lose weight, I ate too much, that I ate like a pig, eat less. This is from DOCTORS, mind you. Yes, doctors told me this. Constantly.

So I did that. I ate less. Still couldn’t lose weight. Same deal - “you eat too much.” So I ate less.

I was down to one meal a day: a sandwich. Two pieces of bread, some mayo, some chicken.

Guess what? Yep, “you eat too much.”

So I STOPPED eating. Food was the enemy. My body needed fuel, but I didn't want it and the docs assumed I ate and never stopped and kept telling me to eat less and less and less. Obviously, I was still eating too much, right? So hey, okay, I’ll eat less. Just enough to keep me standing...and sometimes, not even then. Super healthy, yo. Bodies don’t like to lose weight in Starvation Mode. But I was too fat for that and I ate too much, right? So I essentially stopped eating.

That's not binging. It's not binge/purge. It's punishment for being fat and ugly and self-harm by restricting food because I wasn't worthy of it and it was ultimately bad for me. If I had been a skinny bit, they probably would’ve diagnosed me with anorexia, but I just never presented with that low body weight or being underweight. Nope. Not me. There is now an atypical anorexia that doesn’t present the classic way, but who are not underweight after significant weight loss. And even then, I haven’t had significant weight loss in years.

So there we are - eating disorder NOS, atypical presentation that doesn’t match anorexia, bulimia, binging. It’s a much bigger diagnosis catch-all than you might realize.

It took me a long time to have a healthier relationship with food, and it's still not great, but it's okay. Ask anyone in my life and they will tell you the same, that I don't overeat. Even when I pms and actually crave a junk food? I don't binge and I normally find a healthier alternative anyway (because junk food doesn't make me feel great).

There is no secret or hidden eating. There can definitely be guilt and self-loathing for eating, especially if it's not low-carb, but it’s rare...or at least, it was. My food intake is not out of control. I almost never overeat (it doesn't feel good!). The only time I eat when I am not hungry is normally because I couldn't eat when I was hungry and then proceed to feel ill because my blood sugar has dropped. Then I have to eat. But it's not binging. It's not healthy, and it doesn't fit the major eating disorders, but it's still not binging.

Do I have major body image issues? Fuck yes. I have Body Dysmorphic Disorder. I have horrible self-image and will be sent into a major tailspin if I see photos or, gods, video. I will stop being able to look in a mirror. I have covered mirrors for days before. I will have trouble showering unless I do it with my eyes closed so I don’t have to see the hideousness of me and even then, I still have to touch it to clean it. I’m very self-critical and hate this body in which I feel trapped. But I still do things. I’m still working. I do theater. I garden. I DO THINGS. I also have an intense fear of gaining weight to be even larger than I am. Even if I know that I am not the heaviest person in the room, and I can know that, logically, even with sizes or measurements, I will still feel larger, heavier, uglier. I will feel like the largest, heaviest, ugliest person there even if I know someone is twice or more my size. My friend at work is probably a good 100+lbs heavier than I am and I just think she’s gorgeous. Her weight doesn’t matter. She’s attractive inside and out. But me? No. I”m fat because fat was taught to me as an ugly word. So I am fat, because it’s ugly. Other people aren’t fat because they aren’t ugly.

So what happens when you tell someone, who has already told you all this history about being told you’re fat because you eat too much and that you need to eat less....so YOU DID and that’s also why you stopped going to doctors because you were eating barely enough to stay standing and they still said that, so they obviously didn’t know a fucking thing, and that yet again, I apparently have NO. FUCKING. CLUE. WHAT FOOD I PUT IN MY MOUTH.

What happens when you tell someone like that that they are binging and eating too much?

Answer: I stop fucking eating.

I’m right back to being 18yo and crying because I’m hungry because food is the fucking enemy. Because apparently, even what I eat, which is definitely light for American portion sizes, but actually really fucking healthy portion sizes, is still too much.

Even though my sis has been concerned because the medication is altering my appetite to the point where I really don’t eat more than 4oz at a meal, if that...which I did when I was having extreme gallbladder pain at one point.

Even though she, several friends, and a friend/coworker know how I eat, what I eat, that I don’t overeat, that I can make a sub-in-a-tub style salad into multiple, low-carb, healthy wraps and have lunch for two or three days.

That I don’t eat or even LIKE much sugar (why the FUCK is everything so gods damned SWEET? Holy fuck.). I vastly prefer savory (spice is nice).

I don’t tend to eat breads or potatoes because they make me feel bad (bloaty, ewww...so probably a gluten intolerance? I don’t know, but I know I don’t feel well when I eat them, so hey, idea! DON’T EAT WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BAD. Crazy AF, I know, right?).

People who know me envy the self-control and willpower that I have regarding food. They don’t realize it came out of such self-loathing and self-harm mechanisms. I’ve made it healthier. I’ve gotten better with food and in a lot of ways, that was because it didn’t really matter what I ate after a point, my weight maintained. It wasn’t the food...or it wasn’t just the food.

There’s a fuckton more at work regarding metabolism and hormones and shit that just fuck up a body. And one medication stopped the bad thoughts from auto-play 24/7 and helped reduce stress to the point I was like, fuck, is this what I am supposed to feel like? And then this new one, that helps me feel awake, aware, and focused reduced that anxiety even MORE and it’s like another layer of fog is lifted? To realize how much CONSTANT STRESS AND ANXIETY I had that was literally non-stop fight-or-flight mode? Gods, no wonder I couldn’t lose weight. My body was always prepped for disaster and wanted to keep every fucking thing. I finally felt that I could maybe make a difference and not only feel healthier, but maybe actually get healthier, be in better shape, lose weight.

But to be told that I’m still a binge eater, when I fit only the “feel guilt or shame over eating” NOW, because you brought all that shit back by telling me that I still overeat and that’s why I’m fat and hey, this med is really controlling your binging?

Dinner last night was eight...yes, 8, cashews. It took me from 9:30 to about 2:30pm today to eat a Sargento’s snack pack (cheese, cashews, raisins in this one). I had a electrolyte water (36oz or so) and am working on my second bottle (fairly normal). I went out with friends tonight and managed to slow sip a beer over about two hours as someone was buying and really wanted to buy us a drink, so hey, I got some calories in the beer. Couldn’t eat though. The thought of eating today was met with instant recoil. Food becomes the enemy once again. It becomes a hyperfixation because it's too much, too much, it's bad for you, stop eating, yes even 4oz is too much, you don't need that much. And no, I don’t weigh myself or count calories/fat/etc for the same reason - it became a hyperfixation and an emotional minefield where any little (and frequently normal) fluctuation sends me into a very bad place. If I need to do something like that, measurements are easier for me.

And that’s not a place I want to be. I worked SO HARD to not be there. I KNOW the way I eat is healthy. I know the portion sizes are good. I know how to read labels (questionable reliability, but it’s what we’ve got). I can make good food at home. I can choose fairly healthy if I’m out and about. I had made my peace with food and while we would never be great friends, we at least weren’t enemies any more.

I am trying. I am. I, oddly, have some support around me. A friend really helped tonight, but it’s a serious work-in-progress. I managed to eat about 8-10 shrimp around midnight but I couldn’t do that with someone watching. It’s back to the high school cafeteria where it literally didn’t matter what you ate, if you were fat, you weren’t supposed to eat at all. It’s feeling guilty to be seen eating because you actually have the nerve to have a body that requires sustenance and they will judge you any bite you consume. The doctor created guilt around food I hadn’t had for YEARS. Admittedly, I still don’t like work lunch/break rooms, but I just don’t care to socialize with some people and I can keep my phone charged at my desk. Win-win. And I don’t generally have a problem eating at restaurants or with friends.

My friend tonight told me that i am NOT that person I was. And I’m not. I have changed so much since then. And since I know what the doctor said is false, it’s rather like someone yelling at me because they hate my hair for being blonde when it’s black. It makes no sense and what they said isn’t real; it shouldn’t mean anything. But it’s a whammy and when you already have a predisposition to fall into self-hate and self-harm, it’s a nasty, ugly whammy that lingers. It’s an old, well-worn pattern of badness that is only comfortable because you lived it for so long, you know how it works.

I’m upset. I’m angry. I’m furious. I’m hurt.

And I don’t know how long it will take to climb out of this.

#tw: self-hate #tw: self-harm #tw: eating disorder #tw: body dysmorphia #wheeeeee #long post #personal #feel free to ignore #I just needed to vent

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