I'm 19 years old, and a freshman in
college. I've been suffering w/ an
eating disorder for about 3 years now. I
started out taking a ridiculous amount of
diet pills. When I started this
obsession I was 5'7 and 130 pounds, a
healthy weight. I am now 5'8 and 95
pounds. I have was anorexic from 17
until the present ( i'll be 20 in a few
months), and have severe bulimic
tendencies. I purge every single thing
that I eat - whenever I get a chance. I
can't stop once I begin. I purge for
over 3 hours every day. I puke until I
can't stand and feel faint. I go in
cycles: 2 weeks or so of anorexia, then a
few days of purging-usually saturday and
sunday. It's like some sort of twisted
reward.
I went to counselling for a while, but
gave up on that. It felt threatening. I
see a nurse every week so I can get
antidepressants because I have been
depressed for over 8 years. I have taken
lexapro, zoloft (neither worked) and am
currently trying effexor. I feel
extremely lost and alone. I si but am
not suicidal... Not yet at least. I'm
afraid the nurse is going to send me to an
inpatient facility as she mentions too
often for comfort.
I don't know what to do or where to turn.
|
OldTimer
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 2 Location: Delaware
Posted: 01-26-05 11:30am
I read your post and it reminded me so
much of myself when I was your age. Like
you, my problem began when I was 17 years
old. I am now 37!! I started out as an
anorexic and became bulimic as a result of
counseling. The counselors think the
right thing to say is "all you have to do
is eat, and you can go home" wrong!! What
they taught me is how to eat, make
everyone else happy, then puke my guts
up!!
After 20 years of this, I still struggle
on an almost daily basis. I have found
out that there is definitely a root
problem that causes us to think that we
are not good enough or don't look good
enough, so we have to do this terrible
thing to ourselves. When I was about 27
years old, the realization of what my
"root"problem is came to me (yeah, 10
years later). What I realized was that at
a very crucial point in my life, I felt
like I was not being the person my father
expected me to be, and at the same time, I
had a boyfriend absolutely break my heart!
In some twisted way, I made myself out to
be the bad guy because if I was skinnier,
or could control myself better, these
things would not have happened. ( I was 5
ft 9 in and weighed 117 lbs for god's
sake!!) it was a yo-yo affect-if I
couldn't satisfy a male person in my
life--regardless of what their role in my
life was- boyfriend, dad, boss, husband- I
thought that if I had the perfect
body--these things wouldn't have happened
- afterall--everyone likes the pretty,
skinny girl, right?
Don't get me wrong--i'm still not 100%
well. But I am able to catch myself and
try to control it from happening. It has
been a very long, uphill battle. I see
the affects it has had on my body for the
past 20 years--deteriorating teeth, having
callouses frozen off my fingers, no
periods for over a year--risking not being
able to have my 2 beautiful children, thin
hair, terrible skin texture. I have even
been through having to take immodium
before I eat because after I would eat, in
trying to mentally talk myself out of
sticking my finger down my throat, I would
get diarrhea so bad that it was almost
uncontrollable, and pieces of food would
actually come out!! I know this sounds
terribly gross-but it is the reality.
Counseling doesn't work for everyone.
Take a good look inside yourself and those
that you surround yourself with. If
someone is constantly saying something
negative to you ro making you feel
terrible about yourself, your best therapy
may be to exclude them from your life. It
may hurt--but it hurts you a lot less than
you'll hurt yourself.
