Eating disorders, and messed-up relationships with food

@taxonomicAtrocity ... imho, the purging isn't worth it.

but I feel you.

 

@NatashaBezmena why not? do you mean in like a 'it's a bad fuckin idea' way or an 'it doesn't work' way? because i get that it's a suboptimal coping strategy, no matter how good it feels to make myself feel that bad.

 

@taxonomicAtrocity

First, I have a death fear of vomit.
Second, the wearing down of enamel on teeth and the screwed up flappy thing at the bottom of the esophagus and the then-changed rate of digestion and stomach-emptying and resulting bloating ... (I'm a scientist, sometimes).
It's a suboptimal coping strategy, yes, but so is starving everything out of myself and trying to drop down to stupid weights for NO FUCKING REASON.
Sometimes I wonder which would be 'better'. Or ... worse ... I dunno. (sorry, very weird headspace).

 

@NatashaBezmena the vomiting's easier to hide than restricting, once i get into the swing of things! because i'm eating w/ ppl still, and i tend to disappear between mealtimes anyway cuz ppl are exhausting for me. so going upstairs to 'shower' isn't uncharacteristic!
i'm trying to time the vomiting so that i've either digested my meds or do it before i've taken them, because i need those to work. so it's, like. responsible puking, i guess? for a given value of responsible.

i don't think there is a 'better,' tbh. just two shitty, shitty options.

 

When I was in the inpatient ED program here, I could always tell who was purging by the marks on their hands, the smell of acetone, and the red eyes. Restricting is easier for me to hide because I just go-go-go-go-go, and with co-morbid PTSD I can blame a lot of it on that (legitimately, not just as an excuse), so people let me get further into restricting land than what would typically be "acceptable" in a recovering anorexic.

Spoiler: trigger warning

why is there such a thrill with watching the number on the scale drop? the number literally means NOTHING except how much water I've had to drink ...

Blah.

 

I am noticing disordered thought patterns creeping in where I am obsessed about not gaining weight.

I don't even want to lose weight (I am fat, but I am mostly ok with my body? but maybe my perspective is messed up due to previous dysphoria), I just don't want to gain any. Like, last night I had seconds at dinner and it fucking ruined my night because I was super depressed after, and sometimes I actually get anxiety attacks about eating or when I'm buying groceries. I don't think I am restricting myself too much though. If anything I've been eating a little more than usual because my appetite fluctuates and I'm going through a period where I am hungry once every couple of hours like clockwork.

 

ED relapses do indeed suck. Can this ride stop, I want to get off.

 

.... :Cautiously camps in this thread because I'm not even sure what to do about this anymore:

 

When you figure out how to make this ride stop, and figure out how to get off, please tell me. You'll be a billionaire in no time. -.-

 

Spoiler: spoilered because not sure if this is the right place to talk about this

I am not overweight. I do not think I am underweight. However, recently I gained a bit of weight due to health issues and suddenly became terrified of getting fat. About the same time I started having trouble eating - I was hungry and wanted to eat and needed to eat, but after a few bites became physically unable to keep chewing and swallowing. I started to wonder if maybe I had subconsciously caused anorexia and brought this up with a friend who said that was absolutely not the case, but still I wonder. I am not currently having this issue, it sot of comes and goes.

 

I think I have like, an entirely different food relationship.
basically, I can eat when im not thinking over much about the process of eating, or about the food (though it helps if I made it myself for some reason ??? maybe anticipation)
if I'm stressed, I can't eat-like, my brain pings with "nope you're full, not hungry", even if I Know I'm going to regret not eating later. if I think too much about food, I can't eat.
I have the strongest stomach ever, which is nice, because on the rare occasion that food foods for me, I can eat almost anything.
but, my teammates were talking about going steak free the other day, and I started thinking about food, and bam, couldn't eat.

probably a lot of it is childhood, blah blah blah, because for a bit in 2nd to 4th grade basically, I went mostly vegetarian, ended up not getting enough protein (or food in general), fainted twice, and then got diagnosed as malnourished.
...and because my family had to watch how much protein/nutrients we got, food started feeling more like an obligation than anything.
Especially when I generally don't get hungry. sushi is a guarantee hungry thing for me, which is good, but that and pizza are my only solid "yes this is food" feelings

....which pisses me off a lot, because I can't fucking change the "nope, no more eat" feelings. I'd eat more if I could. everyone on my fucking team is trying to lose weight, and I've dropped like 15 pounds. I only just got over the Underweight marker four years ago.

edit because: and then you talk to people and they're like "oh you should eat more" I'm fucking TRYING
or "god I wish I had your body" do you?? fucking do you?

 

:Posts this in the dead of night and runs:

Spoiler

I'm not entirely sure what to even call this anymore. I'm over a hundred pounds overweight and hate every second of it, but I'm 5'9 and wide shouldered so apparently it's not as apparent. ..But I'm hyper aware of it. I'm all for body acceptance but I can't handle mine. It's made worse by the fact all my doctors assume I over eat -constantly- and was even marked with a question of Binge Eating Disorder when I'd literally just finished telling the psych that while I could cut my portions sometimes, that doesn't address the fact I actually don't each much at all on average, and go through weeks of periods where I don't feel I deserve to eat and restrict like hell.

Downside is I can't do that anymore. Even if I feel like I don't deserve to eat and shouldn't touch anything, and that even water will make things worse, My spouse catches on immediately and makes me eat at least SOMETHING that'll help me keep from getting really sick and shaky and even more symptomatic overall from the POTS. If I try to skip an entire day he will hound me and tempt me with things I like. And I give in because I have no self control and then I swing the opposite way and graze.

I'm 27, disabled, probably somewhere around 250lbs+-ish and I've never been able to get anyone who could help me to believe me that I actually have more problems WITH EATING than with eating too much. And I can't tell if that's from being raised on eating disorder weight loss tips, being harassed about needing a diet/exercise while I was growing when I was right on target for my height and age group, or just.. ballooning as I've lost more and more mobility.

But hoo boy. Grazing slowly on a plate of bad food over the entire day feels like I'm stuffing myself silly and makes me feel like I'm being terrible, and yet apparently that's not eating enough. But eating purposefully and excitedly like with sushi or things I'm into as a treat feels like I'm some horrendous monster.

I've got no idea if I'm going to find an average or normal for me. Especially since my Desired Weight isn't.. really realistic at all.

If this is the wrong place for this I'll delete if needed.

 

the combination of dysphoria and really poor mental health made me a binge eater for years, i didn't care about my body and i just covered it in layers of too-big clothing and stuffed my face whenever i was upset. exercise didn't help, partially because i would use it to justify my binges. but i never was in good shape and school and more mental health shit eventually made me a couch potato.

then i realized why i was always really uncomfortable with my body (dysphoria!!) aaaand therefore went from not caring about my weight to caring way too much. but being really self conscious and self-hatey about the weight/body image thing made the binge eating worse, because i would hate my body and feel terrible, then gorge myself, repeat.

then i lashed out at a friend in a Bad Moment and didn't let myself eat until she had forgiven me. (i didnt tell her i was doing this). that started a bad thing, because then i knew i could spend days without eating if i wanted to.

then i got sick. and that made me drop a bunch of weight. and that made it worse because now i have an excuse to not eat and an explanation for weight drops. and i now have doctors who would fully endorse my former binge eating habit but now i have issues because i cant make myself eat when im not hungry. and im hungry maybe once or twice a day, and i get full too quickly. :/

 

nothing like an ed to make you mad at your friends for generously feeding you and then interacting w/ you for too long to make vomiting up everything later a viable option 8')

 

guys, I'm scared.

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow, and I'm relapsing harder than I have in years.

I can't do this again. I was doing so WELL.

*cries*

 

@kmoss I think I have something more like you. I don't have body image issues. My only concern with weight changes is if the clothes I own fit because I haaaaaaate clothes shopping with a passion, especially pants shopping. But like, I get hungry but then nothing is food. Anxiety makes eating harder, but I have had this issue when not having anxiety flare ups. It is really frustrating because eating has become a chore and I have to fight myself to finish small meals because it is really easy for the food to become not food. So now I barely eat(cuz new meds have my anxiety flared way up) and I am hungry a lot and I am just tired of fighting to make and eat food. I am just really tired and frustrated and would like food to be food again. :c

 

yeah, I was trying to eat lunch like a Normal Human (TM) yesterday, and it just ended with me glaring at peanut butter.

 

@taxonomicAtrocity you probably know this already, but if you're needing to vomit then please make sure you're getting plenty of liquids, especially stuff with electrolytes e.g. gatorade or something. dehydration & electrolyte imbalance cause really serious long term heart problems in a lot of bulimic people.
also brushing your teeth after vomiting will damage the plaque more, so it's better to wait a while if possible.
take care of yourself as best you can, my dude <3

 

@and_on_anon i didn't know about the brushing thing! i'll wait when i can 8)

 

When I was younger I saw someone for EDNOS; I still struggle with it now but I don't know if the label has survived the passage of time. (Probably it's still around somewhere, or else it was never officially diagnosed.) I restrict and count calories and hate myself for eating and have trouble lapsing into over-exercising when I exercise. But, at other times, I also eat too many calories - eating too much chocolate, for instance. I'm almost always hungry, which is what makes it easy to lapse into eating too much. I'm fat (BMI 32) but I had a lot of trouble recognising it because I always thought of myself as fat, even when I wasn't so much. I used to be vegan, and that kept my weight down a lot, but I recognised that my ED was hiding in it so I stopped and it made me put on a lot of weight. Amazingly, even when I only restrict to normal 'heavy dieting' specifications I never drop below a few kilos past my base weight, and it always comes back. I'm on Metformin, which is supposed to help with that. My abusive mother loves to tell me how fat I am and how it's going to kill me, since my uncle died of obesity. Which, like, is a jerk move, but she's technically right in that I am obese, and that's been pushing me to restrict and count a lot recently even if it doesn't actually do anything.

Spoiler: maybe a triggery question

Does anyone else eat ice or chew gum instead of actually eating food? I know an episode is getting bad when I get to the 'eating ice' stage of things.