Mine is about finding control in a life where I see very little of it. It's also about being small and flitting in the shadows. That might sound creepy but I'd rather be on the sidelines and make things happen than BE the happening.
I started at age 15, when I ballooned up from taking birth control to control my period(they were really painful and basically I felt like I was having a hangover every month so I had to miss two days). I was 150lbs and even then my parents told me I needed to lose my extra baggage. I knew I couldn't do it while taking the pill so I went off it and started restricting and it just fell off to 115lbs in three/four months. Everyone praised me said how good I looked and I was actually very self conscious about it. I still felt like a fat person in a small body so I continued... I wasn't really bad with it but I was stillb ad enough that I'd black out and not remember parts of the day (even though I was conscious...)
:( No one should have to go through what any of us go through.
Even now at a healthy 140lbs at age 19 (it's ok for my height I checked my BMI) I feel incredibly fat though I workout religiously and my mom has told me so... I will just pretend she's babbling. I don't want anything to trigger me again...
Discussion Topic
How did it start for you?
Posted on 04/30/08, 11:14 am
The media always blames the fashion industry for its portrail of skinny super models and for glamourising skeletal.
The thing is, for me it was never really about being thin and beautiful. I never have been and never will be beautiful to look at, so I don't follow fashion at all and I certainly never do sexy, I would feel like a clown trying to. I can accept that.
When I started restricting and purging it was more about wanting to disappear, or being so tiny and insignificant that nobody would notice me and then they'd all leave me alone. Since then, it's become about so much more. More a general obsession and coping mechanism, (though obviously not a very effective one!)
I've only very recently looked at pro sites and they all seem to be about 'the look'. Is that really what everyone else is all about?
It surely can't be...xx
The thing is, for me it was never really about being thin and beautiful. I never have been and never will be beautiful to look at, so I don't follow fashion at all and I certainly never do sexy, I would feel like a clown trying to. I can accept that.
When I started restricting and purging it was more about wanting to disappear, or being so tiny and insignificant that nobody would notice me and then they'd all leave me alone. Since then, it's become about so much more. More a general obsession and coping mechanism, (though obviously not a very effective one!)
I've only very recently looked at pro sites and they all seem to be about 'the look'. Is that really what everyone else is all about?
It surely can't be...xx
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Reply #1 04/30/08 3:19pm
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Reply #2 04/30/08 5:03pm
Doesn't sound creepy at all, kind of similar to me.
I was 15 too and a very late developer, I was just (and still am) embarrassed about every aspect of my body.
My weight has been up and down and at its height just after I had my second child, my doctor said it was good to see I was in 'total recovery' - BULLSH*T!! I was 180lbs. I'm 5'1.5", I was obese.
Doctors are only human though, how was she to know that was going to be the ultimate trigger for me? Silly cow!
I admit I haven't been back to see her since I lost more than half of that weight (in the last year) and I'm fighting now to try and fix myself; I'm still in double figures, but I'm aiming at around 105-110.
Mums can be cranky. It is a tough job. I have two of the most beautiful children there have ever been and they are my inspiration and my raison d'etre. They are loving, affectionate and obedient, but I still find it hard to be a good mother to them all of the time.
My mum was crappy when I was younger and refused to understand or support me when I was most ill, (that's what 'mental hospitals' are for, right?) But I don't dwell on that so much now, she's a good grandmother and my kids love her, so I tolerate her snide comments and sneering looks.
Besides, she has them to stay with her sometimes, so that gives me a break.
Gotta take the rough with the smooth I guess.
Glad you're healthy. Take care xx
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Reply #3 04/30/08 9:14pm
For me, it actually was about body issues, to some degree. Though I may have had some form of bdd before this happened. But I've also realized that even though it's still because of body issues, I'm having a hard time really getting better because I'm trying to make myself into what I believe is perfect, what others would think is perfect; for control; for security, safety; in my worst, it was a way of harming myself when I screw up or feel bad; somewhat or a way to get back at parents; a way to relieve stress.
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Reply #4 04/30/08 11:35pm
For most of my childhood I was really skinny (ever since I was born), and then when I got into my teenage years, I started to weigh about as much as other people my height, and I started to feel fat. My friends stopped saying how skinny I was (not saying it was unhealthy), so I started cutting way back on how much I ate. I wanted to be back to my normal weight, and stop looking so ugly. Unfortunately I blacked out for a second while walking with my sister at school, and my mom got called to my school to bring me home. She was so worried about me when she found out I didn't eat at all that day. Thankfully though both my parents have denial issues, so they never spoke of it again.
So basically I just want to be quite skinny again. -
Reply #5 05/01/08 3:55am
I can relate to the control thing, I think for me it has been about control...I can control if I eat or don't eat ~ although lately I am realising that more and more ED is controlling me :(...I think deep down I also want my mum to acknowledge my weight loss (she has lost a huge amount of weight and has been told by her doctor she has an anorexic mentality) and her only response thus far to my weightloss has been "we have to make sure she doesn't put it back on"...It is so frustrating and somehow I think it is that, that is keeping me in bondage to ED :( -
Reply #6 05/01/08 1:51pm
shellebelle... wow, I can relate to this a lot. My mom was a smoker from age 12 to early 40s when she woke up one day and couldn't breathe and she had to stop. But the thing is I think she might have started it to stay thin (since a lot of my family's one side has an emphasis on looks). So basically "it's ok to do whatever's necessary"... this makes it really hard because I know how easy it would be to simply live off crackers for a few months (and I know I could do it which scares me to death)..
Right now I'm trying to show my mom I'm a healthy weight and that I do exercise and eat right and that maybe my body is meant to be a mesomorph(muscular/athletic) rather than an ectomorph(really slim).
I've been debating for years if I should ever publish a book on my early years but I know it'd be very difficult for my family to read and there would likely be anger and frustration so I might give it 15-20 years... -
Reply #7 05/03/08 6:35am
for me it was a way of iooking normal and fitting in with the other kids. A way of excaping the world, a form of stability and control as my family life was pretty rough. I was a thin kid but as far back as i can remember i have felt fat and ugly, maybe because i have always been tall so for some reason i saw myself as a big fat freak, and that is what drives me to stay this way as well as wanting to please my hubby look good for him and stuff. but the media never had much influence as i was never exposed to much tv and stuff. So to sum this up i think it was a stuffed up self perception and lack of stabilty and control steeming from critical drugo parents. not to blame them as this is my choice. -
Reply #8 05/03/08 10:13am
Everyone always says that deep down I'm doing this for control... But I don't know if that's why I felt the need to stop eating. I think it was more about the weight at first. It started out all about the weight. My ballet teacher called me fat, and it sort of festered in my brain for months and months and I just stopped eating unhealthy things. Then I ate less and less. Then I didn't eat. It was all about looking like the perfect ballerina... I have an obsession with being perfect, and in my mind, being thin became a way to achieve that. Even though perfection should be held as an ideal and not an actual standard... It's always been my standard, and ED was (is) my way to achieve that standard. -
Reply #9 05/06/08 2:11am
I think it goes way deeper than just wanted to look or be perfect, because, well, why on earth would anyone want that for themselves? What would benefit from that, if anything at all? I'm actually not very fond of perfectionism. It seems boring to me. I want to be as carefree and wild as I know my spirit and heart is.
Unfortunately, I worry so much over the tiniest matters and am afraid of making mistakes, or being judged or disliked, etc. So then I realize it's a self destructive pattern. When I'm most stressed or overwhelmed, my thoughts go into this "I'm unhappy with my boringness and perfectionism therefore I must self-destruct" type of process.
I don't believe that it was just one thing that started it for me. I think it was human instinct due to no one being emotionally available for me to get support and nurturing from.
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Reply #10 05/06/08 8:34pm
It really is about being perfect for me... I've had years of my parents drilling the thought that I can't do anything right and I'm a professional screw-up into my head that made me obsess over perfection... Because when I did things perfectly they didn't yell and scream. And if it was anything less than, I was a screw up.
I totally get the self-destruct thing though.
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