Eating Disorders

[LoveTown]

well as someone that has always suffered from some sort of eating disorder I can tell you that it's not really something you think about...the disorder part I mean.

I've had a lifelong problem with binge eating and I've had problems with anorexia and bulimia since I was 15 (I'm nearly 29 now). When dieting it always starts out innocent enough, starts out healthy even...then the frustration sets in that the weight isn't coming off fast enough so soon enough it's back to starvation for days, then weeks, then months. Sometimes I get so hungry that it actually feels like my stomach is trying to dissovle the inside of my body but my mind won't let me eat, the thought of eating will actually be revolting to me. The hunger pains will become really intense, it just burns and aches all the time inside because I get so hungry. Sometimes the pain becomes so great that my body just goes nuts and suddenly spins out of control and I go on a binge. Then the guilt will set in about halfway through the binge so I make myself throw it all up.

On the other end of the spectrum is when I use food as an emotional comfort. I will get too sad, too lonely, too stressed or sometimes it even happens when I'm too happy or hyper and I just eat and eat and eat all the time. This makes me put on a SERIOUS amount of weight in a very short period of time. Then I get to a point where I hate my body again and the cycle seems to start all over.

Technically an eating disorder is any kind of preoccupation with food that becomes the controlling factor in one's lilfe. It's an obsession.

I hope this helps a little bit. It's just my personal experience and I am sure that everybody is different. Just try to be happy with yourself Pax and if you do find yourself dieting please do it the healthy way and don't let it take over your life and don't let your weight and what you eat or don't eat define you as a person

 

[pax]

Wow.

Thank you for sharing that with us, LoveTown.

 

[dandy]

LoveTown

 

[LoveTown]

you are welcome paxetaurora, don't feel alone in your concerns and please take good care of yourself.

 

[joyfulgirl]

I gained a lot weight but most of it was in my face, and then people started telling me I looked healthy.

Perceptions can we wierd and they can do a number on you.

You make a lot of good points. I grew up in southern rural Virginia where families often show their love through food. I ate like a pig and grew like a tree but was always tall and thin, yet everytime I came home from college everyone commented that I was either too thin or wow, had I put on weight, when in reality my weight never fluctuated more than 5 pounds in either direction. It was just that food and weight was what everyone talked about all the time.

I have a friend who has HIV and everytime he consciously loses weight through healthy eating and excercise, people FREAK OUT and always ask him if he's okay; they think he has AIDS and is dying. But then when he goes on a junk food and drinking binge, which he does because he has those issues, everyone tells him he's looking much better while to me he looks bloated on beer and MacDonalds. This society is really weird about food.

 

[joyfulgirl]

LoveTown

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Mildred]

1.) What do you all think about eating disorders? How and why do they come about?

i think about a girl sitting at the side of the road, her hands shaking, her eyes unable to focus, her legs unable to support her weight. i think of her drinking black coffee, only black coffee, as she sits in a cafe with her friends, entertaining them, amazing them with the creativity fuelled by starvation, insomnia and the hint of danger she allows herself to feel. i think of her lying sobbing on the kitchen floor because she wasn't allowed a whole apple. i think of the first time she felt her legs collapsing beneath her and how she wondered if she'd ever stop falling. i think of beautiful poetry hastily scribbled in dirty journals and the overwhelming fear that such beauty exists only in this strange dying halfworld.

i think of shame, of being caught with fingers down throat in a burger king car park, of stealing from friends to fund the addiction that started as a dab of speed to bring the numbers down faster. i think of disbelief, that she could destroy everything, everyone, with the abandon and desperation which pulls the moth towards the deceptive light.

no, 'i wouldn't know about that anyway.'

 

[verte76]

Thanks for sharing that Love Town.

 

[u2granny]

I'm 5'3" and weighed 92 pounds when I graduated from college. I still thought I was fat. It took many years before I could look in a mirror and see what was really there. It all started with a comment from an uncle about my thighs. I've been careful not to ever make any negative comments about my daughter's weight. I've had four children and still wear the same size I wore before I had any of them (size 6). If I start complaining about my weight my daughter stops me. She knows it is too easy for me to start down that slippery slope again.

 

[Liesje]

I'm 5'3" and weighed 92 pounds when I graduated from college. I still thought I was fat. It took many years before I could look in a mirror and see what was really there. It all started with a comment from an uncle about my thighs. I've been careful not to ever make any negative comments about my daughter's weight.

I know it'll sound cliche, but when it comes to these disorders, all it takes is one little spark.....

(if I may quote myself)

Sometime during the late 1980s, fifteen year old Christy Heinrich returned to Missouri from a gymnastics meet in Budapest, Hungary. On her mind was not her performance, her placement, or her traveling experience, but a single comment made in passing by an American judge, “you’ve got to lose weight if you’re going to make the Olympics.” (Malina, 16). Christy was four foot eleven inches and weighed ninety pounds. On July 26, 1994, Christy died of multiple organ failure. Weighing in around sixty pounds, her body had literally eaten itself in one final attempt to gain the nutrients necessary for existence (Ryan, 94)...

 

[pax]

Sad stories here.

I hope everyone can celebrate the holidays by eating and drinking happily (in moderation, of course).

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I agree that it can be sparked w/ one comment-especially from a male who is supposed to give you support and unconditional love. That hurts worse than anything. I still can't get some comments out of my head that my father and brothers made to me, and that's years later-and there was nothing wrong w/ my weight either. Mothers' comments can be crucial too.

Obviously there's a large gap between someone who is dangerously obese and someone who doesn't fit a model/actress standard.

 

[LoveTown]

thanks for all the hugs and support everybody :hugs:

No matter what we look like on the outside I can honestly say that everybody who has posted here is beautiful inside and that's all that counts s to all