eating disorder

Post Reply New Topic

I binge eat. In fact I just did. I'm a night binger and an anxiety binger.

I'm not as bad as some binge eaters but it's bad enough to impact my life negatively. So it's a problem, for sure. I'd like to get help with it, but I don't have the money to get counseling. I've tried SSRIs to control it, but the meds made me suicidal so I had to stop taking them.

Everyone in my family has an eating disorder. Both my mom and dad had BED traits. My dad would hide snack food, it was like he'd hoard it. When he was healthy enough to go out by himself, he'd go to fast food restuarants by himself, thinking no one in the family new what he was doing.

My mother just sits in front of the TV at night and eats. I live with her and do her shopping. So I kind of enable her because whenever she wants snacks, I go buy them. But I'm so overhwelmed with my own issues with food, I feel I can't deal with hers. So I just take the easy way and buy her what she wants.

My brother's eating disorder is not so clearly defineable. He's obsessed with food and his weight. He's always comparing himself to otehr people or to how he was when he was 14 (he's in his 40's now). He used to be overweight, but then he lost a lot of weight, and he's really weird about food. One week, he'll not eat cheese. The next week, no pork. He skips meals and obsesses over portion size. He'll make these ridiculous small sandwiches, like the size for a 3-year-old. But then he'll hide food or go eat fast food by himself, like my dad used to do. Or if I fix certain dishes, he'll literaly eat three times as much as anyone else. If I fix one of those dishes, I have to make sure to make plates for my mom and me, because he'll eat everything and not leavve enough for us. When he eats here, it's routine for me to make him wait until my mom and I have gotten our portions, then he just devours whatever is left. And beer--I have to hide beer when he's at he house becuase he'll just drink it all like a fish.

Some of the issues with my eating disorder have to do with having PTSD and anxiety. I grew up in chaos and had several traumatic experinces. My parents were emotionall absent, and never really were concerned with allt eh rpoblems I was having. I never knew what it was like to feel safe and secure as a child. Eating makes me feels safe. The world is crazy, but at least I have food. It's that's kind of crazy thinking.

I also eat beuase I'm lonely. When I was teenager, in high school, I had a lot f friends. It was the only time in my life I had a lot of friends. I aways eat lunch with them at school and we'd go out the eat a lot outside of school. i assocated eating with having friends. Now I am back to having no friends, and so I eat to experincesomething of that life again. And since I feel most lonely at night, I often binge at night. I'll even stay up late just to eat.

If I go to sleep early and exercise inthe monring, I can control my binging much, much better. Going to bed early keeps me from feeling lonely once it's late and the rest of teh world seems to be asleep. And exercising int he morning helps me manage my anxiety during the day better. But I'm not always so good about sticking to that simple routine.

Definitely agree lostD, I first went to the doctor when I was 13 but because my weight wasn't dangerously low, she said it was probably a phase and just to eat more. When I was 16, I went again because my mum found out about binging/starving but again because my weight was 'ok' she just took a blood test and said I was anaemic. I was finally diagnosed when I was 18 and my weight dropped to 'hospitalization level', but even since then, it's when my weight's higher that I have the most problems because I feel out of control and need the routine, but that leads to binging/starving.

I've had eating problems for the past 3 or 4 years, going from 130 lbs to 120 lbs initially via not eating. Then binging and going up to 145, then going down to 115 quickly. Then slowly from 115 to where I am now which is 84.
I eat about 600-700 calories a day and it makes my weight plateau which I hate and am disgusted by, but if I eat less then I get dizzy and black out, and I am determined to keep going and not gain but not let eating interfere with my life to the point of not being able to cope at college and feeling constantly weak. I eat the same things ever day with a slight variation on meals because sometimes my Mum cooks for me. When she does I eat it and then work out or go for a long walk or run, and eat a smaller breakfast the next day. Every few days I cave in and binge, although not like before, because my stomach can't tolerate such large amounts of food now, but I have a bowl of ice cream and some chocolate and biscuits and then feel disgusting and repulsed but somehow calm because I know I won't have the temptation for the next few days.
I have very distorted view of how I look, because all my life I have been chubby, and hated myself, but accepted it. Until I was a teenager and became aware of myself and wanted to look pretty and all that. Plus I became depressed and have been living with that through all this along with anxiety and OCD. I weigh less than I have since I was eight or nine. I still want to lose more, it doesn't look enough. I know that makes no sense but it's the only thing that makes me feel like I've accomplished anything.
I was basically agoraphobic and very sick for a while, and all I have to show for two years of my life is the weight I lost. I was too depressed to create anything or achieve anything academic.
People tell me that I am skinny now, that I have no fat on me, and sometimes I see it. But sometimes I look in the mirror and see a fat lump. Even when I do see it my biggest fear is gaining weight and being worthless again. I have only had people be attracted to me when I'm thin, be nicer to me, make me feel almost accepted and not be paranoid about being overweight. I have no real friends, and my AS and shyness makes me feel like I have no personality. I need to be skinny to make up for it.
Then there's the control. Like another post said, no matter what's going wrong or happening, it's okay as long as I don't eat bad food and see a lower number on the scale. My anxiety disorder was terrible, now I cope with things by focusing on eating. Clean hands and empty stomach, clean body. I feel in control when I'm empty.
I can't let my Mum find out though, which is why I am not losing so fast as I would like. My family think I am doing so well and they would be heartbroken not just to find out about my eating but about my body image. My grandmother always said to me 'you could never become anorexic, you're too smart for that'. I feel guilty when I see her now, and have to wear bulky clothes, and I love her but I avoid visiting because she makes me food and sandwiches and always comments on my weight..
I don't know when I will ever feel good enough.

Sorry for a long post, it wasn't really meant to be. I'm kind of scared now because I always said I would stop when I was thin, would never get scary skinny, but now it's not even about looking good, I want to look as tiny and as vulnerable as I feel. I thought thin would equal happy, but it doesn't. Not yet.

I had disordered eating since around age 11 or 12 and it eventually developed into anorexia and I went to the hospital for it. I have permanent digestive problems from being fully anorexic for about 4 years. I went on a medication called Zyprexa to help me start eating again, but I've stayed on it for my bipolar. It's hard for me to deal with weighing so much more now and sometimes I do lose a bit of weight again and I obsess over my weight/size.

I never even thought about weight when I was a teenager, but after a spell of serious depression and 8 months of antipsychotics, which made me put on an extra 15% of my body weight, I became obsessed with losing weight when I was 19. It coincided with going to university, which I had been looking forward to because I had no friends at home, but when I got there I found that people were even less tolerant of me than people at school had been, and that unhappiness made things much worse. I started exercising to lose the excess weight, and that became obsessive, as did counting calories and controlling everything I ate. I ended up losing one third of my weight (including the extra) in less than 6 months. Unlike what you hear about anorexics, I knew I was too thin and I liked it. I liked the control and I liked having no fat on my body. I had no interest at all in 'thin models' etc - have never been interested in famous people and considered myself thinner than them anyway.

I was never treated for anorexia and I am glad as I have heard that they force you to eat. I knew I was too thin really, and wanted to be healthy so I very slowly (the first stone in 6 months, but then several years) allowed myself to put on an extra stone and a half in weight, in order to have a BMI of 19, which is the lowest 'healthy' weight. Doing it this controlled way suited me - forced weight gain would have made things far worse. But for years and years I controlled everything I ate - I became very interested in cooking (and good at it too) and would undereat all week in order to cook and eat elaborate meals at the weekend. My life was still ruled by food, but I hid it from everyone as everyone could see that I was a normal weight and appeared to eat a lot (because whenever I went out I had already 'saved up' all my calories). It made me extremely rigid about everything though - not just food had to be under control, but everything else that might impact upon it was planned at least a week in advance.

I did get a bit more relaxed about food when I travelled for a bit - temporarily the travelling was more important (I was obsessed with that instead) and I realised during that time that I didn't need to regulate things so much. However, a couple of years after I was depressed again and had to take antipsychotics. I made the doctors aware that I was weight sensitive, but despite this they put me on drugs that are notorious for weight gain. Again I put on 15% of my body weight in 5 months. Since coming off the drugs I lost weight (very rapidly) almost down to normal. However, my self control seems to have permanently disappeared. Whilst I was on the drugs I binge ate all the time - a terrible thing if you have spent the previous 10 years being in control of everything you eat. I was effectively addicted to food and craved it to distraction. Although now my weight remains normal and at a constant level and I no longer have this food addiction, I frequently have the urge to binge eat (particularly when stressed), alternated with periods when I try to undereat (at a moderate level) to compensate. The lack of control disgusts me, but it has gone - I just can't do it any more, not even for a week. I find myself eating to calm down mild anxiety about all sorts of things - I never did this before taking the antipsychotics, and I think it has become a learned response, which I am not sure how to get rid of. The excess eating often makes me feel horribly full up throughout the following day (I have mild IBS and this makes it worse), and sluggish - when I was too thin I had loads of energy. But I can't seem to make myself see the negative effects and stop doing it. Again, noone knows I do this because I am a lot slimmer than most people my age - I still exercise a lot, although after so many years it has become such a normal part of my life that I genuinely enjoy it, whereas it used to be an obsessive ritual before.

As someone mentioned before, once you have an eating disorder it never goes away entirely - always comes back in some shape or form. For me it has nothing to do with body image - I love my body (although because of the binge eating can't get rid of a stubborn bit of fat, but it isn't too excess and is partly down to age) and I am happy with the way I look in general. It is more to do with having control over my life and having lots of energy, which makes me feel better and happier.

It's great to see you all opening up about your eating disorders. It's not an easy subject to talk about and people who haven't experienced them often don't understand how hard it can be.

I've been struggling with eating disorders for years. I was very skinny, as a child, but I started to overeat as I got older, which lead to a lot of weight gain. By the time I was in highschool, I was very overweight. It didn't bother me much, until I was 16 at 230 pounds. I began having severe body image issues, at that point. I got into hard drugs around the same time. When I realized how much weight I could lose by doing stimulants, I started using them as a weight control mechanism. I would get high on ecstasy and walk around the streets for hours, several nights of the week. I've also had a periods of severe restriction, including 8 days of not eating and doing lots of cocaine.

I don't do any of those things, anymore... I started lifting weights and eating healthy, about a year and a half ago. I put on 20 pounds of good weight, in my first year and had a low body fat percentage. I was in the best shape of my life and I loved what I saw in the mirror. My workouts were going great and I was happy with my life, in general. Things were going my way, for once in a such a long time.

In recent months, I've fallen into a depression and the binging has started again. I often binge several times in a week, as a result of anxiety. My health, my training and my social life have all suffered. I'm sure that if it wasn't for my training, I would be either obese, or a drug addict.

I'd like to see more men post in this thread. I can't be the only guy on these forums with an eating disorder.

I just read about Orthorexia Nervosa -- an unhealthy obsession with only eating healthy foods that can lead to malnutrition & even death. I think that fits me better than Anorexia Nervosa, because I never quit eating completely. I'd just go on these obsessive and restrictive diets where I couldn't have anything "bad" and ended up with very little I'd give myself permission to have.

I just started eating bacon again for the first time in 5 years. It feels very freeing.. But I know when I get depressed or stressed out again, there will be that danger that I'll diet down to nothing so I can feel I'm in control.

The current DSM is crap, which is one reason why they' re changing it!! The new one should be out by 2013.

Anyways, I was diagnosed with anorexia even though I still got my period and continued to even though I was emaciated at one point in time. With that said, one can still be diagnosed with anorexia even if they still get their periods. It just depends on how knowledgeable the doctor is with eating disorders.

EDNOS is still just as dangerous as Anorexia & Bulimia are.

If you're suffering from any of these life threatening disorders and want helpful resources, I'd be more than happy to help you out!!

After 8 years, I'm still stuck in this hell.

i wasn't diagnosed with an ED but i am pretty sure i have one. I binge then stay on a strict diet for a periods. I binge mostly when i am stressed and it seems in my mind to help me cope with the problems i am having, and i am an emotional eater.