1. one day you’re eating 200 calories, and the next day you hit 2000 or more.
2. you feel like you don’t have a “real eating disorder.”
3. you try and tell people about your tortured food feelings, and they look at your healthy BMI and say: “mmm…yeah..well it can’t be that bad can it?”
4. you go through a lot of crap, and still end up the same weight that you were two years ago. (Which, of course, looks healthy and normal).
5. all this agony and you don’t get any validation from it — there’s nothing to SHOW what you’re going through; you don’t even get to be “thin.”
6. you’re an exercise freak but don’t get to see the benefits, because you’re a binger too. And, all those hours feel like a waste sometimes because you don’t have the beautiful body you ought to have.
7. you read these threads on the anorexia and bulimia boards and agree with everything, but still feel like you don’t fit there.
8. on a good day you go out to eat, and are instantly triggered by the girl that orders a side salad with dressing on the side.
9. you hate that no one notices all the shit you go through in your head because your weight hasn’t fluctuated enough to gain attention.
10. you can loose 10 pounds in 2 weeks …. then gain back 12 in a week.
11. one day you fast, and the next day you’re eating a weeks worth of food …. then comes the choice to purge or not to purge. On good days you do, and on bad days you eat more and crawl into bed.
12. you still control the bad food you eat - blotting the grease off pizza, drink diet coke with a “fatty” meal, have low calorie dressing on a fatty sandwich, etc.
13. when you’re really upset and can’t decide whether to restrict or binge.
14. you start every day with the intention of restricting your calories, have nothing until lunch, and then still fit in 2000 calories before bed.
15. you’re embarrased to tell people that you have an ED cause you’re at a “healthy” weight.
16. you try to secretly diagnose everyone you know with an ED
17. you feel like you’re so fucked up/incompetent/worthless that you can’t do ANYTHING right/normally — not even develop an ED.
18. after a major binge you’re scared to drink water because you’ve gained enough weight already.
19. you feel like a fraud for having nothing to show for all your suffering.
20. you keep telling yourself tomorrow is a new day, and it never is.
21. even if you do try and diet somewhat “normally,” you loose nothing because your metabolism is so screwed from years of this shit.
22. over the last 11 years you have lost a total of 100 pounds, and gained about 90.
23. you starve/restrict all week knowing full well you’re probably going to binge on the weekend.
24. you can’t decide if it’s emptiness or bingeing that you crave the most.
25. you can’t sleep one night because your stomach is growling, and can’t sleep the next night because you’re so pissed at yourself for bingeing.
26. You starve all day, then binge when you get home, purge then eat a normall tea
27. You decline a boiled sweet from a friend because it has 25 calories only to buy 3 chocolate bars at the garage.
28. You fast for a few days, then eat normally for the next few.
29. Knowing that one day can be completely different to the next when it comes to food
30. putting on 5 pounds in 1 week only to loose it all the next week
31. When you can't say you have bulimia because even though you purge, a "binge" for you is 500 cals and you can't say you have anorexia because you have a BMI that is borderlining between healthy and overweight.
32. When you restrict restrict restrict until dizziness floods your mind, but your BMI is normal and is stuck there.
33. When you "binge" on 2,000 calories of cakes/chocolates/cookies while locked in the bathroom only to NOT swallow them but spit each sloppy huge bite into mounds of dixie paper cups you purchase regularly and hide inside sacks, boxes, etc so no one looking in the trash will see.
34. After C/S your throat hurts not from B/P but B/coughing up mucus/food that's slid down from C/S.
35. Restrict and restrict until you BINGE w/o P all day Sunday b/c you know your body has to be tricked it's not starving.
36. People telling you they see your bones but your BMI is twenty-fucking-three and you just don't see how the bones sticking out warrants a BMI of 23.
37. Hating yourself when you have a 'snack' after work of 3 wheat saltines to avoid fainting after your hour cardio workout and feel you failed.
38. Not able to NOT eat dinner, but not able to purge after. Feel, then, like you can't do a damn thing right
39. When you heavily restrict one week, lose 5 pounds, then eat normal the next week and gain it all back.
40. When NO ONE can see you have a problem.. Sometimes not even yourself.
41. When you feel like you're just pretending to have an eating disorder.
42. When you eat normally for days, randomly decide to purge one meal, then continue eating normally.
43. When you look at your body in the mirror, realize how much weight you've gained, break down crying for hours and promise you'll restrict again, then wake up and eat a normal breakfast.
44. When nothing you do makes any sense what-so-ever.
45. When you are trying not to cry at work because you feel so close to passing out and feel helpless, but you enjoy the empty feeling while you can before you get home and binge.
46. When you go to look for food and consider a banana, but decide that you don't need to eat. Then 5 minutes later you're pigging out on biscuits and crap.
47. When some days you feel like you've lost weight: you either a) feel great, eat normally, and gain.
b) feel like its not good enough, restrict, then fuck it up and binge.
48. When some days a friend tells you that you've lost "so much weight!" - you want to feel smug, to feel proud, to continue on whatever fucking mission this is... but often, instead, you take it as incentive to eat whatever she eats, because you're "skinny" too... whether its actually true or not.
49. When restricting is a game and you feel like you're fucking losing.
50. When binging is a failure but its the only thing that makes you feel safe, and in control.
51. When you realise none of this, especially the above, makes any fucking sense at all.
52. When all you want is to be described as "petite", as a "waif" (the most beautiful words in the world!), but all you ever feel like is a fucking lump.
53. When that feeling makes the cycle begin again.
54. When you feel sick all the time. You have tons of medical complications and symptoms such as anemia, vitamin deficiences, scarred hands, dark circles, exhaustion, constant dizziness, hypoglycemia, heart palipitations, heart burn, eroded tooth enamel, digestion problems, slow/foggy thinking, shakiness, headaches, muscle cramps, poor circulation, constantly freezing, losing hair, depression, insert anything else here.
Yet despite all this, some ignorant person says "Oh well you don't LOOK like you have an eating disorder."
So you think "hmmm interesting. Well, I'm also missing a minor detail or two to fit into one complete diagnosis or the other. I must not actually be that sick!" and you continue with whatever you were doing before.
55. when you go to the cinema to watch a movie, and when your friends are buying popcorn, you're purging in the toilet. You walk in, and watching the movie, but the only thing you can think about is food and how pretty and thin the people in the movie are. When your friends crying because of the movie, you're crying because you are jealous.
56. When you're jealous of girl who you can tell have an eating disorder because maybe just maybe you want the world to see you suffering
57. You're feeling guilty for seeking help because you feel like there are others with disorders "more serious" than yours.
58. Your doctors or your parents sometimes look at you like you're just attention seeking.
59. Your doctor attributes your symptoms to stress and assures you that you'll be "back to normal in no time".
60. There's a constant battle in your head of not thinking you're sick but knowing you really are.
61. When nothing feels real anymore.
62. When you're perfectly fine on your designated "I don't have an ED" days where you have to eat normally in front of your family. Days in between all day b/p fests and fasts. Calling it that because I have no other way to describe it but that's the act I have to put on! When no matter what the hell you do, you're always the same weight. When eating a "normal" portioned meal as seen as a binge you must purge.
63. When you have all of the problems associated with an ED (heart palps, dizziness, tired, etc) but none of the pleasures (Being skinny, feeling of being in control, etc)
64. When you are totally excited one night because you can see your ribs a little and then are so furious the next night cos they've disappeared again!! Grrrr!!!!
65. When you can have a 1500 calorie day, go to the gym and burn 400 calories but feel dizzy and sick like you need to eat...but then feel completely fine when you have a 600 calorie day and burn off 500+ calories
66. When you eat maybe 600cal in a day and all you want to do is purge, but if you have 1500+ calories in the form of alcohol, you don't care so much.
67. When you read this you are nodding your head and agreeing
68. When there is a constant battle in your head of thinking you are fine because you don't look sick but knowing you are.
69. Sometimes giving up for a little on your ED but then missing it and coming back
70. Crying because you aren't normal weight not even fucking overweight but obese, threw all the fasts, threw all the purging and hours at the gym you're obese
From a the lovely people on Whyeat.com
