Anorexia.

This is the first time I've been able to post on this thread without erasing it right after.

But I've been anorexic for almost nine years, which I know with my age (basically 18 because I will be in less than two weeks) seems insane, but it is what it is.
I'm a genuinely happy and optimistic person, almost to a fault, but anorexia is more or less my life. I deal with it; it's basically who I am, and at this point I like it that way.
:/

I need anorexia. It's the only thing that makes me happy

I've been anorexic since I was eight. (Do the math: I'm 19. Long time.) It's basically my life; my life revolves around it. What I eat, what I do, how I go about my day. It controls everything and it makes me feel so freakin' alone. I've learned to cope that I'll probably never recover because it's become like a friend to me, someone who'll never leave. But it's also a friend that I don't like, someone who hurts and manipulated me. My parents try to understand, they really do, but even with the history of EDs in my family, nobody can really, truly understand. I'm so used to running on basically nothing in my stomach and I'm consumed by it. It's sad and pathetic, and I know that, eventually, this will kill me. :/

I'm underweight, according to my BMI. I don't know my current weight and I honestly don't want to. I'm starting group therapy soon and I'm so scared. I'm just...lost.

I'll starve till I'm beautiful

I hate my fat so much.

I'm kind of scared that I've developed anorexia/bulimia, but all I can think about is how fat I am, and how skinny I want to be. I WILL NOT eat anything more than 300 calories, 'cause that's all that I allow myself. I weigh myself everytime I see a scale, and I'm obsessed with getting rid of fat.. :/ I starve myself, and I'm only happy when I'm hungry. That's sick, I know..

-

oxycontin:

This isn't a pro-ana thread. I have an eating disorder and I find those incredibly offensive. If you want to post those without someone saying something, then go somewhere else, they don't belong here.

This is a thread about Anorexia and she's allowed to discuss her experience and thoughts on the disorder.

If you disagree, that's fine. You can explain to her why you don't agree with that opinion or what she's said, or offer her help in overcoming her feelings. What you can't do is tell her not to post in this thread or that she should "go somewhere else."

That's not acceptable - especially to someone who may be reaching out for help with a comment like that. As someone who has an eating disorder, you should know what it's like to be in a place where you think that mindset is alright, you should be more sensitive to their issue and not shun the person and try to kick them out of the conversation.

Unless someone is giving out or asking for pro-anorexia (or any other eating disorder) tips, they're allowed to express and discuss their opinion on the topic, as long as it's in a respectful manner.

Audrey T:

This is a thread about Anorexia and she's allowed to discuss her experience and thoughts on the disorder.

If you disagree, that's fine. You can explain to her why you don't agree with that opinion or what she's said, or offer her help in overcoming her feelings. What you can't do is tell her not to post in this thread or that she should "go somewhere else."

That's not acceptable - especially to someone who may be reaching out for help with a comment like that. As someone who has an eating disorder, you should know what it's like to be in a place where you think that mindset is alright, you should be more sensitive to their issue and not shun the person and try to kick them out of the conversation.

Unless someone is giving out or asking for pro-anorexia (or any other eating disorder) tips, they're allowed to express and discuss their opinion on the topic, as long as it's in a respectful manner.

You're right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, I was just offended but what I said wasn't necessary. I'll delete the comment.

At the end of last year (From October) I suffered from a stress related eating disorder.

Basically my best friend wouldn't let me have other friends and wouldn't let me date because she wanted me to herself. I know that sounds stupid, but she was holding the fact that my horse; Sebastian lives at her house over me. So I wasn't eating because the stress made me not hungry anymore. Sometimes I'd be hungry but couldn't eat because I was too busy stressing, so I'd throw up several times.

I ended up losing between 10/ 15 kilos. I went from a 60 to a 45 in less than a month.

I ended up calling it quits with the so called friend between January and March where I got back up to 55 kilos and then we became friends again and it started again.

Now even though it's just starting again, I know it's going to be worse and I feel like I can't do anything about it because I have to think about my Sebastian.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, it's not just a mental illness, it's also stress related.

(Please note! I am getting help!)

I think its a mental disorder and I wish more people would understand.
I have Anorexia I've had it for a few years if I hadn't gone into recovery I'd probaly be dead by now, I'm starting to slip though, I can't help it, I miss feeling hungry I miss feeling light. I miss the 'hunger highs'.

Anorexia is definitely a mental disorder and I don't think it's attention seeking. I think if you're anorexic, you'll never get better fully - there will always be times, even if it's just one day, when you can't stand the thought of eating, even if you're in recovery.

I have it, though no one really knows. I've been down as low as 35 kilos but I've been in recovery for the past few months and I'm slowly gaining weight. But there are so many days when the thought of eating just makes me want to scream.

Weight doesn't matter. It doesn't.

Living hell.
And to people who think we just "do it to ourselves" and don't think it's messed up- we do. We know what we're doing. We know we can die. But we are mentally ill. It's not about being thin or pretty, it's about control, perfection, and many other factors.

I have struggled with anorexia for the last three years. It's not easy. And it's strange, because a part of me hates it. I hate what I'm doing to myself. But at the same time, a part of me loves it. Loves feeling thin, small, pretty, and above all, in control. I can choose whether or not I want to eat. I can choose whether or not to run mile after mile on the treadmill. I can choose. And that's why anorexia is so addictive, at least for me, because I'm in control. I can choose.
But sometimes, when I see the looks that people give me, when I hear what they say about me, either behind my back or to my face, somewhere in my brain that smaller, smarter part of me tells me that I'm going about everything the wrong way.
Anorexia Nervosa is vicious. It's real. And it isn't for attention. I have never wanted attention. I wanted to get out of the spotlight. I wanted to be small enough to escape the stares of everyone.

I've always been small. Not extremely small, but healthy and attractively skinny. However, I've lived my entire life in the monstrous shadow of this illness. I was never Anorexic, but my baby sister still struggles with the disease. I just get to live with the guilt that she only hates her body because our parents came down on her so hard for not being as small as my mother and I have always been naturally. Anorexia absolutely ripped my family apart.

I can't stand to see Pro-Anorexia posts. They make me utterly sick, and I can't help but look down on the people that post them. Anorexia ruins lives, breaks apart families, and kills innocent people long before their time. Being Pro-Anorexia is like being Pro-Suicide, a very slow and painful suicide. This entire thread is full of triggers. You should realize that something as simple as, "I hate my fat, and I wish I was skinny like Anorexics." or "I'll starve until I'm beautiful." is all it takes to encourage a suffering individual to continue; those offhand statements could talk another girl into starving herself to death. I don't even think such posts should be allowed. It's encouraging some girl to continue her self-destructive, suicidal habits, and just like talking someone into killing themselves is wrong, talking someone into starving themselves is completely wrong too. People should think about what they post before they post it, and consider the other people that might be reading it. Words have power.

Anorexia isn't beautiful. Being skinny will not make you beautiful.

Anorexia is death. Being confident will make you beautiful.

[Note: I acknowledge the difference between posts that are Pro-Anorexia and posts explaining personal experiences. Unfortunately, a lot of these posts blur that line and, in some cases, definitely cross it.]

@ the kingslayer.

I agree so much on this thread being full of triggers, I think sometimes people don't realize just how harmful the things they say are. I'm always surprised by people who talk about how physically pleasant eating disorders are - because they're really not pleasant at all. Not eating (enough) - especially if you do it for long periods of time - takes a big toll on your body. You get too weak to do even relatively not physically demanding stuff (e.g. climb two flights of stairs), your head hurts all the time and you can't concentrate on anything, you get heart palpitations and anxiety attacks, you feel light-headed and nauseous most of the time - which is very different from feeling 'light' because that implies you feel good about yourself and your weight - and if you felt like that you would stop putting yourself through so much pain. The pain aspect (i.e. not eating is very painful, some people refuse to eat simply because it's painful - it works as a type of self injury) seems to be very often ignored by people discussing EDs.

I think it's partially because those people don't have a lot of experience with EDs so they imagine they're just like being on a (strict) diet (and they're not), but also because a lot of people see EDs as a wonderful argument that can prove the larger points they want to make about society / the media / the way women's bodies are policed. I do think it's important to acknowledge that the way the belief that a woman's worth = her body weight is very widely shared - both by women and men - but discussions about EDs are too dominated by this. The over-emphasis on societal pressure and weight loss as the main cause of EDs also infantizes women with EDs and erases the experiences of men with EDs. Studies show that a history of sexual abuse puts people at a much higher risk of developing EDs than the frequency with which they read fashion magazines - yet fashion magazines get so much more attention when discussing EDs than sexual abuse.

@ kafka.

Excately! I think people—teenage girls, more often than not—have a terribly romanticized view of what an ED really is. They don't seem to realize that girls with eating disorders don't have those airbrushed, trim bodies that fill up magazine pages; true Anorexic individuals look more like skeletons than models. A lot of people seem to forget that there is a big difference between crash dieting for a few weeks to lose ten pounds and being an actual sufferer of Anorexia.

EDs aren't glamorous, and they're rarely about being beautiful for simple aesthetic proposes. The psychology of true anorexics is much more complicated than that. Not to mention the fact that Anorexics are starving. Not just shedding a few pounds, but losing almost all their muscle mass and doing permanent damage to major organs like their heart, liver and stomach. My sister, during the absolute low point of her ordeal, had wispy hair growing all over her body; her skin was always frighteningly cold to the touch, and had a sick yellowish tinge because her liver was failing; and on one occasion, her heart completely gave out so, had she not been in the hospital, she would be dead now. She was emotionally abused as a child, and needed intense therapy that went far beyond just learning to love her body. That's what true Anorexia is, and I don't see why anyone would want that for themselves let alone encourage the behavior in others.

Also:

The over-emphasis on societal pressure and weight loss as the main cause of EDs also infantizes women with EDs and erases the experiences of men with EDs.

^ That. My thoughts exactly. The fact that people overlook male ED sufferers is another major issue. Men with EDs are highly unlikely to ever seek treatment because they're embarrassed to admit to having such a 'female-centric' problem when, in fact, EDs in men are not that rare. Anorexia being a beauty issue that only females have to deal with is a poisonous, media-fueled misconception that is directly detrimental to building awareness and support for sufferers.

People seriously need to open their eyes to what is really going on, and treat Anorexia like the true monstrous illness it is rather than glorifying it. Anorexia is usually a defense mechanism for psychologically damaged individuals to take back control over their lives; it has little to do with actually being beautiful.

@ the kingslayer.
I agree, and I apologize if I crossed that line. The thing about anorexia, though, is that it seems like the right thing to do. It is a mental disorder. It changes the way you think. But like I said, there is a part of my brain that knows that what I am doing is wrong.
I'm in recovery now. I'm seeing a therapist and I've been eating. Anorexia is a monstrous, vicious disease, and it's incredibly hard to beat. Thank you for understanding that. I hope your little sister fights this disease and beats it.

This is definitely something serious, but whether it's a disease or not, I'll leave that to the doctors.

@ RizzySix

@ bound to you.
I find these triggering, it makes me uncomfortable. I would recommend getting help.

Anorexia nervosa is one type of eating disorder. More importantly it is also a psychological disorder. There is no one cause to someone becoming anorexic, in fact the leading “cause” is actually a combination of other issues that tie together to form the basic diagnosis of an eating disorder. Some of these issues include:
Dieting or weight loss
Mastery and control
Self-esteem issues
Genetic factors
Societal pressures
There is no established cause for anorexia.

Most importantly, anorexia is both as eating disorder and a mental disorder.

Symptoms range, and do no effect everyone in the same way. This is just a brief list of possible symptoms.
- Compulsive behavior
- Behaviors consistent with addiction
- Affective mood disorders
- anxiety disorders
- Preoccupation with food
- Addiction
- Distorted body image
- Hypokalaemia (potassium drop)
- Depression
- low BMI
- Obvious rapid weight loss
- Lanugo
- Rituals: food, clothes, other
- Binge & purging cycles
- Solitude
- Abdominal distension
- Bad breath
- Hair loss
- Swollen joints
- Fatigue

Malnutrition
Growth retardation
Pubertal delay or arrest
Reduction of peak bone mass
Hepatic steatosis

An important part of maintaining a healthy weight is making sure you have a healthy BMI(Body Mass Index). To calculate your BMI, you can go online and search BMI. Thousands of BMI calculators will come up, and any will do. It is best to check with your doctor on the current BMI standards, or use multiple calculators to average out your BMI.

A key element of treatment is maintaining a blanaced diet. You must eat more than the normal calorie average until you are at your healthy weight. A healthy and well balanced diet would consist of …
7 servings of fruits and vegetables
6 servings of grain products
3-4 servings of milk products
2 servings of meat products

There are three major areas of treatment.
Restoring the person to a healthy weight
Treating the psychological disorders related to illness
Reducing or eliminating the behaviors or thoughts that led to disordered eating.
This can be achieved by coming up with a nutritious and well balanced meal that is slightly higher in calories than normal, slowly returning to normal as the weight is gained.
Medication is sometimes used, especially to control any health issues such as hypokalaemia, amenorrhea and anxiety disorders.
Therapy must include individual, group, and family psychotherapy and nutritional counseling.

Pro-ana refers to the promotion of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. This following is split into two opposite categories. The first claims that they exist mainly as a non-judgmental environment where anorexics can go to share their experience and a friendly place for those who are in recovery.
The other side of pro-ana, the recently more popular is a growing population of people who deny that anorexia is a mental illness. Instead they believe that it is a lifestyle choice that should be respected by doctors and family. They sometimes refer pro-ana simply as “Ana”, a girl who helps them on their journey to become thin and perfect. This is becoming popular on the internet, especially on blogging sites that promote photos of anorexic women, food shaming and exercise. These photos are referred to as “Thinspiration”.

The lesser-used term pro-mia refers likewise to bulimia nervosa and is sometimes used interchangeably with pro-ana.

I apologize for the length but I honestly believe that in order to post on this thread there must be certain information present.