I have an eating disorder and it's fucking up my life

[BrattyCommissar]

I don't know what else more really needs to be said.

Tonight I hit a new low in that it's the first time I successfully forced myself to throw up. Not a lot. But enough to hate myself.

Normally I either chewed the food but didn't swallow, or if I did swallow I'd do overly intense exercise to 'make up for the binge'.

But this evening after, not even a particularly bad binge, but it was my second binge today and I had been so good and hadn't purged after the first binge, trying to tell myself it was okay

Well it clearly wasn't. I binged again after a conversation began to revolve around the concepts of eating and throwing up and it just... I don't know. I feel like that's a terrible reason to binge again, but I couldn't stop myself. I binged.

And when I was done binging, I was shaking, near crying, and like

Okay so the exercise purge, the entire disorder

I feel it came from my overly attentive calorie counting. I didn't get the disorder until early this year, however. I think. Maybe before. Anyway I didn't get it until after I lost the weight and I began to worry like hell that I was gonna put it all back on.

So even more than I used to when I was dieting to lose weight, I began to count calories. I counted them hard. I counted them often. If I don't count them I shake, and feel sick, and break into a sweat until I at least do some mental math to know my number at any given moment.

And knowing how hard I have to push myself to get it back in 'acceptable range'.

I've already a few times hurt myself from pushing so hard to try to get in that 'acceptable range'. I've also multiple times attempted to throw up but didn't.

Also fucking binging on food pointlessly and compulsively is hella expensive. Shit.

Anyway so tonight I

binged a second time because I dunno, I was triggered

And I did the math on how much I'd need to do. 1000 calories to burn.

Well, I was gonna try. I went to the place I usually kill myself in trying to purge, the old apartments I lived at. They have a fire escape staircase inside one of their towers. 24 flights of stairs. I do laps of that.

Well after doing the half mile to get there and one lap, I was feeling terrible. I just ate a bunch of food and drank a bunch of water and then was doing some intense working out and

on my second lap, i stopped at the floor that has the gym and some bathrooms just for anyone at the apartment to use and

I hunched over the toilet, thrust one hand into my stomach so hard that it hurt and made me gag, and shoved two fingers down my throat until I threw up.

Again, not a lot. But enough for me to realise that I'm getting worse. I was crying, shaking, sweating, my throat felt like fire, and the taste was terrible. I couldn't stand, my head felt light and my legs like lead. I had already walked, ignoring the purge aspect of the day, over 8 miles. My right leg was still hurting from my last purge.

And so after that I... just came home and typed all of this up.



I've been pretty damn open about my problems online through my life. I've been open about my history of depression and suicide attempts. The hallucinations. Gender issues and transitioning. My abusive father and how fucked up my childhood was.

So I figured, fuck it, what's one more thing.


I know that for other problems I've had, making my problems social instead of strictly personal helped. That feeling of social obligation to my peers, and in particular my friends, that I get when my problem is spread away from just me knowing has helped me multiple times in the past overcome problems and do what's best for me.

And that's the hope here.

I just hope that I can do what's best without getting a therapist. I'm not in a position where I can afford one. And the binging is costly on top of everything too. Even if I keep my costs for food under 5 dollars a day with the binging, I'd rather have food costs even lower or when they're not low, not waste the food on stupid compulsions.


So yeah.



Right now? I feel like actual human filth. Garbage. Stupid fucking fat ugly idiot worthless shitstain terrible person if she can even be called a person having so little control over mindless wasteful terrible compulsions, fuck.

I hate this part of myself. A lot. And it's becoming a bigger part of me- stress triggers the binging first, and the binge and purge cycle is raising my baseline stress level....



Not sure if that this will work out for me. But I've overcome worse. I'll overcome this.

I just hope I can do that without having to budget in therapy...

 

[Sirona]

I don't know what else more really needs to be said.
Right now? I feel like actual human filth. Garbage. Stupid fucking fat ugly idiot worthless shitstain terrible person if she can even be called a person having so little control over mindless wasteful terrible compulsions, fuck.

i really hate that you've felt this way. you're anything but, you're a wonderfully intelligent and clever woman full of potential (and who freakinˈ knocked the socks off of her new boss). I've had the enormous privilege to have known you for.. is it almost 8 years now? The privilege to have watched you grow so much as a person and overcome so many challenges and to have seen you thrive. You are without a doubt one of the strongest people I've known.

i am, as always, on your side

and, as always, message me whenever for whatever reason :)

 

[Gomorrah]

Hey, remember that you've made it this far, and you've dealt with a whole lot worse shit than this. You can beat this Elly. You're powerful and kind and fuck I wish I knew you better to be honest. I love talking to you, or just hearing you talk. Remember when you told me about your RP? I was so impressed with the amount of effort you put into that project. I was just thinking today that I needed to be more like you in that way for my projects; you honestly inspire me and I'll happily stand by you in these dark times.

 

[Persephone]

Right now? I feel like actual human filth. Garbage. Stupid fucking fat ugly idiot worthless shitstain terrible person if she can even be called a person having so little control over mindless wasteful terrible compulsions, fuck.

This is the furthest thing from the truth, Elly. You are cool, smart, funny, attractive, fit, kind, passionate, creative, and so very awesome. There are not enough positive adjectives to use to describe how great you are. In short, you're a lot of things that I'm not, and I wish I was more like you. You inspire me to continue to try and be a better person, even with all my flaws and mistakes. You're a positive role model and one of my best friends. I've known you for about 3-4 years, since 2012 or 2013, and I can honestly say that I fucking love you like family. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, you are family, being the closest thing I'll ever have to a cool older sister (other than maybe Kammy, although her level of coolness is debatable).

So, no, you're not trash, you're not worthless, you're not any of those things. You're a strong person who's been through the wringer and made it out in one piece. You've dealt with horrible shit and persevered where others would've broken down. You are an amazing human being and there will always be people who love you and want you to succeed, and I'll always be one of them. Don't worry, because no matter what comes your way, I believe that you can handle it, cause you're a goddamn survivor.

 

[Kestrel]

Inevitably, this is going to be about discipline. This post is going to sound really shitty, but I promise you it's geared towards a solution.

There are two options, basically. A.) You discipline yourself to a better routine. B.) You give up part of your freedom to let someone else make these decisions for you. Generally, option B seems easy, but doesn't make people happy and either strains relationships or costs you more than managing a food budget. Use B as a last resort.

So, here's the keyword; routine. People are creatures of habit. Habits are hard to make and they're hard to break. You're going to have to do both. The first, and probably easiest change to make, is to stop drinking anything but water. Or at least, limit yourself to one can of coke per day (or whatever you drink.) Drinking is great, but almost everything except water has calories and sugars. Even otherwise healthy drinks like fruit juices. You may also opt for tea, but look for herbal teas and don't poison it with sugar. Water is still best, especially during exercise, though.

Now that was the easy part. The next part is more difficult because it will probably have to be gradual in order to form a lasting habit, but when a change is gradual it's also easier to lapse back in a moment of weakness. What I'd advice you to do is to take a week and write down everything you eat, along with the time you eat it and your mood/dominant thoughts at the time. This will be a confrontation as fuck there ever was one, so be prepared for that. However, with this information, you will have a starting point in your plan and, since you mentioned your ideas on how to limit your money spent on food, I assume you have some kind of end point in mind. If not? Get on that. A goal will function as a carrot on a stick, but, to keep the metaphors going, remember that you can only eat an elephant one meal a day.

Some changes in your diet may be good as well. Vegetables are your number one go-to. Lettuce is fantastic, you can eat a bunch of it without gaining much to satisfy an urge to eat a lot. Plus it's relatively cheap. Obviously, you may want to avoid fat foods and high sugar snacks, but also limit your intake on foods with a lot of carbohydrates, like potatoes, rice or bread. For a sweet tooth, you can eat fruits (just not in quick succession) or if you don't mind the bitter, you can buy some cacao to mix in with milk or make your own chocolate (though do mix some honey/stevia/palm sugar with this cause fuuuuuuck.)

Now I have nowhere near enough knowledge/experience to health coach you a good plan for you, so you may want to look into that. If you are set on doing it yourself without professional help, I force form habits in about forty days. I really don't know what a good progression for you is, but keep in mind this will be a long term project. Let's say, two months. What you want to do is make a weekly progression system. Keep your progress documented. Every week you double down on exercise or eating less (bad) foods until you reach your end goal at two months. Then take another forty days to stick with that until it's habit. Important to note here is, whenever you miss even a single day in a week, that week no longer counts. On the flipside; good progress makes you feel accomplishment and that fuels confidence, which in turn fuels your strength to keep going. Document every day what you eat and do for exercise and, perhaps most importantly; WRITE DOWN HOW YOU FEEL AFTER A GOOD WEEK. Then staple this to your door. There will be good days and bad days and it's important to remember on the bad days both kinds exist.

Something else you can do to motivate yourself is sharing your plan with a friend. I see you've gotten plenty support over here already, so if you can share your plan and progress with a friend that will be very motivating. This goes for both good and bad weeks. As long as they can help you push yourself to keep going. Because I strongly advise you to document your eating and exercise habits during this period, you will also be able to look back at your own progress. If you're doing well, this will instil a sense of accomplishment. If not, you can probably figure out what parts it goes wrong and work on those specifically.

The largest hurdle to overcome is obviously binging due to emotional stress. This is another reason why I want you to write everything down and communicate your plans to a friend. This is so it stays in the back of your head and gives some form of counterweight. Now I don't know how heavy that counterweight will relatively be for you and it will probably make you feel even shittier in the moment to have that counterweight/guilt. BUT! If you manage to limit your binging, it will feel better in the long run than it will in that moment.

Basically tl;dr. Make a plan. Write down your plan and progress. Share it with a friends. Use accomplishments as motivation. Don't give up. Make the change you want to make, but remember the only way to eat an elephant is one meal a day.

 

[BrattyCommissar]

Inevitably, this is going to be about discipline. This post is going to sound really shitty, but I promise you it's geared towards a solution.

There are two options, basically. A.) You discipline yourself to a better routine. B.) You give up part of your freedom to let someone else make these decisions for you. Generally, option B seems easy, but doesn't make people happy and either strains relationships or costs you more than managing a food budget. Use B as a last resort.

So, here's the keyword; routine. People are creatures of habit. Habits are hard to make and they're hard to break. You're going to have to do both. The first, and probably easiest change to make, is to stop drinking anything but water. Or at least, limit yourself to one can of coke per day (or whatever you drink.) Drinking is great, but almost everything except water has calories and sugars. Even otherwise healthy drinks like fruit juices. You may also opt for tea, but look for herbal teas and don't poison it with sugar. Water is still best, especially during exercise, though.

Now that was the easy part. The next part is more difficult because it will probably have to be gradual in order to form a lasting habit, but when a change is gradual it's also easier to lapse back in a moment of weakness. What I'd advice you to do is to take a week and write down everything you eat, along with the time you eat it and your mood/dominant thoughts at the time. This will be a confrontation as fuck there ever was one, so be prepared for that. However, with this information, you will have a starting point in your plan and, since you mentioned your ideas on how to limit your money spent on food, I assume you have some kind of end point in mind. If not? Get on that. A goal will function as a carrot on a stick, but, to keep the metaphors going, remember that you can only eat an elephant one meal a day.

Some changes in your diet may be good as well. Vegetables are your number one go-to. Lettuce is fantastic, you can eat a bunch of it without gaining much to satisfy an urge to eat a lot. Plus it's relatively cheap. Obviously, you may want to avoid fat foods and high sugar snacks, but also limit your intake on foods with a lot of carbohydrates, like potatoes, rice or bread. For a sweet tooth, you can eat fruits (just not in quick succession) or if you don't mind the bitter, you can buy some cacao to mix in with milk or make your own chocolate (though do mix some honey/stevia/palm sugar with this cause fuuuuuuck.)

Now I have nowhere near enough knowledge/experience to health coach you a good plan for you, so you may want to look into that. If you are set on doing it yourself without professional help, I force form habits in about forty days. I really don't know what a good progression for you is, but keep in mind this will be a long term project. Let's say, two months. What you want to do is make a weekly progression system. Keep your progress documented. Every week you double down on exercise or eating less (bad) foods until you reach your end goal at two months. Then take another forty days to stick with that until it's habit. Important to note here is, whenever you miss even a single day in a week, that week no longer counts. On the flipside; good progress makes you feel accomplishment and that fuels confidence, which in turn fuels your strength to keep going. Document every day what you eat and do for exercise and, perhaps most importantly; WRITE DOWN HOW YOU FEEL AFTER A GOOD WEEK. Then staple this to your door. There will be good days and bad days and it's important to remember on the bad days both kinds exist.

Something else you can do to motivate yourself is sharing your plan with a friend. I see you've gotten plenty support over here already, so if you can share your plan and progress with a friend that will be very motivating. This goes for both good and bad weeks. As long as they can help you push yourself to keep going. Because I strongly advise you to document your eating and exercise habits during this period, you will also be able to look back at your own progress. If you're doing well, this will instil a sense of accomplishment. If not, you can probably figure out what parts it goes wrong and work on those specifically.

The largest hurdle to overcome is obviously binging due to emotional stress. This is another reason why I want you to write everything down and communicate your plans to a friend. This is so it stays in the back of your head and gives some form of counterweight. Now I don't know how heavy that counterweight will relatively be for you and it will probably make you feel even shittier in the moment to have that counterweight/guilt. BUT! If you manage to limit your binging, it will feel better in the long run than it will in that moment.

Basically tl;dr. Make a plan. Write down your plan and progress. Share it with a friends. Use accomplishments as motivation. Don't give up. Make the change you want to make, but remember the only way to eat an elephant is one meal a day.

...

At first I thought I shouldn't respond, but then I changed my mind.

First, you don't need to feed me the line on habits- I lost a lot of weight healthily through gradual habit changes over the course of a year.

Secondly, I already only drink water. I already primarily only eat vegetables. I already never have highly processed foodstuffs ever. I think the most processed my food gets now is 'peanut butter and jelly sandwich'.

Thirdly, I'm not bulimic to try to lose weight. I'm already at a good healthy weight for my body type and height. Losing more weight would actually be bad for me. I've been bulimic for maybe 8 months and my weight has been incredibly stable during that time.

Fourthly, as described in my post, my primary form of purging after a binge is through rigorous exercise to the point of physical exhaustion and pain- and usually continuing after that. Suggesting that I double down on exercise seems to miss that point entirely.

Fifthly, dude, I eat on less than 5 dollars a day on average, adding lettuce into my daily would raise prices. I already budget and coupon to make sure my food around me is cheap, but not by any stretch bad for me. I'm not binging on junk. It isn't what I'm eating that is the problem too. It's how much. Like one time my binge was 'more than 5lb of carrots', another was 'ate too much fruit' or 'too many nuts' or 'too many beans'.

Sixthly, my binging is brought on by stress. My purge compulsion is brought on by my intense fear of my weight shifting from where it is. My weight is good. I don't really want it to go down or go up. My current way of treating my purge compulsion is mostly by trying to tell myself that it's okay to have 'a bad day' that when I'm back to my usual self I can healthily mend it I don't have to hurt myself.

So your

post while well meaning to me just comes off as misguided like not getting why my disorder functions as it does, assumes I eat poorly, that I want to lose weight, and such and offers the solution as 'have you tried just not binging? diet and exercise may work' and that's like :|

 

[Kestrel]

Fair enough. It seems I completely misinterpreted your post.

 

[howl]

While I have arfid/ednos I really don't know much about other eating disorders, so I can't provide suggestions.

Something that's helped me out a bit with other mental health things I deal with and might be able to help you is finding blogs/facebook groups/etc and joining them or even just lurking, some kind of online community that was made specifically to discuss problems surrounding and find more out about your disorders. Although in my experience, the people in facebook groups aren't always the most knowledgable and misinformation is commonly spread.

Tumblr gets a bad rep in general but if you look for a bit you can find some pretty good mental health blogs, and there a lot that focus on one specific disorder and the people that run them usually have it so they'll know what it's like. I have a few that I follow, usually you can find good coping strategies for disorders and things that accompany them on those blogs, like anxiety and how to calm down or deal with stress, or plans on how to improve body image/reduce stress/etc.

I don't know how often psychforums is frequented since I don't use it, but that might also be a good place. They have sections for different types. Being social and making friends could help motivate you and provide support from people with experience.

I'd fact-check anything you find though since it is the internet and people can post false things without knowing it. I guess generally if you see the same thing from a few different sources it's probably trustworthy. Googling and finding out about healthy coping strategies and different types of therapy that's used for eating disorders might help too.

But the risk with communities I guess is the possibility that reading about it and other people's experiences with it could possibly be triggering? I don't know you, you'd know better than me if anything like that would help or hurt.

 

[daemon_reaver]

As someone who has had their fair share of personal demons, even to the brink, my advice is as follows: Find a confidant, an IRL one. Someone your close too, a sibling or really close friend, etc. While they may not be the softest at times, a hard shove could be needed. and having an actual face as opposed to an avatar can help immensely, in my experience anyway. As for the triggers, you'll probably need to face them. doesn't have to be sink or swim style, but regardless, running from demons forever will not help.

But, as the classic saying goes, to admit you have a problem is the first step in solving it. I admit, if you haven't figured it out, I'm no expert on eating disorders, but I do know stress and low self-esteem. I experience both, the latter pretty much on a continual basis. Particularly when the former rears its ugly mug. And let me say this: You are not human filth. I don't know you, but I can see plenty of people care about you. That doesn't happen with monsters and trash in human skin. That happens to people with a good heart. I won't lie and say it'll be easy, hell I struggle at times with my two issues. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, you can and will get through this.

Sorry if I sound like a patronizing idiot, I can be pretty poor at expressing myself at times. but well, felt the need to try and help.