[Satellites]

WARNING: may contain triggering language

also, long post. thanks for anyone bearing with me because i could really use some advice!

hey all,

have any of you ever been diagnosed with an eating disorder? in the past, after 10 years of disordered eating (i am 23, have been eating disordered since about 12), i was finally diagnosed (tentatively) with bulimia. as time went on, my doctor also recognised that i also heavily restricted, binged without purging (although not often) and purged without bingeing (often, and mostly during stressful times). he finally diagnosed me with EDNOS (for those not familiar with the lingo: eating disorder not otherwise specified). i have had a lot of therapy surrounding this issue and whilst i am no longer in the throes of the disorder and i am not engaging in these behaviours multiple times a day, or even a week, it still sometimes gets the better of me, especially when i am under stress... so i can pretty much attribute it all to a coping mechanism.

however, while i don't really engage anymore, i definitely see the obsessiveness very blatantly in all my thoughts etc when it comes to weight. i am obsessive about eating, i am obsessive about the number on the scales, and i am obsessive when it comes to reasons why i shouldn't eat something, or why the scales say what they do, as some examples. and i am finding it EXTREMELY hard to try and let this go.

rationally, i know it's ridiculous. i cannot control every single situation and i can't control what's in some foods that i eat and i can't control my weight fluctuating. but emotionally, i feel like i can control it - by not eating.

for example, recently i gained just over a kilo in a day. one morning i weighed in and i was at my lowest weight, which made me feel great - i had lost! the next morning (which was last thursday) i weighed in at a higher weight than i've been in weeks. i tried to calm down about it and i managed to let it go for the rest of that day (although i did weigh myself multiple times). friday, i hadn't budged - still heavy. i started to panic a little and spent most of the day thinking about why i might be weighing more and constantly weighing myself. saturday i had to work - i weighed myself in the morning and i was even heavier! i couldn't weigh myself all day but i also did not eat much. sunday i was the same weight as saturday... i didn't eat all day at work, just chugged water and drank a coffee. i did eat at dinner, although not a lot. this morning i was lower again but not a lot, and still higher than i was at my original wednesday morning low weight. i have weighed myself on and off all day and watched the scale go higher, despite not eating much and working out. i ate cabbage with a bit of mince for dinner and just weighed myself (about 3 hours after dinner) and weigh in at 2 kilos above my lowest weight .... that's almost all the weight i've lost over the past month.

now, i know i am torturing myself here. i know i will weigh more after dinner. i know i am probably bloated and retaining water, for whatever reason (a girl in a post of mine in the support forum suggested it may be due to ovulation, which is true as i am mid cycle). but all this doesn't seem to be enough for my brain to say "OKAY KIM, CALM DOWN AND JUST LET IT GO". i can't let it go, even when i tell myself over and over that i need to. i am googling incessantly, trying to find someone else in my situation to try and ease my mine (a pretty fruitless endeavour). i am weighing myself constantly because i feel like this weight is permanent, that somehow, despite eating correctly (at least up until this episode where i started restricting) and exercising, i have actually GAINED WEIGHT. it seems just impossible to me, but at the same time it also seems like it's the only explanation i can actually accept because i don't understand how water weight could stick around this long. i also know that it's not because i don't have a lot to lose - at 88kg i am 20kg above my ideal weight.

i guess i'm just sort of lost, because i am trying so hard to do this "right" and healthily, but i feel like i'm completely failing and like i'm some kind of anomaly, doomed to be overweight and never be able to lose weight. i know that's totally pathetic, but because of these feelings, i am so tempted to start restricting, and the stress i feel makes me want to make myself vomit. constantly weighing myself and not seeing what i want to see is making me cry and i can't make myself put the scales away (i tried, i REALLY tried, and then said "oh, just one more time" and that was it).

anybody else out there like this? or can at least remotely relate? or even give me any advice at all? i feel so down right now

edit: should probably say that i never used to so overweight but i was put on a mood stabiliser 3 years ago and i gained 20kg in 3 months and then a little more over the next 3, until i stopped taking it. since then, i have found it very difficult to lose weight, even on my new medication.

[Munchy]

Here is a link to another thread recently started on this.

The one thing that I'm seeing in your post that is SO FAMILIAR is the obsessive weighing. I have to set a time, once a week (for me that's Friday mornings before my shower) and not weigh any more than that. I'll go nuts if I do. I'm finally in a place where my weight hasn't taken over my mind and my life.

[mammasita]

Yes can definitely relate. Never anorexic nor bullemic, but compulsive and binge eating......ED-NOS. I've struggled since I was in junior high (over 20 years ago). Always knew something wasn't quite right with my eating patterns, but didn't fully understand and finally came full circle about 10 years ago when I went to my first therapist.

Everyone is different and I've found the weight of the worlds lifted from my shoulders with medication.

[SophieSophieSophie]

I am in the same boat. I have been bulimic for roughly 10 years, plus I suffered from alcohol and drug addictions. I am currently clena and sober, but am on seroquel for my moods. I binge then purge whenever I get stressed, I also start a new fast every afternoon only to break it faster than I decided to start it which only leads to more self loathing and binge eating. I am relaly suffering mentally at the moment and and desparate to drink as as well as eat. Rock...hard place...I'm in in one.

[SophieSophieSophie]

by the by how do I getr that fancy weight loss tracker on my profile ?

[hlaoroo]

I was diagnosed with bulimia about 20 years ago and also found purging to be a coping mechanism. I would sometimes find myself eating to throw up rather than throwing up to eat. I had become completely antisocial and unable to handle any confrontation at all. I struggled for a good couple of years with the feeling that I had lost something. Almost like a friend or a safety blanket. I had to throw my scale away. It took awhile but eventually I stopped obsessing. It has been about 16 years since I last forced myself to throw up. I never started out with the promise that I would never throw up again, I just promised myself I wouldn't throw up that day. So on and so forth... one day at a time.

[ems81wales]

some things sounds very familiar iv had some sort of eating disorder since i was 14 and now im 30 iv binged purged starved my self on and off for years. I TEND TO JUST BINGE THESE DAYS WITHOUT PURGING. I am also worse when i am stressed i weigh my self alot but your better off just trying to do a it a few times a week then cutting it down slowly as it aint healthy and your bidy can be heavier if you have eatern or had a bigger meal than usual the night before or havent been to the toilet or even hormonal stuff can effect it. I had councelling and it really helped me i still do have the od binge and i weigh but not as much as i used to xxx

[Satellites]

i just realised i havent replied to this. i just wanted to thank everyone for your replies, they really helped me during a bad patch when i was really worried i was going to do something "bad" (ie make myself vomit). thank you all so much!

[Unna]

You are very articulate and reflective regarding your problem. I do think that is a big jump in the right direction. You said you were seeing a psychiatrist, so I hope he/she is really helping you through the issues, taking an interest in them on a more personal level.

When we act in ways that we don't want to, that means we are split, so to say. Our desires are stronger than our will. We don't want certain primary desires to be part of our will, but they are. We can only work on resolving the conflict and hope that, over time, the ambivalence we feel will dissipate.

Your unreasonable and unexplainable need to do certain irrational things to maintain control over life is not who you are. You don't want to be that way. You don't need to think of it as a weakness of your own character. Don't blame yourself.

Eek. Any type of advice I could give would be superficial - it will take a long time to find your way. There is one thing that I think is very important:

Don't forget your humor. Don't forget to laugh at yourself and crazy ways. Stop taking yourself so seriously.

I don't mean to say your problems are silly - no, they are real problems that are taking up a huge portion of your life. It doesn't mean you can't have a good laugh about them. Sometimes lightening up helps, for example, I am a calorie counter and a meticulous food weigher. One day I found myself doubting my electric food scale, so I re-weighed the same darn piece of tofu like, 5 times.

I saw the behavior was becoming a bit obsessive. I could have started worrying. Instead it helped more to just see the humor in the situation. I love talking to myself, I said something like "If my career at uni doesn't work out, I should definitely go work for the Calorie Police - I'll apply for the Gram Control Department."

I think it is SO easy to get lost in a very dark world. Humor helps us through it. So, yeah, stop taking yourself so seriously. Maybe the amount of times you've stepped on the scale equals a marathon - you are the marathon weigher! Or maybe you know how to work the scale better than anyone else you know- congratulations, you are an official or Certified Scale Expert!

[LisaTcan]

I know you already got a lot of reply's but I'd like to add I think you'd be surprised with how many people on here have various types of issues with food, I think that's part of the reason we're all here.

I was in depths of my eating disorder (bulimia) for 10 years and it's taken a lot of work for me to recover, even now it's something I struggle with when I'm really stressed (like taking the GRE!).
It takes a lot of courage to battle these issues and talk openly about them, so good for you

[TheVikingNinja]

I hear you. I swung from compulsive overeating to bulimia to anorexia back to bulimia back to compulsive overeating and am now well on my way to something else altogether. I was also a severe cutter, suicidal, and later addicted to heroin...now after putting my life back together for 2 years I am finally ready to lose the weight and start a new life. I am off all meds, exercising, and keeping control without being too obsessive (at least not all the time like I used to be.) Now if the scale isn't where I want to to be I don't stick a needle in myself or cut my arm 50 times, I relax breathe and try again tomorrow. It's all possible eventually, just not at once. I began all this at age 9...I'm 21 and it's like I'm restarting life from age 10.