Working on Us – Week 5

Beckiesmentalmess blog has posted week 5 of “working on us”! I chose prompt 1.

Q1: If an eating disorder isn’t about food or weight, what is it all about? And, what has it done to you personally?

Well, I once knew a girl who had an eating disorder. She suffered from bulimia, but not in a way most of us imagine. Her eating disorder started when she was very young. Before grade school from what I was told. She was the skinniest of everyone in her family, who were all very average weights. The problem with this girl was that her stomach would not hold down food. No matter what she ate, she would vomit it back up. She had to take medicine for it. I don’t know exactly what caused this problem, whether it was trauma or something, but it was diagnosed as an eating disorder. To this day she is still very thin. I haven’t spoken to her since she was in grade school, but I’m sure it still affects her, as she is still skinnier than everyone else in her family and it appears borderline unhealthy. From this, I can guess that it can sometimes be illness or even trauma related.

For me personally, I suffered from body dysmorphia, causing me to be somewhere between bulimic and anorexic. I would often times fast a whole day to make up for overeating the day before (when I didn’t actually overeat). I practically worshiped the scale. I saw myself as much bigger than I was. Even at my smallest. As many times as I was told I had a problem, I never listened. I assumed everyone was like me when it came to being weight conscious. It wasn’t until I started my anxiety medication for my OCD that I began being comfortable with my body image. It still feels weird to look in a mirror and see myself just right. My body had depressed me for years. I would work out, eat little, eat only certain “healthy foods”. I feel much more free now.

Q2: What is the most difficult thing to handle with your disorder?

The most difficult thing to handle from my OCD are intrusive thoughts, hands down!