The story of my "recovery"

[princess sparkle]

Hi, I just stumbled across this forum and thought I could share the story of my illness with you.
I have been anorexic from age 13 to about 16. I can't say if I'm really recovered now, at 23. I started losing weight back then because I was a chubby kid and was continously being harassed by my classmates and especially my dad for this. I just (almost) stopped eating after a brief stomach flu that caused me to lose 6 pounds in 3 days, limiting my daily calorie intake to 400 at first, then 200 in the last months. I became incredibly clever at avoiding food, only taking meals to my room, putting it in plastic bags and later throwing the food down the toilet. I also hid food in my underwear or napkins when I had to eat at the table, also getting rid of it later. I was caught by my mom several times, causing her to slap me. After 5 months I had gone from 130 to 88 pounds. I was incredibly pround of myself, even though it was so stressful, my family constantly screaming and crying because of me. The school counselor was after me almost every day, but I would not listen to anyone. Then my kidneys stopped working, I was peeing only blood again and again, so I was hospitalized for that, but they didn't keep me for treatment because my weight was not as bad. I was on outpatient treatment for two or three months. I gave up starving and started bingeing instead on all the foods I'd forbidden myself for so long, and in the end I'd eat like 10,000 calories one day and would eat absolutely nothing and only exercise for the following four days. I gained about 20 pounds back on in two months, then I slowly began starving again. I couldn't stop eating candy, which I loved the most, so my diet consisted of something like an apple and half a candy bar a day. I generally saved all the calories I could for sweets - I even kept a box hidden in my closet that could only be opened with a key that contained a huge amount of my favorite candy which I smelled when I was alone, but I calculated the calories carefully and planned a week ahead what I could have of them. I lost the weight again pretty quickly, and this time my body reacted to it. I'd always had long hair, and one Sunday I'd washed it and when I wanted to run a brush through it, the brush just got stuck. So many hair had fallen out that it had tightened into a kind of close-knit mesh around chin height. It just couldn't be detangled, so it all just had to be cut. I'd never have that nice hair again. I also got incredibly weak. I usually had to walk about half a mile home from school, but when I got so thin again I just couldn't do it anymore, I'd break down sobbing in the middle of the road, waiting for my mom to pick me up. I couldn't sit on my chair at school anymore because my bones got all sore, as well as my knee joints rubbing together woke me up several times at night. Generally I couldn't walk and sit very well anymore, I couldn't read and work for school anymore. People wouldn't understand when I was crying during breaks just because I was so tired and weak. I grew a fuzz all over my body because I had so little body fat, and I wore wool tights under my jeans in june because I was constantly freezing. Nevertheless I couldn't stop dieting - I wanted to be even thinner. All what counted were the numbers on the scale, nothing else. I then stopped going to school regularly and started several outpatient treatments which worked not at all. I was deeply depressed and once was close to overdosing on my antidepressants. Nevertheless everybody was just watching how I got worse, until I weighed only 77 pounds (I'm 5'7"). I was going through my days in a haze, not quite knowing what I was doing anymore. I had the certain feeling though that I was close to death. I even started eating a bit at last, and I got some kind of artificial nutrition from my doctor that i was supposed to drink (I mostly didn't), but I just dropped more weight, no matter what I did. It was as if my body had given up. My mom took a polaroid of me and a bathing suit - the only picture of me at that time. I only realized it later when I looked at that picture again, but my legs were totally blue, and my feet were turning black. I looked like I was already half dead. At that point I hadn't gotten my period in a long, long time. It was kind of funny - I got it when I was about 12 and a half, and a few months later I lost it again. I was almost seventeen when I had my period again, and it took about another two years for it to become kind of regular. Well, I hit rock bottom at 15 and was hospitalized. It saved my life, because I couldn't have gotten out of it myself, I'm sure. It was a private institution that was very strict, kind of militant almost, but it was the only thing that helped me. I had a thorough check-up, which showed that I had a beginning gastric ulcer, iron deficiency, anemia, irregular heartbeat, blood circulation in my extremities had almost stopped and the doctors weren't sure if my right ovary was ever going to work again. That was that. From that on, I began to live again. I gained weight back on, but I was kept under supervision until I was almost seventeen, and I had a hard time keeping the weight up. After that I gained a little more weight, but I was fine with that. I finally could relax a bit around food. Until then I'd had very weird eating habits - I could absolutely not eat in public, and I had to live by self-made meal plans. I needed the structure, and I also ate very healthily. Okay, I was much better by the age of 19, which was when I moved into an apartment with a friend of mine, and we together kind of developed bulimia. We'd have binges in the evening and then purged. It was especially dangerous since I didn't have to hide, we were very open about it. It was actually really gross, with food lying around everywhere and the constant faint smell of gastric acid. I wouldn't consider myself bulimic at that time because I thought we could stop anytime we wanted to. She stopped earlier than I did and I continued to binge and purge secretly, which made it a bit more uncomfortable. I finally got down to throwing up about 6 times a day, but I only let myself go through that a couple of weeks, realizing that I really wouldn't be able to stop anymore. I had a sore throat, my purge hand was raw and red and the skin was peeling off. I was starting to have problems with my teeth which would continue for the following years. I was also spending insane amounts of money on binge food, so I had to stop somehow. I did, but I had to accept that I gained quite some weight. Now I consider myself to have quite an okay relationship with food. I lost a lot of weight again because of romantic troubles without actually trying to. Only now that everything is pretty calm again and I have a lot of free time on my hands, I start to relapse into that unhealthy behavior. For example, I just had a week off, and I was so bored that would health-obsess during the day and binge and purge in the evenings for seven days in a row. I just hope I can work it out somehow, because I'm so glad to finally have a normal weight and a quite normal relationship with food. But as you all might know, it's not easy to get out of this eating problem hell, if at all possible. What I hate most about it now is that I have horrendous teeth - I literally had aching teeth from age 19 to 22, nobody could help me, I was a the dentist every week, it cost way too much money that I won't be able to pay off for years, and in the end I had to have 3 root canals and 2 molars removed. I'm very lucky that right now I have only tolerable pain, but the dentist told me that practically ALL my teeth are so brittle that it's only a matter of time until they all will have to get out. Great, isn't it? But it can't rewind time.
I wish every one of you battling with some eating disorder all the luck in the world!

[Digi_Ab]

That reminds me very much of a video I saw on youtube, was it you?

Thank you so much. I have been sat in my room having a breakdown for hours now. I also have to be swimming in an hour with my boyfreind so soemhow had to go from mental breakdown to gaining enough confidence tow ear a bikini. I still feel shitty but at elast when I look at my flab it's a sign of the health problems I have so far managed to dodge.

I hope things get easier for you.

[densy88]

hey princess sparkle, just a question, the hair u grew all over your body from lack of fat, did it go away later? or will it go away? or does it stay?