Tag Archives: eating disorder

Mental Health

My slow recovery from bulimia

Let me start this post by saying that I’m fucking proud of myself. I’m proud because the last two days, I resisted the urge to binge and purge – something that I’ve not yet managed in the past.

Normally, I would allow myself one sick ‘cheat day’ and then start over again, trying to let more and more days pass between each episode. And even though I have come a long way from pretty much not keeping any meal down to just purging every one to two weeks, I haven’t yet been able not to binge. Until this week.

Imagine me being pretty emotional while I’m writing this down. I reached a milestone, despite everything else I have going on right now. It’s weird because I really don’t have the feeling that my depression is getting any better.

Just this morning, I thought of the sleeping pills I was taking for a while back in Paris and how I could have easily overdosed. But I’m a coward, and I wouldn’t want to end up as a vegetable, or leave earth leaving a disfigured body. And so I find comfort in looking at very dark-humored memes on r/depression_memes like this one here 👉

But maybe the good thing about depression is that I give significantly fewer fucks about anything, including my weight.

Actually this week, I hit the 60 kg (130 lbs) mark. A couple of years or even months ago, I would have been devastated. Since I was a teenager, I knew that I definitely wanted to keep my weight below 60 kg. At first, I was happy with 59,5 kg. But then of course, I started thinking less was better. And in just a year, I reached around 46 kg (102 lbs). For reference, I’m 1,79 m (5’11”) tall. I remember back then, at the age of 16, I kept thinking that it was impossible to keep this going until I’d be 60. I thought that only once I got old, I could allow myself to gain weight, or “get fat” how I’d call it. As it soon turned out, I didn’t have to maintain this low weight for long after all, since of course, my doctor and family got more and more alarmed. My supportive family compared me several times to the victims of the Holocaust.

And even though I never received proper treatment, I managed to gain weight. It was a relief that I was given the permission to, since I didn’t give it to myself, and I also thought that I could lose any extra weight just as fast. The only problem was that, as soon as I had stopped only eating 800 kcal a day, I couldn’t go back to it. It was too hard. (Btw, even back then, I never understood how some people could restrict themselves to only 400 kcal a day. 800 was already super difficult for me. But I was also scared of eating cotton balls.)

However, I wasn’t happy with the way I looked. At age 17 until 19, I had my highest weight so far, which was 63 kg (139 lbs). I felt horrible. Even worse was when people still told me I was skinny when I felt the exact opposite. And then I moved to Paris.

The first couple of months were really hard. I didn’t have my friends around me and, of course, didn’t know the city. It was the first time I lived alone. And without anyone watching me, I started purging every time I thought I’d eaten too much. Quickly, my weight was down to 48 kg (105 lbs) again. During that time, I also started smoking. Mostly because I (still) love the aesthetic of Old Hollywood actors with their quellazaires, but also because I’d read somewhere that smoking can burn up to 300 kcal. So I smoked a pack per day.

In addition to throwing up multiple times a day, it’s not surprising that it took a big toll on my teeth. They’re now paper-thin and so, the only part of my body I’m truly worried about. I never cared about what binging and purging would do to my organs, honestly, I still don’t care that much. But as I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t want to be an ugly corpse. Nor would I like to lose my teeth while still being alive.

Besides, buying tons of foods to binge on is fucking expensive. All the money I could have saved literally went down the drain. As a “solution”, I started stealing my food, which was super easy. And so, even after a while where my episodes were spaced a little, I quickly was back on purging three times a day.

Eventually, I was caught stealing, fortunately. Who knows how long I would have continued with that lifestyle. But still without proper treatment, I still struggled. The only thing I managed was to reduce the number of episodes. And depending on the circumstances, I was more or less successful with that. During that time, my average weight was around 53 kg (116 lbs), the weight I also have in the two first photos left in the image above. The two photos on the right show how I look now. Funnily, not as drastic of a difference as I would have thought in my teens or early twenties.

Unfortunately, I can’t even tell you exactly what I did to be able to accept myself more. Sure, I’ve seen a few therapists, but I found that talking about my past didn’t do shit to change any toxic behaviors of the present. Besides, none of them were specialized in treating eating disorders. One thing that was very helpful though was that I deleted all the calorie-tracking apps I had on my phone. And yes, at one point, I used more than one. I guess by deleting them, I also unlearned to count them, even though I’ve pretty much known the number of calories of every single food since my teens.

Another thing that helps a lot is that fashion manufacturers have started using stretchy materials. I remember the stiff skinny jeans that would cut off your circulation I used to wear as a teen. You don’t see those around anymore, and it makes being comfortable in my body much easier for me, even though I’m still not thrilled to see my flabby ass in the harsh neon light of a fitting room. But I learned that I have to build muscle to achieve the look I want. And since I’m just not very athletic, I’m already proud when I’m somewhat consistent with my workouts. That probably shifted my perspective from feeling guilty to valuing my achievements more.

Nevertheless, I’m obviously still far away from a full recovery, if that’s even possible. (In my opinion, you carry an eating disorder for life, you just learn to manage it.) I’m still scared of weighing myself or taking my measurements. I’m still not happy about how my body looks. But now, I’m rather focused on getting toned than on being thin, which I still want to be, but not at any cost.

Now, every day I look in the mirror, I see what the drastic weight loss and weight gain have done to my connective tissue and muscles. I feel like I have barely any muscle strength left, I can’t even do one push-up, and my breasts are probably the body part I’m most self-conscious about. They’re very, very relaxed. Yet, I’m aware that recovery takes lots of time, and I’m happy about the smallest step I can take to better health. For now, I’ll celebrate reaching a massive milestone.

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Weekly Diary

Weekly diary #6

Vampires and gossip

It’s been a moment since my last blogpost and although there’s definitely no a lack of inspiration, I didn’t have the courage to write. Somehow, I’ve been in a funk lately. Therefore, I decided to forego writing about the topics I first had in my mind and do a weekly diary instead – which I haven’t done in a while. So yay to another post dedicated to hiding under blankets, trying to make sense of how I feel! 😀

Seriously, the free trial month of 2019 is almost over and I feel more like Bridget Jones than this better version of myself I imagined becoming. Though on paper, I actually have nothing to complain about. I got a new job at a company I’m really excited about (I will start on Friday), I did work out more than I usually do and I even started budgeting, which makes me feel really adult and almost as if I knew how life works. Especially since now I have a budget for wine. I also made new friends and now that it’s been three months that I live in Cologne, I’m starting to get to know Cologne a little better (though there’s still a ton of things and places to explore). And yet, I feel like something is missing. It feels like if I wasn’t really invested in my life, like it wasn’t even mine. And it probably sounds super weird, but right now, I feel more like a ghost wandering around among all these warm, human beings filled with purpose, love and passion, and I’m just this cold shell that somehow got trapped in between, watching time go by and others change while I stay exactly the same.

Now that I think of it, maybe that’s why I’m obsessed with vampires and Halloween. Halloween is the day of the year where truly feel like myself, as a living dead person. Isn’t that weird?
That obsession goes back to when I was around 7 years old. Halloween wasn’t a thing in Germany yet, especially not in the east, but I always dressed up as a vampire on Mardi Gras. And funnily, if I remember it correctly, that was also the time where the first signs of what would later become an eating disorder started to manifest themselves.
Wow, 10 minutes into writing and I’ve already covered more than I ever did in therapy. I guess this is a position I can cut from my budget then.

Besides my 3-week-funk (3 really is a magic number in my posts), the job offer and exercising, I’ve been learning Portuguese, making a list of ideas for a podcast, taking pictures, same old, same old. I’m also trying to shift my focus from speaking English all the time to speaking French. And that’s why I’m rewatching all my favorite series again, but this time in French. If you’re ever in need of an excuse to binge watch, you’re welcome. Just say you watch it in VO or with subtitles. I’m still practicing my English by watching The Bachelor and reading every effing post written about it. In that context, I just discovered Betches, probably the awesomest site ever created. And while browsing through all the categories, I also noticed they have a podcast! No, even several podcasts!! My favorite episode so far is the one on Betch Slapped where they talk to @entylawyer, who’s spilling tea about celebrities. It’s definitely the best thing I’ve heard this month. (Though listening to stories about all the celebrity feuds also made me feel like a peasant, just because I don’t have any hidden agenda when I interact with people. But this episode is giving me life! Which is a good thing for my vegetarian vampire self.)

And that already sums up my week, ahem, month. I’ll try being more interesting next time.

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Mental Health

Ana and Mia

This is probably the hardest post to write. Not only because it’s super personal and kinda heavy, but also because it’s much easier to write about stuff that’s in the past and that doesn’t still affect me. And yet, I wanted to write about this for such a long time, now. Partly because I think that it’ll create a new incentive for me to get better, partly because I think there’s still a stigma around eating disorders and mental health which prevents people to talk about it. In case you didn’t guess it from the title, this post is about my struggle with anorexia and bulimia.

I don’t really know where to begin and this will probably be the most unstructured post you’ve ever seen. I also don’t have any special advice, since I’m still trying to figure things out for myself. (And also, have you ever met someone who actually follows their own advice?)

So why am I posting this now?
To be completely honest, I’m writing this today because I just had an episode. And after 14 years of having eating disorders, it’s just annoying to be some tragic figure who doesn’t find a way out of her dilemma. It’s pathetic. And I feel weak and disgustung.

(If you’re reading this because you’re affected, please don’t take this or anything I’m going to say as a judgement on your condition. I’m just talking about my personal feelings, I’m not judging anyone.)

A psychologist once told me I should consider my eating disorder a disease. Well, I have difficulties doing that, since I feel like it’s in my control to give in or not and that I should be better than that. Except that I’m not. So I have no idea what to do with that information. Besides, it’s been such a long time that I’m dealing with that issue, it’s been more than 14 years.

I remember that when I was 7yo, I already wasn’t happy the way I looked. When I compared myself to my classmates, I found them much prettier. They weren’t as freakishly tall as I was. They also seemed to be more athletic and have nicer features in general. (Btw, this all was way before social media.) I never was the athletic type and since I scrutinized my body in the mirror every night, I noticed that I had ceelulite at a very early age. Sounds unreal, right? However, the dimples I discovered in my butt cheeks back then are still there. After that, my New Year’s Resolution would be to loose weight. However, I never succeeded. I mean, I was a kid and didn’t know shit about nutrition or dieting. And even though I’ve always been physically active, I never got ripped. Instead, I got some very unpleasant memories from when I tried out athletic sports and failed tremendously.

But then, right before my 15th birthday, my family and I made a trip to Italy. I remember flipping through a magazine and reading about this new trend called ‘Homeless Chic’. And apparently Mary-Kate Olsen incorporated it the best way possible. On the drive to Italy, I was reading a fashion magazine and still remember the exact picture, it was Gemma Ward wearing a ripped pullover from Dior. Next to her, Mariacarla Boscono in a similar outift. That day, I decided (!) that after the trip to Italy and all the pasta and pizza, I’d be anorexic.

Now people who say it was the magazine fault, stfu. In fact, do you remember that scene in SATC where Charlotte says that she can’t look at a magazine cover without thinking about her thighs? I absolutely hated it. Of course, the way how we see beauty is influenced by fashion mags and now, social media, but if a photo has that much power over you, there are probably some deeper issues.

In my case, it was the fact that I never felt beautiful or even appreciated. My father told me that he disliked the way I looked and also never took any interest in me, at least not as his child. He also let me know that he thought of me as lazy when I didn’t wanna do my homework or when I came home with a grade that was not brilliant. As for my mom, I could feel her disappointment when it became clear that I’d never be an athlete, nor good at science, especially maths. (She used to excel in both.) And her trying make me become better actually felt more like harrassment than encouragement. In addition to that, my family never had a normal way around eating and I can’t think of a single meal that wasn’t stressful in a way or another. According to what my mom has told me, I had a phase where I refused to eat when I was 3yo and since then, everyone in my family made sure that I ate enough, to the point that I was forced to empty my plate. And if all that wasn’t enough, let’s throw in the snide remarks my parents would make about my friend’s looks, some bullying at school, and a predisposition for depression that seems to run in my family.

I kept the promise I’d made to myself. When I turned 15, I weighed around 53kg (117lbs) for 1,79m (5’11”). A few months later, I went down to 46kg (101lbs), then 43kg (95lbs). One day, at a doctor’s appointment, my doctor pointed out that my state of health was pretty critical. That was when I was 16. The word she used was pathological. Yet, I never went to see a professional. I only had to go to a clinic where they did a couple of blood tests and then told me that my liver values were shit. But that was pretty much it. I never had anyone help me with a recovery plan or anything.

However, after this, I put on weight pretty quickly. I kinda happened automatically after I heard that my father was worried. This detail really annoys me up to this day. Daddy issues defining my life. Classic. And again, pathetic.

When I turned 17, my weight was up to 63kg (139lbs). Side note, the highest my weight had been before was 59kg (130lbs). And that was at a time when my mom let me know that my ass was getting huge and that a classmate said about me that he’d only consider dating me if I’d loose like 20kg (44lbs). In other words, I hated how I looked in that year. My face was puffy, everything felt huge, I didn’t feel like myself at all. So I slowly started loosing weight again, but still wasn’t happy with how I looked. Besides, shopping for jeans was a nightmare that time, my waist size being 30.

And then, I moved to Paris.

Didn’t know anyone there and later went through two rather difficult relationships. It didn’t take long until I was down to 46kg again. My mom came to see me and started to cry, which I found pretty annoying. I don’t know what made me gain weight after that, but slowly, I did and have maintained a weight of 57kg (125lbs), even though not always in a healthy way.

I still haven’t established a normal attitude towards eating yet, and probably never will, at least not completely. I’ve been in therapy a couple of times, not sure if it really helped. However, the number of bulimic episodes has decreased from 5 times a day to around twice a month. That’s at least something. My major motivation right now are my teeth. I know, it sounds sad, but I kinda stopped caring about other people’s feelings and opinions on what I should and shouldn’t do. (Probably because my parents did a great job at ignoring what was going on and especially after I had a friend tell me that the way I looked made her feel uncomfortable.) So yes, it’s about my teeth. Because even though they’re already paperthin, I would like to keep them until after I turn 50.

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