My Eating Disorder Story. Part Two

16:58

This post is the follow up to the post I published yesterday. It is basically continuing on from what the first post included. Again some things in this post people may find triggering so please keep that in mind.

College

When I got to college I remember being really nervous because I didn’t know anyone as I went to a college that I knew people from school wouldn’t be going to. On the first day I refused to get out of the car because I felt like I wouldn’t make any friends but when I got there I made friends with everybody really easily and everyone was nice which was completely different to my school experience. My confidence grew but I still couldn’t get out of my own head. Although there was only a few girls in the class my eating disorder told me they were smaller than me and I felt like I looked huge in comparison. I didn’t want to eat around people so me and my friend would sit on the park bench away from everyone but then we started going to the chippy with some of our other class mates and I would eat it and then feel bad so before I went back to class I would say I was going to the toilet and would try to get rid of it. At this point I told a friend from college about it and she was telling me all the risks that I didn’t even know I was in danger of but even then I didn’t care. Being on a media production course I was surrounded by cameras and would run away when ever someone pointed a camera in my direction. People would make jokes about how fast I was at realising there was a camera around but nobody knew why I was running from them. For some of our work we had to make a news broadcast and the tutor told me I had to present and I said no I don’t want to and she said I had to and that she would fail me if I didn’t and I wanted to cry and debated walking out as I was forced in front of the camera. The worst part of it being that she made everyone watch it back and all I could see on the screen was my chubby cheeks taking over as I clearly looked uncomfortable trying to remember the script and to this day I hate having photos and insist on the photos being taken on my phone so that I can delete all the ones I don’t like.

This next part is disgusting and I was going to leave it out but theres no point sugar coating it and it shows how bad I was and I hope nobody else has to have a similar experience. One day we were supposed to be going to my grandmas and I had got ready to go but mum said she would go up earlier and I could go with my dad and brother later so I decided it would be a good time to get rid of the sick I had gathered in my room because they were downstairs watching football. I carried four bottles to the bathroom wrapped in a towel. I threw one bottle down the toilet but when it got to the second one when I opened it, it exploded everywhere.It was disgusting. It was all over the toilet, the sink, walls, floor, my dress, my face and my hair. I started crying thinking my dad would have heard the explosion and would walk in to find it but he didn’t so I pushed the wash basket up against the door and had to scrub the bathroom clean, then I had to have a bath because it was all over me. After this happened I think I realised how bad I was and how much I needed help so I decided I would tell my mum. On the night that I was going to tell my mum I was sat in my room listening to Ed Sheeran crying as I tried to work out how I could word it. I walked down the corridor and back 10 times before I actually went downstairs because evertime I went to go I couldn’t let myself. She was watching a programme where celebrities went to care for people at their homes and I sat on the chair opposite her pretending to watch it whilst trying to word what I wanted to say in my head but everytime I went to say it it just wouldn’t come out so instead I told her I loved her gave her a hug and went back upstairs and cried.

Turning 18

At this point I thought I was going to have to live with it forever and that it would constantly be a secret that only me and two of my friends knew. When I turned 18 it meant I was free to drink alcohol and even though I had never liked it before after the first time I got drunk I realised that I wasn’t thinking about anything whilst drunk and I liked being able to escape my thoughts. I felt more confident and because of this I was drinking a lot. Everytime I would go out I would be the one who was the drunkest and would usually end up embarrassing myself but the next weekend I would be in the exact same state as the one before because I enjoyed the feeling of being drunk and not caring about anything. I didn’t know my limits and because of the strain I had put on my stomach from forcing myself to be sick it meant that I couldn’t handle a high quantity of liquid in my stomach which didn’t mix well with my drinking habits and I would end up in the toilets being sick. Also because I was trying to keep this secret from everyone even though I thought I wasn’t thinking about it whilst I was drunk, I was and I would get into really depressive moods and would end up crying and nobody understood why and thought I was just drunk and being silly. If I wasn’t depressive drunk, I was angry drunk and would take out all my anger I had towards myself on people that I was closest to. Friends were getting annoyed with me which I understand why because they didn’t know why I was acting the way I was. I was getting complimented on nights out about how little I looked and even though people didn’t know it, it was making me worse because I wanted to keep getting told this so I kept up my habits. On nights when I was left alone downstairs if there was chocolate around I couldn’t stop myself from eating it till it had all gone it was like I wasn’t even thinking and wasn’t in control of myself at all, as soon as it had gone I would instantly regret it and feel the need to be sick.

University First Year

I was petrified when I had to move to uni. I didn’t know what to expect but one thing I was thankful for was that I had my own bathroom meaning I could be sick without my flat mates knowing. I was worried about what food I would eat because I had never really cooked for myself before. When I got there I got along with my flat mates really well and we were eating take aways and frozen food all the time but because we were going out all the time I didn’t have time to think about being sick so wasn’t doing it as much and my weight started to creep up which bothered me but at the same time I was constantly distracted because we were always out so my disorder started to take more of a back seat as I was enjoying life at university with my new friends. I didn't know how to cook properly so was eating lots of frozen foods and also drinking a lot and then after nights out we would get back to our flat and cook loads of food or get takeaway food to eat when we got back. I was still being sick and having distorted thoughts but just not as much as I had previously. Two of my flat mates found out about it and were supportive and I could talk to them about it but again I would only really talk about it if I was drunk.

Getting ready for nights out I would try on loads of my clothes and stand looking in the mirror and was obsessing over where I could see fat. Some nights I could go out feeling confident and then see other girls and compare myself to them and it instantly made me feel worse about myself.

Home for summer

When I got home for the summer holidays I decided enough was enough and I was going to get better by myself by eating healthy and exercising so that I wouldn't feel the need to be sick. I was going on a lot of walks and eating healthy and I felt like it was going quite well but then some people would make comments about how much weight I had put on at uni and how big my thighs were and I instantly went back to step one and thought well if I'm losing weight from exercise and healthy eating I can just be sick too and that will be even better which of course it wasn't because then I stopped having the energy to do the exercise because I wasn't keeping my nutrients in and then it resulted in my staying in bed all day everyday and getting depressed waiting for uni to start again

University Second Year

I was really looking forward to getting back to uni but when I got back I hated it. It was completely different from first year. I had a lot less money which meant I couldn't afford to go out as much, we were stuck in a shit flat which was really claustrophobic as there was only tiny windows. Our freezer was broke for the first two months of being there which really didn't help with my eating. Everyone was busy with their course work so I didn't get to see friends as often as I did first year. When I wasn't going out as much I spent a lot of time by myself in my room and would sit and be sick whilst watching netflix. Also I had more control of the food I was eating which meant I was restricting quite a lot. I was in a bad place and was really home sick all the time. I knew all my friends were there for me but I didn't like talking about how I was feeling so I was keeping everything inside and it was getting worse as I was getting more trapped in the thoughts about my weight. I wasn't keeping any food down and if I ate anything whilst in class I would sit and think about when I could get rid of it and then when I got home I would sit in my bathroom till I felt like I had got rid of enough. Around christmas time my grandma got poorly so I was worrying about that and we were given a lot of work to do and it wasn't going well at all so I was getting extremely stressed out and wasn't very well at all but didn't want to tell anyone about it because I was ashamed and was scared it would upset my family. In the february of this year everything got too much and whilst drunk at a flat party I blurted it out to my mum on the phone and she brought me home to get help. (Im not going into a lot of detail about how I told my family about it and what steps I took to get help because I'm going to do a separate post on it in the next few weeks.) I had to miss a few weeks of uni which meant that I wasn't there to help my group do our work but I also felt uncomfortable telling them so I only told the person I was closet to in the group and they just let the others know I wasn't going to be there for a while but didn't explain why.

Now

Im not going to lie and say everything gets instantly better when you finally tell people because it doesn't. For the first few weeks/months I was constantly paranoid about people watching me eat and what they were thinking about me which wasn't great when I would go out for meals. I now have a case manager and have to do weekly blood tests and ECG tests. I'm also currently in a group class to teach us about change. Im very motivated to finally get rid of my eating disorder and don't regret telling people about it because now I'm getting the help I need. Recovery is going to be a long process but will be worth it in the end and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2016 has to offer.

2 comments

Margaretta Cloutier21 July 2016 at 03:37
The media today is abhorrent for what they do to destroy a young girl's image of herself. I cannot go shopping without being bombarded with images of emaciated models. If only I could buy a two piece bathing suit without feeling like a hippo. I have cycled through periods in which I guilt myself into not eating and periods in which I gormandize myself with food. Congratulations on your recovery.

Margaretta Cloutier @ Aspire Wellness Center
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