Between the spring of 1999 and that fall, I lost one third of my body weight. I became a size 0. I went from a BMI of 24 to a BMI of 16. For months, my weight hovered around 100 pounds. Those months were exactly ten years ago. This realization has given rise to some interesting reflections.
I’ve always been a nostalgic person. More than that—I’ve always been a person who likes to remember, and privately commemorate, both good and bad events and memories. Something about the passage of time is both comforting and encouraging for me. Reflecting on my ever-growing base of experiences reassures me that I am, in fact, more mature and a more “whole adult” now than I was at 20, or at 15. Similarly, it reassures me that in 5 or 10 more years, this pattern of growth will have continued. Looking back on my eating disorder, however, I am not struck by how much has changed in the past ten years. I am, instead, struck by how much has not. And I suspect my experiences are not unique.
Ten years ago, I ate between 100 and 300 calories per day—just enough to keep me from passing out. (I only actually fainted once. After that I learned my lesson. 100 calories by 1 or 2 PM would be enough to keep me conscious for the day.) And I worked out. Especially on days when I’d eaten more than 250 calories. I worked out. To fix the damage I’d done.
I feel like I should see this period as one of unparalleled darkness. The story of the recovered anorexic, ten years later, should be a narrative about what a mess I was then and how whole I am now. Now that I’m an adult, now that I’ve had boyfriends, now that I have a Master’s, now that (insert whatever qualification or sign of maturity should exempt me from this stuff here )…I should be able to tell you how much I’ve changed.
Twisting my story into an inspiring account of defeating my inner demons and becoming whole, however, would require willfully warping the truth. Anyone who has had an eating disorder can attest that recovery is about much more than simply learning to eat again.
Three years after my eating disorder, I knew that I had been anorexic back then. And that anorexia is bad and anorexia is wrong and anorexic is something I didn’t want to be again . So I set a minimum. 1200 calories. Never eat fewer than 1200 calories per day and you won’t be anorexic . So I ate 1200 calories per day. And on days when I ate more than that, I would work out. To fix the damage I’d done. But at least I wasn’t anorexic anymore.
Nine years after my eating disorder, I knew that I had been anorexic back then, and knew that I’d never fully escaped it. But I kept my minimum. Never eat fewer than 1200 calories per day and you won’t be anorexic . But if you eat more than 1200 calories in a day, work out. To fix the damage you’ve done.
My sister is my ally. Ten years ago, even she saw what my parents could not—that something about me was different. Something was wrong. We were 12 and 14 when it began, 13 and 15 when I started to recover. Our childhood sibling rivalry was at its strongest during this period. Yet when my weight started to dip down below 130, below 120, below 110, her favorite taunt (“fatty”) disappeared. “Fatty” was replaced with “anorexic girl.” We have long since outgrown such childish gibes, but the fact remains that, even when she was only in the 7th grade, she knew.
In fact, a lot of people knew. One look at me was all it really took. Two different girls at school independently called my parents to tell them they were worried about me—that I was too thin and I wasn’t eating anything, that I probably needed help. If any action ever resulted from those warnings, I was not aware of it. I do remember overhearing my parents talking about it, after one of those calls. They were in the kitchen, talking about whether there could be any truth to what the girl had said. So I walked into the kitchen, picked up a bag of chocolate chips, ate a handful, and went back to the top of the stairs, ostensibly out of earshot.
After I left, both of my parents laughed and moved on to a different topic.
I starved myself for the rest of the day to compensate for that handful of chocolate chips.
Conversations with my parents on the topic of my eating disorder have been undeniably limited over the last 10 years. They never suggested I had a problem. They never suggested I get help. Mom did compliment me a lot at the time. She told me how great I looked, how beautiful and thin. When I started gaining weight again the following year, the usual comments began to set back in. You know, the “are you sure you really need seconds?” comments. Anyone who has grown up as a female with a mother in our culture knows which comments I mean.
If I ever have a daughter, I vow to never ask her if she needs seconds. I vow to never make a comment about her weight, good or bad.
Two and three years after my eating disorder, Mom frequently took out pictures of me from my lowest points. “See how beautiful you looked? Wouldn’t you like to look like that again?” The second or third time she did this was the first time I openly told her that I had been anorexic. She made it clear that of course I hadn’t been anorexic . “You watched your weight. You worked out. That doesn’t mean you were anorexic .”
Anorexia is a disease. It’s not something that happens to nice girls whose parents love them. It’s something that happens to someone else . Not to my little girl. These public schools put such ideas in her head…
Nonetheless, after that, she stopped openly talking to me about my weight. She started talking about it to my sister instead. And whenever my sister went above a size 4, my Mom talked about it to me.
About four years after my eating disorder, the “why can’t you encourage your sister to exercise a little more” conversations replaced the “do you really need seconds” conversations. My sister and I (far beyond sibling rivalry by the time this began) have always presented a united front when it came to these conversations. No, I will not encourage her to exercise more. No, I will not encourage her to eat fewer snacks. She is beautiful and healthy and I will do nothing but support her, regardless of what she chooses to eat.
From all this, it probably sounds like my parents’ willful ignorance to the magnitude of the problem was a huge part of the cause. That my mother’s comments “fed” my eating disorder. The truth is, however, the role of these comments was minimal. It was always much deeper than that.
Actually, doesn’t everyone know the causes of anorexia? Surely anyone who’s ever taken Psych 101, or even Googled the word “anorexia” could come up with a list of what must have been going on in my mind back then. Back then . When I was 14 years old. When I was weak. When I didn’t know better.
For one thing, there’s low self-esteem. (Seven years after my eating disorder, in a particularly strong relapse of the desire to starve, I bleakly concluded that dieting and losing weight were the only thing I’m really good at.)
Poor body image is another big one. (A year and a half after my eating disorder, I was shocked to find out that a classmate who I considered extremely thin was a size 7. How could that be possible? I was a size 5 and I was fat .)
Perfectionism can certainly lead to anorexia. (Nine and a half years after my eating disorder, receiving my Master’s degree with a 4.0 GPA, I began to feel ashamed that my undergraduate GPA had only been 3.9. If only I had the self-control to do homework the way I do with food…)
Most anorexics also feel so powerless that they need to control the one thing they can: their own bodies. (Five years after my eating disorder, I started devising plans and charts. I counted every calorie that went in and every calorie that I burned exercising. I devised elaborate systems to keep my weight in check (involving more complicated math than I’d like to admit) without falling back into an actual eating disorder. The “control high” with these systems is even better than actual anorexia ever was. Dangling on the edge of the cliff, but having the self-control not to let go? That’s hardcore.)
I was never bulimic. Ten years ago, Bulimia seemed like a cop-out. It was a diet plan for the weak. But four years after my eating disorder, I tried to purge. Food had little to do with it. My weight was hanging around the 115-120 range and I spent 4-6 hours per day at the gym. I perfectly maintained just thin enough without being anorexic . No, that night I’d just finished a particularly taxing phone conversation with my (controlling and abusive) then-boyfriend. I felt ill and had the overwhelming urge to empty myself, as though I could get rid of all the bad feelings that way. In the end, I couldn’t do it—for whatever reason, even after I spent several minutes poking around at the back of my throat, my body simply wouldn’t respond—but I never saw Bulimia as a “cop-out” again.
Ten years ago, I was anorexic. Now, I am recovered.
Recovery doesn’t really look like I expected it to.
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Perfectly written. I am two years in recovery right now. A few weeks ago I had less than 1000 calories in an entire week. It never really seems to go away, the urge to fall back into the safety net of controlling every calorie, especially when everything else seems so out of control.
Can you put a trigger warning on this? Please please please?
(Sorry...hard day).
Thank you so much for sharing your story, it touched me in ways I did not expect.
I struggled with eating from an extremely young age and all the way up to mid adolescence (just about 10 years ago now), and I am feeling a relapse coming on as we speak.
My mother was like yours in some ways, only she actually gave me laxatives when I was in high school, and I used them whenever I ate too much. It felt good, it still feels good whenever my IBS decides to rear its ugly head.
Thank you so much for this. I really, really, appreciate your honesty.
In some ways I really resent the dichotemy of "anorexic" and "not anorexic." Yes, I can point to one phase of my life where I was clincically "anorexic," but this really just represents the high point of a lifelong obsession with eating, an obsession that is shared well beyond the small category of people we call disordered. Instead of thinking of myself as a person with an eating disorder, I think it is more accurate to think of myself as one person in a soceity that has and encourages a natinoal eating disorder.
I think it can get better though. I don't know why, but last year for the first time I was actually able to stop adding up calories as I went through the day. My mind automatically still does calorie math as I look at different food choices (something I assume will not change), but I finally reached a point that I could not carry that information with me throughout the day. I don't know what made it happen then, seven years after "recovery," but I think it can happen. Of course then it also comes back sometimes, and figuring out how to keep it at bay each time it a whole other issue...
Thank you again, and I wish you the best in your ongoing process.
I request a trigger warning too, please. Also, I would watch out for writing tips (specific mentions of cal ranges per day)...this was quite triggering for me. I felt myself thinking, okay, that's how she did it.
I know how you feel. I've been there. I've been "recovered" for more than a decade as well. I wonder how many of us are simply thought of as well simply because we are now not noticeably thin.
A trigger warning would definitely be a good idea on here! But thanks for sharing- this is very powerful. This brings back memories of obsessions with food portions and calorie-counting. I, like you, have a mother who celebrates my skinniest times of life.
Thankyou for sharing. Your parents were incredibly ignorant. I am sorry.
Having been someone with an ED that was never quite visible enough to be considered 'thin', i had a lot of reinforcement for my behaviours. People thought I was making lifestyle changes, not obsessing over calories and purging to my hearts content.
I chose to recover... and it wasn't easy, it still isn't and i still slip into the same old thinking patterns and behaviours from time to time. I still have holes in my teeth from the Bulimia, which i really do need to see a dentist about... but have been putting off because I am scared and ashamed... you know, the fear of being "found out". But i work through each day.
I know it isn't easy... but you are brave for coming a way towards recovery. You may not feel like you are there... but i don't think many people get "there".
I guess I was lucky because my mom never made any of those negative comments about food or my body to me, in fact she was instrumental in my recovery from my first bout of anorexia. I do consider myself fully recovered now but still have body image issues big enough that I won't wear shorts around most people or go to the beach. Though there were some big sudden changes that helped tip me to recovery and at times I made big leaps in progress other parts of recovery have been a slow progression.
I appreciate you sharing your story. The method of seeking control by the judicious and obsessive counting of calories seems to me as though you were seeking to find a way to contain the chaos that was raging inside you. How better to assert "control" than to take hold of something tangible, even if unhealthy. Though I did not suffer from an eating disorder, I did feel the crippling lack of self-esteem combined with perfectionism, and while the manifestation was different, the end result was much the same.
Recovery is never what it seems, and I know this from personal experience, because one assumes at the outset that all loose ends will be tied up and everything will be resolutely resolved. Not so. It's a lifelong process, but as I look back on my life, I recognize how far I have come, though at times looking backwards it terrifies me as to how far down I was.
I wish you continued success. Be well.
This is a fantastic piece and thank you for sharing. It rings a little too true in many ways, though I'm not as far along as you.
Can we please put a trigger warning on this? I guess I should have known though
Thank you for sharing. Lately I find myself "mourning" the self I was during the past decade while battling an eating disorder. I tell people I'm so much stronger! Feeling so much better! -- than I did two years ago, when I was at my weakest. I tell myself that I eat so much more consistently -- so much more. I'm better. I'd like to say I don't have an ED anymore, but it's still there. I still struggle with the same depression and anxiety that got -- and still gets -- mixed up with food. It's so easy to find myself falling back into old patterns of not eating. But now I see the pattern. Now I remind myself that I want to be healthy, even if food is still frustrating, still confusing. One therapist said an eating disorder can be one of the hardest addictions to break because you can't simply remove food; you have to eat. I am glad to say I am doing much better, I am healthier, and I do want to be strong, but the ED is still part of who I am today, however difficult that can sometimes be to face. http://sexlivesandliterature.blogspot.com
Thank you. I don't know what this behavior is called but i relate to this so much.
Thank you for this.
I so fucking sick of the fairy tale eating disorder recovery narrative the media champions--the one that applauds heroic women who've "beat" or "overcome" anorexia.
I do not know a single survivor of anorexia who can say her battle has come to an end. This is not to say that through therapy, courageous discussion and art women can't make astounding steps out out of the dark throws of starvation in the direction of health.
But as one of my good friends warned me in the summer when diet coke was the only thing I allowed enter my body, anorexia stays with you forever.
Popular discourse suggests this life-threatening mental illness is akin to a growth a skilled surgeon could remove from a woman's body. Anorexia, the media says, is something that will fade from our conscious in time.
Anorexia does not go away, no matter how much we heal. Again, I thank you for having the courage to speak that truth.
Wow. Thanks for sharing your story.
I wonder if this is where I will be in 5 years, since my story is very similar to yours.
Five years later I'm seventeen kilos heavier and I know I'm much happier now, but part of me wishes I could just go back to being that thin. I still exercise everyday and restrict the types of food I can eat. The heartbreaking thing is that in order to be thin, rather than curvy, I have to do more than this.
Sometimes I look at myself and think that I haven't recovered - I've failed. So it really means a lot to hear your story, it makes me feel a tad more sane.
Eating disorders make me so angry. So so angry. It's just a blatant reminder of how our ridiculous society is making things harder on women (mostly. i know eating disorders affect men too) to the point where women are basically encouraged into a life-threatening disease. Most anorexics are complimented (by some people at least) for their thin-ness but if it becomes defined as a "disease" they are stigmatized by it.
Anyways, I agree with MM that it is certainly more of a spectrum than a dichotomy. Obviously, there is a point where clinical anorexia and bulimia are life-threatening and so it is useful to have them diagnosed as such. I know someone who has died from anorexia and so defining anorexia as a disease is important from a research and healthcare standpoint. But, I think what i want to say is that disordered eating and body image issues in general are much more fuzzily defined. For instance, ever since high school, I thought of myself as fat, but I never reduced my eating or upped my exercise. Instead, I just had low self-confidence, hardly talked to boys because I figured they would never be interested in me. Looking back, I am beginning to realize that I was never fat. In fact, I've always exercised a lot, eaten fairly healthy and maintained a good bodyweight. I look at this realization as a form of recovery, even though I was never officially "diseased". And I will say that I agree that "recovery" is never really complete. Some days I still feel fat. Many times I feel guilty about eating. But it is less than before so I suppose that is recovery.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Please put a trigger warning on this since it contains man specifics, including numbers.
Please put a trigger warning on this since it contains many specifics, including numbers.
thank you so much for posting this! it has been a few years that i was bulimic, and i thought that ok, i am recovered now, i can read your post.
and no. now i can't stop crying. i thought that i'm strong enough, but when i read the first sentences: "Between the spring of 1999 and that fall, I lost one third of my body weight. I became a size 0. I went from a BMI of 24 to a BMI of 16. For months, my weight hovered around 100 pounds." i could just think how lucky and how strong you were, to became so thin, and i wish i could do this.
now i'm 32 years old, and have been going to therapy for one year, but still, it was today that my mother made a stupid comment about my body and here it is again.
i hate it so much. i hate her so much.