There are definitely a few variations on how anorexia hits different people. The problem for me is that stress can cause me to feel so sick to my stomach that I can't eat & if the stress continues for any length of time, I end up with anorexia & in the hospital needing IV nutrition.

For me, I don't see that I need to loose weight, but I can get up in the morning (assuming that I have actually gone to bed the night before) with my stomach growling. I will tell myself....I'll get downstairs & figure out what I want to eat "RIGHT AFTER" I get my shower, or "RIGHT AFTER" I finish reading this chapter in the book I'm reading, or "RIGHT AFTER" I potty walk my dogs. Then for some reason, I get involved in something else & don't think about eating until my stomach starts to growl again & I'm right in the middle of doing something else, so I will think......"RIGHT AFTER" I finish this, I will go figure out what I want to eat.......& by the time I finally get downstairs to the kitchen, it might be 10 or 11pm at night.....or sometimes even worse, 2, 3, or 4am the next morning.

Then I stand at the refrig & look at the food that's sitting in there & everything takes 1/2 hour to cook or I can't figure out what I really want to eat, so I find the quickest thing I can munch on...usually an orange or a hand full of frozen grapes, or maybe a few scoops of peach ice cream. If I'm really ambitious, I will make a salad which for me is a process because I put everything but the kitchen sink in it & it's about the only thing that seems to taste good & easy to throw together.

Sometimes I will put food on the plate & get it heated up & then I take a couple of bites & it just doesn't have the taste that makes me want to eat it, so I put it back in the container & wander back upstairs to my bedroom.

I have frozen foods all ready to cook, but when I'm hungry, I'm impatient to have to cook it or after I cook it, the taste is just BLAH.

I find that the only time I really do eat is when I am with friends & we have pot luck lunches or other social times when we might go out, but then I don't have money to spend on eating out, so I end up only getting a cup of tea, or maybe on a good month when expenses haven't been horrible, I will share a meal with someone else & we will split it.

I have wonderful recipes & what look like good tasting food in the freezer, but cooking for myself is just not inviting & then for some reason, the flavor after I have cooked something just doesn't appeal to me.

I was talking this over with my psychologist the other day. She said that I definitely do not have the anorexia thinking of needing to loose the weight, but I definitely have anorexia tendencies in my eating habits.

The problem I have found is that those tendencies may not be a problem unless there is a trigger that keeps them going like continual stress that makes me really feel like NOT eating, so I avoid it for long periods of time. Just 6 years ago when my mom was dying of cancer & I went through a horrible trauma with the home care person, I landed in the hospital after looking a huge amount of weight from not being able to eat.....over a month in the medical hospital. My pdoc & MD at the time were pushing for me to go to an eating disorders treatment center AGAIN (already had been there done that before), but this time in talking with them, because I don't have what they say is the NORMAL anorexia issues driving me there, there is no treatment they can provide. At the time I felt really invalidated by all that & no where I could turn for help, but I do realize now that there in no one that can FORCE me to do the cooking or eating thing or eat things that don't appeal to me even after I have cooked them.....it's really all my responsibility & only within my power to deal with this & to keep myself at a healthy weight.

Over the winter & with much inactivity, I had gained some weight, then at the end of March, I managed to fall off the horse I was riding & ended up with a compression fracture in my back. All that meant NO ACTIVITY.....I saw my weight going up & my cloths that I have fit into since my last dealing with anorexia were no longer fitting...... I was snacking on these wonderful tasting BBQ potato chips that I had found which didn't help any. Since June however & I am now able to ride again & be active again, the weight I was gaining is now coming off. I do notice that when it starts to come off that there is some drive to get it down to the weight I am really satisfied with.....but know that sometimes that drive can get to be a bit much.....& when I am already not caring to cook or eat the foods I have in the cupboard or freezer, or refrig, it just snowballs. Not good when my weight gain was from unhealthy snacking food in the first place along with inactivity. Now that I am scrimping to get money for property taxes & have to eat what's in my freezer & not buy the unhealthy snack foods that were keeping the weight on.......the battle ends up starting again in it's own way.

Living along & having to take care of myself is tough. I know that caring for my 5 dogs requires me to not go without eating to have the strength & also riding horses is dangerous without the energy needed & passing out because I just couldn't find the food I felt like eating just isn't an option.

It's a different sort of battle than some with anorexia, but the end results still aren't healthy & still end up with the anorexia loss of weight. It's just like being thin when I got sick as a child, I would end up loosing too much weight where if I had some extra weight to start with, the amount I lost while being sick wouldn't have been a problem. It's nice to have a few pounds to spare when something stressful hits my life.....like when Chinook died this summer, that feeling of sickness really hit me again......which is still some of what I am dealing with right now.

Anorexia hits different people in different ways, but no matter what, it's definitely very unhealthy as the body needs food to function, & to think & to even help control one's emotions. This time of year, I struggle with PTSD from the fall weather, so the need for good nutrition is even more important.....but even more of a struggle because of the stress in the first place.

It takes personal pushing & self determination to force one's self to be healthy when there are things pushing in the opposite direction. I'm healthy & have been for about 3 years now....took about 3 years to get healthy after my mother died.....& have no desire to go back to that place......so goes the struggle