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PurpleFlyingMonkeys · 03:56 PM

I'm sorry you're feeling this way mystery. I remember when I was on my "diet" the last time. I thought I was so "strong" I thought it took such strength to restrict as much as I did. But when you think about what you're really doing... You're running from yourself. You can't leave your body, you can't leave your mind so you put so much thought into this and so much energy into this that it takes away a lot of those negative thoughts when you "succeed" at it. But doing this is anything but strong. I didn't realize that until I overcame this disease.

I wont give details of how I managed to lose as much weight as I did because I have noticed some people will use those as a new way for them to lose weight and I don't want that. You think you are being so strong and strict with yourself when you do this but really you are killing yourself. People told me this when I was on my diet and I didn't listen to them then so I don't really expect you to listen to me now but trust me, it's not worth it. Not to mention it's not the most effective way to lose weight anyways.

I'm not sure if I would have been considered legally dead or not.. The doctors weren't there when it happened but the emergency room doctor told me after speaking to the people I work with, that if their stories were true I would have been legally dead. I fainted. Never done it before but out of no where I fainted and stopped breathing. The people at my work said that I had stopped breathing for over 3 minutes. I believe it's like 2 minutes and 58 seconds and you're pronounced dead. When I tell others now what happened I only tell them 2 minutes because I hate to think it got that close... I'm assuming someone I worked with performed CPR. I only remember a few minor details of coming back out of it. Slowly hearing peoples voices and I opened my eyes and could barely see anyone. After about 2 minutes words started to form from the voices and the blurs became people again. The ambulance came and it went from there.

They never found the cause for this... But at that point they did not know how much I was restricting. I was overweight when I started the diet so I was about average when this happened so they never could have thought... Then I saw a doctor months later... I continued the diet until I lived at home with my daughter alone. One night my heart started beating really fast. I started to get chest pain and out of no where it felt like my heart had stopped beating. It only lasted about 2 seconds and then I felt it beat again. And it started beating slowly. I went to my doctor and the first thing she asked me was how much I was eating... No doctor had ever thought maybe I was restricting before (even when I was clinically 30 pounds underweight). I didn't tell her that day that I restricted but when I got home she had me thinking about it more and the next day I called and set up an appointment with her for 2 days later. At that appointment I came clean. She ordered blood work 2 times a week because my blood work from the previous appointment wasn't too good. She sent me to a nutritionist and set me up with an ED therapist. She explained that my ED had caused me to have an irregular heart beat and she believed that I could have angina pectoris because of this (which considerably raises your chances of having a heart attack at a young age) diet that I had been on. I've had an ED since I was about 7.

I remember hearing my mom saying her ideal was the perfect weight. I got down to a low weight and that was the worst of my ED. Every bone in my body stuck out and I looked like a dinosaur if you looked at my back. But I still wasn't happy. Then when I hit 19 I started eating to fill the "void" when I was in a depression. I ate and ate and ate and got up to a higher weight (after I had my daughter). The restricting then eating then restricting again really messed up my heart. The heart is the largest muscle in the body, so naturally when your body goes into starvation mode and starts feeding off your muscles, it's going after your heart first. That's what the doctor told me and it kind of struck home for me since I was having heart troubles. I realized if anything happened to me my daughter would be alone so since 2 years ago and I had those doctors I haven't gone back.

It's not something you want. When I was on the pro ana sites I thought I could stop it any time. I could go back to eating healthy and everything would be fine. But when you let it go on for so long... It starts to become a part of you. You think about it non stop, you revolve your life around it, you obsess and it consumes you.

I stopped the diet and decided to start eating better. At first I started to over eat and was eating all the things I had restricted and quickly shot back up in weight. Once I got to the nutritionist I had gone back down to restricting because I had weighed myself lol (something you should only do once a week) she didn't make me eat too many calories to begin with. She just had me basically double what I was eating and spread it out into 5 meals. Then when I was comfortable with that we would gradually add a little bit more food every dAay. I started eating like a banana with yogurt for breakfast, around 10am I would eat a snack that would typically be a small bag of chips or the mini rice cakes etc. Lunch would be a sandwhich with something on the side at 1pm. Then at 4pm I would bake chicken or something healthy and pretty good like that. Spinach and another veggie on the side. I lost weight in less than a month doing it this way and the nutritionist was happy. My bloodwork came back good. And I lost the weight.

I wasn't down to my mothers ideal weight, the number that has been in my head... But I'm so much happier. A slight line here or there to enhance a bone or two can make a girl feel more sexy yes... But when the bone actually pokes out, it reminds people more of a skeleton.In reality healthy is so much more sexy than unhealthy in both ways in honesty. I'm not saying a really big girl is not as sexy as me because she is not thin and I'm not saying the same about thin girls, what I am saying is that looking healthy will make anyone look more sexy. Not looking like a twig and not being over weight. The reality is, when you are healthy you look better. Your eyes don't sink in from the lack of nutrition, your bones aren't ready to stab anyone, you have a lot more color in your cheeks, and if you're lucky you can get a booty or chest... I don't have them but a lot of healthy girls do...

As I've said before and the one thing that I had to keep reminding myself of when I was trying to get better... Change your self image, not your actual image. If you change the way you think of yourself, you will naturally start taking care of yourself and making yourself healthy. You just have to love you! I know a lot of people love you, and a lot of people on PC love you, you just have to learn to love yourself and the rest will fall into place.

As for your friend.... If you two are real true friends you should be helping eachother be healthy so you can live long full lives, not comparing to contribute to the ED. If she's got an ED as you say, she is just as unhappy with herself as you are with yourself. If she loved herself, you wouldn't feel her rib cage as much and she wouldn't feel the need to show it as much to feed into her "accomplishment" of killing herself... I've been there I know...