Pictures of me in grade school were not fat, but they weren't thin either. I didn't want to end up looking like my mother....& that's what I felt like I looked like. However later on in school, I was so active that I ended up staying fairly thin.......college the same thing. Midterm's & finals caused so much stress, I could eat a lot of food & end up loosing weight.....didn't realize how much stress controlled my weight.....but looking back, any time I got stressed about something, I would loose a whole LOT of weight.....but the stress situations never lasted long enough for the weight loss to be dangerous.

When I got married & ended up pregnant (had my daughter 10 months before graduating with my BS), I wouldn't allow ANY junk food in the house....never had morning sickness.....but kept my weight gain down compared to my other friends who were pregnant at the same time just by eating good healthy food & exercising & swimming every day.....even into the winter. The last month was bad because I found out my baby was too big & I was too small to have her naturally.....obgyn said I had to have a c-section. I had never even been in the hospital before let alone having to have a surgery to have a baby.....I was not very happy about that & the stress caused me to loose so much that I only ended up gaining 10 pounds for an 8lb 2oz baby. I was so determined to be active that I even went down hill skiing the week before I had my baby. Got out of the hospital looking like I never had a baby......others in my college classes asked if I had lost a bit of weight over the spring break...lol. Most didn't even know I was pregnant.

The stress of finishing my degree & taking care of a baby.....keep my weight down. I had my job offer before graduation & started at a wonderful company that provided a health club as part of the benefits.....so I played hard games of racquettball every day at lunch.....which was something I kept up doing at every company I worked for.....& it was great at keeping the weight under control.....so I really had no issues with anorexia or anything.....I was just healthy & at a healthy weight.....but there were definitely times when I didn't eat breakfast or lunch....but one meal a day was good enough for me....I would eat when I was hungry.

The anorexia hit however when I was 43/44. I ended up loosing my career as an firmware design engineer.....I defined myself by my career & it was my escape from 20+ years of a BAD MARRIAGE.....so it really messed me up & the aerospace industry was so bad, I couldn't find another job & we had a huge earthquake that destroyed the roads & my life was a complete mess.....my daughter was then a senior in high school. My anxiety turned into major depression & suicide attempts & I ended up on permanent disability. The pdoc that I had at the time was giving me prozac......& I lost more & more weight & then even more.......I didn't say anything about it because at that point, I was thinking it would be easier for my daughter if I died from anorexia than from an OD......so I continued to say nothing until one day, my husband commented to my pdoc about my excessive weight loss. Pdoc immediately said it was anorexia & jumped to the conclusion it was body image because of what I had thought about my past & wanting to not gain weight & stay thin. He got the Radar institute at Washington Memorial to take me for almost 8 weeks with them covering the cost of the hospitalization....just not all the Dr's I ended up having to see (which all ended up going to collection). Obviously that treatment did NO GOOD & the T there was a moron & I was about ready to douse everyone that came close with the ensure. Needless to say, I did gain some weight that they had basically forced me to gain by forcing me to eat.....but for about the next 2 years, I was in & out of the medical hospital with Central line & IV nutrition.....along with OD's because I really didn't want to be alive........& the weight loss stayed dangerously low which was why my GP kept doing the central line.....I would pass out, husband would take me to my GP....vicious circle.

I don't have a good memory for all those years between 1994 & 2003.....but remember being in & out of the mental hospitals......had horrible migraines that ended up not going away....still have then 24/7....not sure the cause since I never even had a headache when I was growing up. During that time, I had a hard time even getting out of my dark, quiet, non-smelly room......& during that time, had a parkinson's like reaction to several of my drugs, & with the migraines. I just layed there & did nothing....couldn't even ride my horse because of the migraines......started to gain weight.....& gain & gain.....swinging my weight to the other side of too thin.

In 2003, I was finally prescribed pain meds that controlled my migraines so I could function again. Went back to take interior design classes at the junior college, my mother had been dx'ed with cancer that previous summer, a friend from college died of cancer & my mare was pregnant & she had lost every foal she tried to give birth to before that. While on foal watch, a forest fire got started & the smoke covered the valley I lived in....ended up with asthma & bronchitis & landed in the medical hospital for 10 days. Up to that point, with my new ability to be active I had started loosing weight again at a very healthy rate....& I was rather happy with myself.....but the smoke....made everything taste & smell horrible....couldn't eat, weight started coming off faster.....but I thought that was good. Ended up with heat stroke after getting out of the hospital & still on foal watch. My mother had her cancer surgery that summer, my mare had her healthy baby "Itssabout Tyme" (Izzy), & my stress was going higher & higher because my mother wasn't healing well from the surgery & I was having to take her to my pain specialist to get pain help for her on top of my foal at 3 weeks cut her leg down to the bone & I was caring for her several times a day at the ranch (which was about 10 minutes away from my house). The amount of weight I was loosing was still ok, but it was coming off like it had before...but this time from stress, not prozac....this was more like when I was younger from stressful situations....& my stress got worse.....ended up going through a trauma with the home care person who ended up manipulating her way into caring for my mother......within less than 6 months after my weight loss started from my overweight place, I was low enough to end up landing in the medical hospital again right before my mother got to the point when I didn't know how much longer she would be alive. The trauma I went through made my weight loss even worse & worse & worse.....I couldn't eat or drink because my nausea was so bad.

It took several years after that to gain my weight back up to a safe place. GP & Pdoc wanted me to go to a treatment center again....but all I called didn't treat anorexia because of trauma....all they would treat was body image issues

My mother died that January......the night right after I went back into the medical hospital.......excaped the hospital AMA to go to my mother's funeral.....then went back after that for the central line & IV nutrition.......several years went by trying to process the trauma I went through & the anger I was feeling toward my mother as none of that would have happened if she had been a tiny bit smart.....I was a complete wreck & I know that if I didn't have Izzy, I never would have survived.....because I was still in the bad marriage that I couldn't escape for all those years.

Stress is honestly the key to my anorexia......however is talking with my psychologist, I realize that I really do have the not eating behaviors.......I still go days without eating some times.....& more so if I have gained a few pounds.......even after leaving my husband 5 years ago......all the financially stupid things he has done to hurt me over these last 5 years has brought unending stress continually to me & I am still dealing with stress from him in the foreclosure of the house that we still both own together because there was no way of getting out of it.....I issues with the IRS........& now I am finally able to get the divorce......but there have been many other issues that have caused major stress here.

I know that the only reason I keep at a safe weight now is because I live alone & I have 5 american eskie dogs that depend on me for their care......& hopefully I will be getting my mare (Izzy) here in the near future.....after I get the divorce settled.

Was talking with my psychologist the other day about not eating when I feel stressed & she said that even though the weight loss isn't about body image, the behavior is still the same.....& I like to go through recipes & find things that sound good, but I never make them, My sense of feeling hungry is not normal most of the time.......but at times it is. I also keep a healthy weight because of the pain medication I'm on & even though it didn't bother me the last time with my anorexia, I don't want to take the chance that my new pain specialist might have an issue with low weight & the high dose of medication I'm on.....he could definitely see it as a serious problem....& I just don't need to go there.

It's going to be hard enough eating after I have all my teeth pulled & go ahead with getting the dentures in the near future......I am sure there will definitely be some weight loss involved with that even though eating with broken off teeth has been very difficult in the first place.

There are so many other things that are the cause of anorexia than just body image.......but I also know that the need to feel some level of control about something does seem to kick in wanting the control over loosing more than the control over eating healthy.

For some of us there is not just one thing that is the cause......or even the trigger to start the weight loss all over again.

Wish it wasn't so complicated......but it it weren't, it would be easier to treat.