There IS ALWAYS HOPE!!!!.....but there are things from our past that drive us to this situation in the first place. I didn't even realize until this year (I am 61 years old) just how totally dysfunctional my own parents were & how that effected my choice (or lack of wisely choosing what I knew wasn't what I wanted) in getting married to a H who ended up totally dysfunctional. Until just a few months ago, I was trying to figure out what the problem was that caused the marriage to fail & in looking at the details, I realized that he is dealing with Asperger's (ASD) & that started making complete sense out of the things that were making me so totally angry to the point I was seeing red. In a relationship like I had, it would driven anyone to either overeating or anorexia (or bulimia or self-harm).....it drove me to depression & suicide attempts & the anorexia came into being because it was the way my own body reacts to stress & I wanted to just disappear.

There are always serious issues underlying ED's!!!!!.....& it's those issues that have to be processed with the help of a good psychologist (T). Many people who deal with ED's have been sexually abused as children or have been raped, some who haven't been raped but still end up pregnant & go through having an abortion find that the stress of that will drive them into an ED. I never had anything horrible like that happen, but loosing my career as an engineer that I had focused my school & life on because it proved that I had succeeded in being nothing like my parents.....was part of the trigger....then not being able to work (I had a complete breakdown & then an really bad earthquake hit the area I was living in So Calif January 1994).....I felt trapped in the house & the marriage that I had been hating since I had gotten married back in 1975. I didn't realize that I was using getting my degree & my career to hide away from my bad marriage & a H who was incapable of having any emotional connection or any logical reasonable conversation & all I would do was fight with him because he pushed every button that had already been placed there by my dysfunctional parents.

Until my mom died & I sold her house & was able to leave my bad marriage I didn't really know what was going on until after I left & was finally able to distance myself from what I had been right in the middle of & not able to even see what was going on. All I could do was fight & yell by the time I left & I had become this totally HORRIBLE person. Until I got out of the situation I was in.....there was NO WAY of making the changes that I needed to make me better & I honestly thought that's what I had become.....until after I left & started seeing glimpses of a totally REAL ME, a new me that I hadn't known ever before in my life but I got my values back that I had before I was married (financial issues). Realized that I didn't have to fight constantly to get the things that I needed in life or fight against someone to get what I knew was needed.

Not knowing just how dysfunctional my parents really were, I thought I was a crappy daughter also because I was always fighting against them & their thinking......now I understand why & I had good reason to react the way I did as any non-dysfunctional person would have reacted to them in a similar way that I did.

Your whole issues could have been something that happened in your past that you need to process before it becomes even more difficult the older you get......or it could be the situation that you are living in.....there has to be something behind your needing to self-harm & let the pain from that take away another pain that you are feeling inside & suicidal thoughts.

You are young & have a lot of good life years to live in a rewarding life. It's important to take the time with your psychiatrist & get them to get you in with a good psychologist who can truly help you work through the things that you are hiding under the feelings you are seeing. It was amazing to me a few years ago when I finally was able to write down all the emotions I was feeling & WHY I was feeling them.....it opened a huge door to my inside thoughts & helped me understand myself better & helped me be more open in therapy so that I could process the things that were eating away at me from the inside.

Remember there is always hope.....& working with a good T can really help you define the things that happened to make you feel & react the way you do today.