Ana's Voice is Getting Louder Again

I feel like Ana's voice is starting to become stronger again. I've been doing so well, sort of.

I've been struggling with an eating disorder at least since I was eight years old but I've had signs of it before then. I've been diagnosed with Anorexia and EDNOS alternately off and on. I've been told my particular ED is quite complicated because meeting the requirements of true Anorexia Nervosa are fairly specific, however EDNOS is not and can pretty much mean a few different things. Yet, I've been told I meet both of them just at different times. I would say though for the last few years and currently I would be considered more EDNOS. I'm very inconsistent when it comes to my ED, meaning I can go through periods of extreme restriction and obsessing over weight loss and dieting but then after a little while of that I get to a point where my boyfriend will just slowly start having me eat and eventually I just start eating normal, or at least what normal means to me.

What I'm worried about right now is that I've been doing really... normal, I guess, for quite some time now and it's just been eating at me and eating at me. Now this last week I feel like the ED is starting to make itself apparent to me again. The part that worries me is that I'm okay with it, I want it to get louder. I want to lose this weight I've gained from being a bit healthier. I even ended up buying a bunch of diet pills the other day which is something I stopped doing a few years ago because I have a lot of health problems and also have to take a lot of heavy medications and diet pills can cause some serious issues and/or death pretty quickly for me. I guess the easiest way to explain my ED is it's like Bipolar disorder in the sense that I have these highs where I'm just dead set on allowing my ED to control me and then I get in the lows where I'm just going through the motions and allowing myself to eat somewhat normal without controlling my food, counting the numbers and everything. Right now I think I'm going into a high and I'm sure it's going to take a hold me of again. I wish I cared and didn't want it but I'm now. I'm more worried about losing as much weight as I possibly can rather than focusing on the fact that I'm relapsing.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I know this is a pretty common thing for people with eating disorders. I guess I just needed to get it off my chest or say it 'out loud' or something.

Thanks for listening.

I know what you mean by ED being like bipolar disorder. Ana for me is when I am not doing well and am really depressed, when life is "going out of control". I have been dx with bipolar amongst other things. Do you have someone you can talk to about all this? I see a therapist who specializes in EDs, she has been an essential part of my treatment team. I hope one day, I can say that Ana doesn't have a hold of my life, but that isn't right now. I hope the same for you.

I have suffered with anorexia as well. I agree that you should find someone to talk to about it. If not a therapist, at least a friend or your boyfriend. I know for me it helps to have my best friend there. Anytime Ana's voice is getting strong I text him explaining why, he talks me through it without judging me. If I slip up and tell him he simply tells me he doesn't want to see me suffer. It may help to talk to a friend who has it as well. My best friend has suffered with it and received treatment, so he knows what it is like.

Anorexia hits me when I have a major stress in my life.....the last time was when I went through a trauma with the home care person for my mother at the time my mom was dying of cancer. I landed in the medical hospital with IV nutrition at the time I needed to be out to go to my mother's funeral.

As a kid, I know my grade school pictures looked what I would say pudgy.....not fat.....definitely not thin......never had the real thin look even though I was really short, but promised myself I would never get as heavy as my mother did at my same height. After graduating from college, I had wonderful engineering career going & playing racquettball with the guys every day at lunch......so I never had a weight problem while I had my career.

When I lost my career, depression set in & then came the pdoc & therapy & I hated my marriage....had hated it all along but had my career to hide away in until I no longer had that. The pdoc prescribed prozac & that was my first experience with pure anorexia. I lost so much weight......even more than the last time dealing with the trauma. Ended up in a treatment center but their focus was in body image & not all the other facts that were the real reasons for my anorexia... just wanted to fade away into nothing & it would be better for my family to deal with my death in that way than the other choices I had tried. Spent a year in & out of the hospital with central line IV nutrition....no idea how many times I had landed in the hospital during that period of time.....it took years before my weight got somewhat back to normal......then for awhile, it even swong in the opposite direction....to weigh more than I had ever weighed in my life when my migraines were so bad I couldn't even get out of bed.

I can definitely understand how you feel that it's sort of bipolar acting.....I can relate to that because when there is stress in my life.....I don't feel like eating anything.....I get so sick feeling in my stomach that I can't even imaging eating food......& it doesn't take much for the weight loss to hit & go way low......then like a teeter-totter, it slowly goes back in the other direction.

I think at times it's my body deciding in giving me time to recover between the times of anorexia. I have felt much better & my weight has definitely not gone way low since living on my own with 5 dogs that are dependent on me. I can't afford to feel the way I felt when I let the anorexia win......& I physically feel better except for some times when stress gets the best of me.....but I have been able to control that area so much better when I know that I have no one to depend on other than myself & how horrible it would be for my dogs if I ever got that sick again & they would have no one to care for them. I truly think that our level of responsibility outside of ourselves, knowing that there is NO ONE else.....not just that no one else is stepping up to act.....really makes a huge difference in how we treat ourselves.

But I can truly see how it swings from actual anorexia to EDNOS. Anorexia has specific requirements to be called anorexia.....lol....but when I was too old to have my period any more.....that wasn't possible to be one of the symptoms.

It's important to be able to talk with someone about where you are coming from with this. I know that I really didn't relate to the psychologist they assigned me at the treatment center.....he was pushing this inner child crap on me & there was just no way his approach with me had anything to do with what was really going on with the anorexia I was dealing with.....I just didn't fit into the box they painted that all people with anorexia are like.....to start with....I was already 45 years old & had 15 years as an engineering professional.....so I felt this guy was totally & completely full of crap.....but I also didn't really understand myself well enough to tell him what was really going on either.....like I understand so much better now.

I know exactly how you feel. I'm okay with restricting because I know i'm going to feel thinner. It seems a good idea for a while, but then I start having fainting spells. I hope you get it sorted and congrats on being so open about bit.

It's the same for me too, I have anorexia and bipolar. And they both cycle yes! I have been struggling with anorexia since I was five, so I can very much relate to your post. I'll do ok for a while, but the anorexia always resurfaces.

Seeing someone is a good idea. I have been going to an Ed clinic for a while now. It I helping a bit. I also took up yoga, that has helped more than anything. I didn't expect it but the whole mind body connection has really made improvements in my thoughts. I've read a lot of articles that support the help yoga can do in regards to eating disorders. Something to look into anyways.

I can understand what you mean. I struggled with accepting my diagnosis for anorexia a month ago. I had been assessed in an ED treatment centre then referred to a therapist. The therapist thinks that I have anorexia and I didn't like hearing that. I contacted the ED treatment centre and asked what their diagnosis was. They said they can understand why the therapist thinks I have anorexia but they would have diagnosed me with EDNOS (because I always had my period). I still struggle to accept the diagnosis. But the one thing that keeps me sane is thinking that it doesn't matter what the specific diagnosis is. An ED is an ED. The treatment centre said that all EDs are treated the same way.

At the end of the day, we are the only ones who can help ourselves. No therapist, family or friend can force us to get out of this rut that we are in. We can pretend to get better then indulge in our ED behaviours behind people's backs. But who does that benefit? We have to want to change things for ourselves. We have to try to let go of the 'control freak' in us. That control freak could be the voice of the ED, or it could just be us.

I go through cycles too. Sometimes I eat somewhat normally, or what I think is close to normal. Sometimes I binge-eat a lot, sometimes I throw up. Sometimes I want to let the ED take control of everything and restrict my eating, overexercise and whatnot. I can go through all these cycles in one week!

I guess you have to ask yourself whether you really do want to recover right now. I think that you have to want to do it to be able to have any form of success. Also, have you noticed any factors that may contribute to your cycles or trigger them? Maybe the weather, your moods, stress, certain people etc?

I can totally understand. I've had problems with eating before but I'm not sure if they really qualified as a disorder. Until recently I never really thought of this as one of my problems. When I've struggled with anorexia or EDNOS it's usually been during stressful times. The first time I started restricting was when I went to college and I was depressed and alone all the time, then it was when my boyfriend was working nightshift, and now I just came out of an abusive relationship and it triggered it hardcore. I've always been able to hide it before but everyone started noticing and I ended up getting diagnosed anorexic. I have periods where I binge eat too. I binged a lot as a teenager when I was living with my verbally abusive parents and I binge ate when I lived with my abusive boyfriend too. I wasn't sure if I believed it or not when I was diagnosed and had really mixed feelings. Now I'm starting to accept it and try to figure out how to treat it once it's here and predict when it might resurface. I'm thinking the anorexia happens when I'm depressed and the binge eating happens when I'm nervous.

I can relate a lot to what you wrote...I have never been diagnosed with AN, only EDNOS, but my therapist refers to it as anorexia sometimes -- because they are very much anorexic behaviors...even though I don't fit the criteria for weight.

But it does feel bipolar - my highs (mania) is when I am restricting and starving myself. The lows are when I am eating (somewhat normally) and feel horrible and horrible about myself.

The voice has been increasing in intensitty for me too...i'm sorry you're struggling.