[Redsoft]

I'm sorry if a lot of the things I'm about to post are sort of basics or givens that go with the disorder, but I've never really spoken out about my anorexia in a community/forum for discussion or done much counseling about it.

I know that I am anorexic and have been diagnosed, but consider myself to be in remission right now, as it were. I really do value nutrition (kind of a nut about it), exercise, and healthy lifestyles, staying active. I'm not perfect at it, but it's what I strive for.

Being anorexic was something that happened as a referred issue from depression/anxiety and was a form of self-harm in the beginning. I never intended for it to be a weight-loss thing. I just started to get a high from the control (retrospectively I now believe it was because I didn't have much control of anything else in my life at the time). Of course, once it began, it evolved into other things, but that's another story.

This was something I hid (which I guess is common?). My family is a food-loving bunch. They enjoy the human act of eating, not necessary from overeating at all, but find food a hobby or activity I think, trying new things and enjoying the human pleasure in it. Which is fine. It's something I'll never quite understand perhaps, but it's fine.

When I finally was honest about family and some friends with my problem, at first I was literally laughed at. "You're not anorexic!" as if I was being dramatic or attention-seeking, just because I was a normal weight. At a certain point, I really lost a lot of weight, and unfortunately that was what took my family to recognize it as something real. At this point, I'm a healthy weight and have been so a long time. I go through stints of abstaining from food, but catch myself. But, every day it is a struggle to remind myself to eat, or to convince and remind myself I really haven't overeaten for the day, et cetera. I feel guilty after almost every meal, even if I know it's unwarranted.

I occasionally shared with family things weighing on my mind about being anorexic, and eventually, now that I'm at a healthy weight again and have been a long time, they've taken to discounting my struggles, almost as if I never "had it" in the first place, like it was some phase or something. Even my boyfriend of 4 years, who is normally more than extremely supportive of my other problems, discounts me often. From time to time I'll share that I've not been eating during work days and such, and he'll tell me I need to eat, and does kind, helpful gestures like surprising me with breakfast when I wake up, or a lovely boxed lunch. But I feel this is more out of helping me out thinking I've not been eating because of being busy and things like that.

Some family members, at the point when I first shared, I felt began to judge me in a way, albeit out of concern. I was constantly catching glances at my "meager" (my stomach has been shrunken significantly I think) meals, and then being asked if that's really all I was going to have, or that I should have more in a sort of softly reprimanding way. ...After that started, I just stopped sharing, except with my boyfriend, whom I'm hoping will come around.

It's really hurtful that people don't believe me that I still have anorexia, that it never really goes away, that it's a struggle I will have to keep in check for the rest of my life. I also feel so awkward and uncomfortable knowing that some friends and one or two family members remember my thoughts and do still judge me, even seem to get bothered by it! I know this shouldn't bother me - what does it matter if they believe me? I'm not looking for attention or even help about it! Just talking about it helps - but it really does... it makes me really, really sad and adds to my depression when I remember their eyes rolling when I tell them about this stuff.

Have others experienced this? How do you cope with it? This has been happening (since I shared) about five or six years now.

[AngelWolf3]

OH my gosh. I could have written SO much of what you wrote. I don't want to ramble, or anything, but I tend to do so in answering. I have experienced this. I felt so out of control in my life.

I don't know if I started by trying to lose weight, or if it was because we moved from California to where we are at now right before I started High School, or what...but that's another place and time.

ANYWAY, when I finally was inpatient hospitalized for depression, they told my mom I was anorexic too, eating x amount of calories a day, and she laughed in my face and said "no daughter of hers was that stupid." I had to pull my shirt up a bit and show her my ribs. (another story, lol) So I get what you said about your familly thinking you were being dramatic or attention-seeking!

My family now, seems to discount what I have been through also, I am at a "normal" weight as well, but struggle daily, daily, daily. And my aunt even had the nerve to tell me I was heavy "back in the day" at a family function we just had this past year! And my dad makes comments all the time. I don't get it. Just because I look ok doesn't mean that I'm not struggling still. So I totally get where you are coming from.

I don't really know if I am coping with it, at all. I tend to ignore it, or stuff it down and then get mad later when I am alone, or come here and vent. I don't know what to do though because I am really trying not to believe that there never was a problem (I went inpatient for ED a while back) but sometimes I wonder if I was even worthy of help in the first place, lol.

I too still feel those "eyes" on my plate if I am with family. Like they are judging what I put in my mouth. I don't know if that is warranted, or not, but I understand you completely!

I wish I had advice. Maybe we can find it together. I hope I didn't detract from your original post, or get off track. I apologize if I did, but your post just had so many similarities I had to share and let you know you are NOT alone...

[Redsoft]

Wow. Anorexia ALSO began for me when my family moved from California right before high school...!

It upset me so much when people say people are "stupid" for being anorexic, or having an ED, and portray it as if it truly is one of the dumbest things ever. If people with EDs are truly that stupid, what are emotional eaters? Are they stupid, too? Of course not. It's most infuriating when these comments come from people that have their own vices (e.g. alcohol, money-management, etc.)

After so much discounting, it really does start to almost convince me sometimes, too, whether it was ever serious. Which is just so....wrong? Not fair? We need to allow ourselves to be okay with what we feel and where we've come from, and when people push that down and minimize any kind of struggle, it's terribly offensive - the struggles you had then make the person you are today, and although I can't pinpoint exactly how, it is because of the latter when comments like those are made that I feel they're getting a personal dig in on me right then.

Thank you for sharing - it feels nice to know and be reminded I'm never alone!

[precious things]

I can relate to this completely. It is a very weird secret among my family and friends. In high school my friends mother called my parents and told them I was taking ipecac syrup to purge ...they sent me to a counselor and that was the end of it. No follow up questions/lecture etc. fast forward a few years to college where a school psychiatrist called my parents and told them I needed to be hospitalized for anorexia.....I was and they never mentioned it, asked how I was doing around food, nothing. It was like over done with even though I was in a tough place mentally when I got out.

Fast Forward 20 years- I never told any friends, my H or family that I struggled because I was/am so ashamed. I struggle with both purging and AN and whenever my weight started to drop and people would comment it always freaked me out and helped me to gain. In my early 30s I went through a very bad time with anorexia and became a total recluse...I avoided anyone and anything to do with food. I basically hid myself from everyone and the few people I was around I concealed how bad the weight loss was. When I hit rock bottom, I decided to come clean with the people around me (friends and family I had been avoiding). I thought taking responsibility for my actions and letting them know that my avoidance of them was not personal, it was because I was struggling with anorexia. My in laws and parents were quietly supportive but more just didnt know what to think or say when I told them, the friends I told freaked out and thought I was crazy and going to die ( they asked me my weight and in keeping with the whole coming clean and being honest, I made the mistake of telling them). I told all of them I was going into treatment but at the last minute, I decided not to. And do you know what? Not one of them ever freaking asked me about it again. I say this with shock and awe. Imagine if a close friend came out as an alcoholic to you, can you imagine never asking them " hey, how are things going with alcohol...." Or something like that. My recovery was an emotional ( and physical) hell....especially because I gained weight really fast and a within a year of " coming out" people were discussing diets around me and acting as if nothing had happend. Of course, I was still purging everyday but I think people just saw weight gain and figured no more problem.

And even again, this past year I went through another bout of anorexia (approaching 40) and I had to tell my parents. My mom said she suspected ( she never said anything though) and after I told her we've never discussed it again.

Sorry this is so incredibly long. I just want you to know that this is such a strange disease and really evokes something in people that just turns them off. I always thought I would have received more support had I said I was a drug addict or criminal. Think part of it is that eating disorders are a way of putting up a wall between our selves and the world that there is an unconscious element of " you can get int my world" so people opt to keep to themselves. It will play terrible, mind tricks with you- you'll think that maybe you don't really have a problem if no one else thinks so (which of course, is not true. There is immense suffering involved in having an ED that can not be measured in weight).

[Victoria'smom]

My family completely ignores it but eye's my plates. Everyone in my family knows. I've asked my parents for help and my siblings and cousins also suffer with ED's. I've got comments like "Are you pregnant again?", "Your gaining a lot of weight" solely because I was in normal range. My in-laws are the "let me feed you" camp. My H is in that camp too. The only one that really support me is my T to the point she has told my husband he's making it worse. I've learned at this point to only talk with my T.

[Redsoft]

Originally Posted by precious things

... this is such a strange disease and really evokes something in people that just turns them off. I always thought I would have received more support had I said I was a drug addict or criminal.

Sort of an update to this thread... For one, what precious things said here is so true.

I finally had a heart-to-heart in a calm moment with my boyfriend, as we were talking about discrimination in general between different kinds of illnesses, and I was able to say that I feel like he discounts me a lot. Kind of called him out on things he didn't realize he did, like eye rolls and minimizing remarks.

He apologized quite profusely, saying, "I guess it's just because I never knew anyone with an eating disorder before." I explained that no one ever does. That's so often part of the disorder - staying private.

I explained (again...) that EDs aren't always these extreme cases people see on day time talk shows of body dysmorphia where people shrink down to skin and bones, that media has unfortunately played it off this way, where the only reason for having one is because you want to look better or lose weight. And while these people, of course, are struggling heavily, the media playing off the disorder as if there is no other reason for it is like playing off diabetes as only appearing in overweight people.

I reminded him that I struggle and will struggle with it every day because of my background, regardless of whether I am overweight, underweight, just right, or a fitness model.

He seemed to really take it all in, which is good, but time will tell. I wish that there was more "popular" public information about EDs across the spectrum. It would really help, I think, that "shame on you" attitude that people seem to have. :/