A Day in the Life of an Anorexia

A Day in the Life of an Anorexic: An Aide to Those Who Can't Identfy


Anorexia is a very hard for people to understand. Many see it as a harmful lifestyle choice. The truth is, it is a mental disorder and not any more a choice than depression or schizophrenia is. Some wonder, what is it .



like to go through a day in the life of an anorexic? The answer may be a bit tough for some to take.

But let's imagine...

You wake up in the morning and your stomach growls. You take a shower and when you get out you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You wind up wasting 10 to 20 minutes staring, pinching fat here and there, sucking in your stomach, imagining what you'll look like 5, 10, 20 pounds less.

Before getting dressed, you weigh yourself. You must weigh yourself naked because you are afraid that anything, even your socks, will add weight to the scale. You step on and off about 3 times until you are satisfied you are given an accurate number. If the number is higher than yesterday by even a tenth of a pound, you will feel like you want to die. If it is lower, you are momentarily happy but you remind yourself you have a lot further to go.

You get dressed and go down to the kitchen, take a look at everything there is available to you, but you stop yourself from having a bite of anything. You tell yourself that the feeling of a hunger is a good one, that you need to keep strong because giving in would be giving up on yourself.

You go through the day thinking about food. You go to work or school, you socialize and smile, but in your head you are thinking only about food. How much you want it, the reasons you can't have it, how you are going to avoid this meal and cut the calories on that meal.

You've given yourself a maximum daily allowance of calories, a number that is probably 5 to 10 times below what your normal intake should be. If you manage to stay under, it is a good day. If you go over, even by 10 or 20 calories, you are disgusted with yourself. So disgusted that you feel you could scream.

You spend your time online looking at pictures of models and researching every tip in the book. How to dress to look thinner, what foods will fill you up quicker, what exercises will tone which muscles.

You over exercise on very little energy because of the lack of nutrients in your system. You feel like you are going to faint, but you push yourself anyway. That voice in your head is telling you than being thin is .




worth it.

You start to have a mental list of your "safe" foods. You fear certain foods to a point that if you are faced with them, you feel like you might cry. In fact, you probably will. You can't eat out with friends anymore because you can't stand not knowing all the calories in your food and they can't stand watching you suffer.

It will hurt to sit because you will feel your bones grinding against the chair. You will find your hair falling out more than usual. You will risk early onset of osteoporosis and possibly a heart attack.

You spend your night lying in bed, planning what you are going to let yourself eat the next day and you can't sleep until you have figured it out.

You have your moments throughout the day where you fight with yourself. Where you want to just force yourself to eat. The times when you realize what you are doing to yourself and you are nothing but scared.

But the anorexia becomes a voice so strong and powerful that you feel like the real you has been forced into some back corner of your mind, struggling to be heard. You don't know what to do or who to turn to because you feel like no one understands.

You finally get yourself to sleep, not knowing whether you will wake up in the morning.

The next day, you go through it all over again.

So please, before you pass any judgments on someone dealing with this terrible disease, understand the suffering they go through on a daily basis.

And if you know someone who is suffering from any eating disorder, get help as soon as possible

Hi and welcome

Thanks for the welcome, but i've been around.

Yes I can see that quite clearly now - the Dec 2009 date was the give away wasn't it? I have no idea why I didn't spot that first time round, or why I thought you were new...a mystery. But hi anyway

This was really heart breaking to read..

And honestly, reading this.. shows me how I was clearly on the path to anorexia.

And also, reading this I had a very interesting thought. In a way, bulimia is what saved me from anorexia. I have always thought that binging/bulimia ruined my life, my self worth, etc. But after reading this and seeing how I was completely headed down this path.. I just realized it quite possibly saved me.

=\

I am sorry you are struggling so deeply. My thoughts are with you.

Thanks But I've Been in recovery for 6 years now and loving every minute of it. Yes I do have some bad days but nothing like a Eating Disorder.

OH!

I am sorry that I assumed you were still suffering. It is great to hear you have a sustained recovery =)

No problem I wrote this for people that don't understand what's it's like having this disease. So they can try and understand us and maybe help someone that is suffering out there.

It was a great post. I could relate to it very much. Thanks for sharing.

Thought someone would like to read this.

There are definitely a few variations on how anorexia hits different people. The problem for me is that stress can cause me to feel so sick to my stomach that I can't eat & if the stress continues for any length of time, I end up with anorexia & in the hospital needing IV nutrition.

For me, I don't see that I need to loose weight, but I can get up in the morning (assuming that I have actually gone to bed the night before) with my stomach growling. I will tell myself....I'll get downstairs & figure out what I want to eat "RIGHT AFTER" I get my shower, or "RIGHT AFTER" I finish reading this chapter in the book I'm reading, or "RIGHT AFTER" I potty walk my dogs. Then for some reason, I get involved in something else & don't think about eating until my stomach starts to growl again & I'm right in the middle of doing something else, so I will think......"RIGHT AFTER" I finish this, I will go figure out what I want to eat.......& by the time I finally get downstairs to the kitchen, it might be 10 or 11pm at night.....or sometimes even worse, 2, 3, or 4am the next morning.

Then I stand at the refrig & look at the food that's sitting in there & everything takes 1/2 hour to cook or I can't figure out what I really want to eat, so I find the quickest thing I can munch on...usually an orange or a hand full of frozen grapes, or maybe a few scoops of peach ice cream. If I'm really ambitious, I will make a salad which for me is a process because I put everything but the kitchen sink in it & it's about the only thing that seems to taste good & easy to throw together.

Sometimes I will put food on the plate & get it heated up & then I take a couple of bites & it just doesn't have the taste that makes me want to eat it, so I put it back in the container & wander back upstairs to my bedroom.

I have frozen foods all ready to cook, but when I'm hungry, I'm impatient to have to cook it or after I cook it, the taste is just BLAH.

I find that the only time I really do eat is when I am with friends & we have pot luck lunches or other social times when we might go out, but then I don't have money to spend on eating out, so I end up only getting a cup of tea, or maybe on a good month when expenses haven't been horrible, I will share a meal with someone else & we will split it.

I have wonderful recipes & what look like good tasting food in the freezer, but cooking for myself is just not inviting & then for some reason, the flavor after I have cooked something just doesn't appeal to me.

I was talking this over with my psychologist the other day. She said that I definitely do not have the anorexia thinking of needing to loose the weight, but I definitely have anorexia tendencies in my eating habits.

The problem I have found is that those tendencies may not be a problem unless there is a trigger that keeps them going like continual stress that makes me really feel like NOT eating, so I avoid it for long periods of time. Just 6 years ago when my mom was dying of cancer & I went through a horrible trauma with the home care person, I landed in the hospital after looking a huge amount of weight from not being able to eat.....over a month in the medical hospital. My pdoc & MD at the time were pushing for me to go to an eating disorders treatment center AGAIN (already had been there done that before), but this time in talking with them, because I don't have what they say is the NORMAL anorexia issues driving me there, there is no treatment they can provide. At the time I felt really invalidated by all that & no where I could turn for help, but I do realize now that there in no one that can FORCE me to do the cooking or eating thing or eat things that don't appeal to me even after I have cooked them.....it's really all my responsibility & only within my power to deal with this & to keep myself at a healthy weight.

Over the winter & with much inactivity, I had gained some weight, then at the end of March, I managed to fall off the horse I was riding & ended up with a compression fracture in my back. All that meant NO ACTIVITY.....I saw my weight going up & my cloths that I have fit into since my last dealing with anorexia were no longer fitting...... I was snacking on these wonderful tasting BBQ potato chips that I had found which didn't help any. Since June however & I am now able to ride again & be active again, the weight I was gaining is now coming off. I do notice that when it starts to come off that there is some drive to get it down to the weight I am really satisfied with.....but know that sometimes that drive can get to be a bit much.....& when I am already not caring to cook or eat the foods I have in the cupboard or freezer, or refrig, it just snowballs. Not good when my weight gain was from unhealthy snacking food in the first place along with inactivity. Now that I am scrimping to get money for property taxes & have to eat what's in my freezer & not buy the unhealthy snack foods that were keeping the weight on.......the battle ends up starting again in it's own way.

Living along & having to take care of myself is tough. I know that caring for my 5 dogs requires me to not go without eating to have the strength & also riding horses is dangerous without the energy needed & passing out because I just couldn't find the food I felt like eating just isn't an option.

It's a different sort of battle than some with anorexia, but the end results still aren't healthy & still end up with the anorexia loss of weight. It's just like being thin when I got sick as a child, I would end up loosing too much weight where if I had some extra weight to start with, the amount I lost while being sick wouldn't have been a problem. It's nice to have a few pounds to spare when something stressful hits my life.....like when Chinook died this summer, that feeling of sickness really hit me again......which is still some of what I am dealing with right now.

Anorexia hits different people in different ways, but no matter what, it's definitely very unhealthy as the body needs food to function, & to think & to even help control one's emotions. This time of year, I struggle with PTSD from the fall weather, so the need for good nutrition is even more important.....but even more of a struggle because of the stress in the first place.

It takes personal pushing & self determination to force one's self to be healthy when there are things pushing in the opposite direction. I'm healthy & have been for about 3 years now....took about 3 years to get healthy after my mother died.....& have no desire to go back to that place......so goes the struggle

Huh?

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((avoice)))))))))))))))))))))))))))!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny I just got off the phone with my friend and we were talking about it..she says she doesnt understand it but tries to be there for me..maybe I will see if she wants to read this...Had to laugh b/c she said sometimes I just want to shake you and say EAT.. but instead we just kind of talk about if I have a plan in plave for eating at work and such...thanks for the post.
It truly is a horrible disease. I work in the medical field and you would be surpised at how many people ready dont understand

Thought it would be nice to re post this.

Thank you for reposting this.I am not new just returning along with lots of old demons that have returned into my life.I was feeling like nobody understands what its like but, this says it almost to the t of my day.I wish I could send a copy to so many ,so maybe they would understand just a bit.I thank you for helping me remember I am not alone in this battle.

Thank you for this. Sadly, this captures the battle I wage in my mind every.single.day.

I related to this a lot, thanks for posting and congrats on being in recovery hope you are still doing well