[boo-bearRAWWR!!!]

So my therapist and I have been discussing this topic for a while now and still haven't really come up with a good answer...

What came first - the depression or the ED?

I mean, here's my thought: I definitely think you have to be depressed to some degree to decide to starve yourself... but enough to really call it depression? I'm not sure... I really think it's kind of a vicious cycle...

You're slightly depressed... most likely pretty upset with what you're seeing in the mirror... so you decide to cut out some foods... you see the numbers going down... you get SUCH a high, almost euphoric, feeling every time they get lower... then you reach a plateau.... OH NO!!!! So you find yourself so upset... so you cut out more food... you lose more... the euphoric feeling gets stronger every time you cut out more and lose more... eventually you're eating practically nothing... and you're so mad at yourself... "Why did I have to be this fat? She can be perfect and thin and beautiful without starving herself and here I am not even that perfect and I have to do this..." so you go looking for that euphoric feeling again... and before you know it, you're addicted...

So it's pretty much just a cycle... but a cycle has to start somewhere... where did it start? Let me know your thoughts!!! Thanks for letting me waste your time!!!
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[eskielover]

Depression definitely....major depression over loosing my career as an engineer & the career that helped me escape from my bad marriage.

Then came prozac....lovely little pill that created nausea & I didn't want to eat....& the weight just kept dropping.....while being suidical at the same time....thinking.....gee, if I just loose so much weight, then my family won't end up with the stigma of the suicide....it will be anorexia related & wouldn't be so difficult on my daughter.

I managed surviving through all of that (sure it was God that kept me alive).

Second time, just about 8 years later, I went through a horrible trauma & the stress was what caused the weight loss that time.....I was feeling so sick from the stress, then the trauma I went through.....I got so sick I couldn't keep food down....& maybe not eating might have had something to do with having some level of control over something in my life at that time also....don't know if that was really accurate of not because I was so messed up from the trauma & then the PTSD after it. My weight didn't get as low as the first time....but it was definitely way too low & ended up on IV nutrition & in & out of the medical hospital for several months.

There were always things before my major weight losses & my anorexia.......but I remember way back to college days & mid-terms & finals. I would be so stressed, I would always loose weight during that time even if I ate normally.....guaranteed weight loss during stressful times of my life & I did like to see the scales go down....but after the stress time, I would just revert back to normal without problems until my major depression hit....then no luck of reverting back to normal as too many things were falling apart in my life.