When I was in high school, I was chubby. I am 4’11 and was close to 140 pounds, and I just really hated myself. I had a low self esteem and all my friends were more beautiful and skinny than I was. I moved out of my hometown and for some reason after that, I started losing some weight. I’ve been told it could be due to environmental factors but it may have just been a stage of my puberty. I don’t really know.
Well, I was so ecstatic about the weight loss that I became obsessive about it. I was determined to NEVER gain that weight back. I was 97 pounds when I stepped on the scale the first time after moving. I just couldn’t believe what I saw! I still thought I looked chubby and I was comparing myself to Instagram models and what not, so I thought, I need to be skinnier.
I started weighing myself around 5 times a day for absolutely no reason. I would fast A LOT. I read articles on the internet saying fasting is healthy for you and blah blah blah. I bought into that, and took it to the extreme. Fasting was a way to punish myself. I would only eat once a day, and if it was a “big” meal, I wouldn’t eat the next day. The day after that, I would eat less than 400 calories. I survived solely on watermelon for a long time.
The implications of this were horrible. I became very depressed because there was no joy in life anymore. Food was something I was passionate about and loved immensely, and here I was, restricting myself to unhealthy levels because I thought that was how I was going to “maintain” being skinny. I legitimately thought I didn’t need to eat barely anything to survive. I would look in the mirror and see someone I didn’t recognize, and yet still pinch the skin on my stomach, thinking it could and SHOULD be flatter.
I was constantly passing out and very sick all the time. Especially when fasting. I used to walk home from school since I only lived two blocks away. It was only supposed to be a ten minute walk, but I was so weak, so tired, and so sick that the endeavor took an hour before I got home. I kept passing out and needing to sit on the curb. The worst part is I would try and eat something, but throw it all up. A part of me got satisfaction from it for some reason.
My friends started to loathe me and so did my family. They screamed at me, telling me I’m killing my self and WHY CAN’T YOU EAT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?! I just said “I can’t! You don’t understand!” They didn’t understand. How could they? They didn’t know what it felt like to be me.
I looked at my body in the mirror for the first time, trying so hard to not look at myself through MY eyes, and realized something horrible. I looked disgusting. I don’t mean to offend anyone but this was my initial reaction. I had gotten myself down to 70 pounds and was dying. I could feel it. I could feel my body struggling and wanting to give up. When I saw a pile of skin and bones in the mirror, I bawled my eyes out. I had no meat anywhere on my body. My bubble butt that I was proud of was gone. I started to realize that this wasn’t sexy, this wasn’t attractive, and being this skinny isn’t worth the Hell I went through everyday. My hair had been falling out in clumps and I was at rock bottom.
So, the battle begins. I wanted to be healthy and save myself. I knew I was going to die if I couldn’t change myself. I finally let myself eat a full meal, and I loved it. I remember having a grilled brat with onions, mustard, ketchup, and macaroni and cheese on the side. It was so good and felt amazing, even though the guilt that followed sucked a little. I was sick at first and my stomach tried to reject the food I ate, but I began to gain weight.
I got a job and went back up to 95 pounds after around 5 months of eating regularly. I maintained that for a while since my job was a more physical one. I could truly eat anything I wanted and would not go higher than 95 pounds. I worked for a year and quit to go to college, and then boom, I’m gaining weight again. I realize that with less activity I need to eat less, but I have no clue how much that is.
Ever since I stopped being anorexic, my body can not handle anything remotely similar to it anymore. To make sense of this, let’s say I accidentally forget to eat “enough” in one day. The next day, I will feel violently sick and hungry, worse than I ever did when I was anorexic. It’s crazy. I used to go days without eating and if I go one day now with only eating one meal, I will feel very sick the next day and cannot function until I somewhat binge eat.
I just have no idea how much I’m supposed to eat. If I eat regularly, I gain weight and feel gross. If I eat less than that, I am very sick. I don’t really know what to do.
Sorry if this is rambling but I’m just frustrated and need to talk about it.
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