Eating Disorder – It's All In My Head

Progressing Side Effect

Good Afternoon Readers.

I don’t like to be touched. Let me elaborate. One of the side effects of hating what I look like physically is that I don’t like to be touched in certain places. I’ve been experiencing this for a few years and maybe with all the happy events happening in my life I hadn’t thought about it for awhile. I was distracted. Now that time has passed it is almost like I am hyper aware. My anxiety about being touched is increasing exponentially. So much that I think about it when I am communicating with anyone within reaching distance.

My arms are my Achilles heel. I DO NOT like to be touched on my arms. I don’t wear tight tops, I don’t wear short sleeves and you can be sure that I wear billowy, flowing tops and dresses in the summer because I won’t ever be seen wear spaghetti straps.

I have moments where I have a spout of confidence. I tell myself that since I believe every body is beautiful that I should apply this thinking to myself. I can get as far as putting the clothes on in my apartment but all it takes is one look.

One look in the mirror and I shut down. Literally. It doesn’t matter if my fiance genuinely thinks I look beautiful or that he doesn’t think my “arms look too big”. If it’s even for one second that I think I look fat then I shut down. I start scream crying. Yelling those ugly words I tell myself.

“I look like a pig. I’m an ugly fat cow.”

No one can get a word in edgewise and even if they could, nothing can bring me back once I’ve gone over the threshold. It’s exhausting and I hate that I react this way. But something just clicks in my mind and I can’t explain what it is. I start to spiral and just feed the horrible thought that starts the tantrum in the first place.

Apologies that this post is short and scatter brained. I haven’t been doing well this past week and I started writing this a few days ago but just didn’t have the motivation to finish. I am currently in that place where doing activities I normally love just have no interest to me or any value. I am worried that sometimes this darkness will keep coming back and it is just exhausting. But I am going to stick with this blog because I think it will really do me some good. Even if it takes months.

Since I started writing this post I have an update on how this side affect has been progressing. I don’t like to be touched at all right now unless absolutely necessary by Sam or anyone else. If it’s at work I try and avoid contact with people but when you have a close knit team like I do then we pat each other on the back or to get someone’s attention we touch their arm. The anxiety I feel is overwhelming.

Mirrors have also become enemy number two. I have started avoiding all mirrors. Even going so far as to look at the floor or wall in restrooms so I don’t have to see my face and arms staring back at me. My brain taking note of all the flaws and features I hate is just too much sometimes. It can really ruin my day.

I will say that mother nature does tend to make things more difficult for me emotionally. She is not a regular visitor for me so she catches me by surprise sometimes. I am hoping this dark period is related at least a little bit to that. Though this dark spell is lasting longer than normal and the side effects are getting more intense every time.

Maybe I will see a pattern across the months as I am writing.

I am sure it will become obvious when I am in a good place v a dark, dark place.

I can hope.

Before I go I will leave you with this. When I started this blog I was in a relatively happy place so my writing had some type of focus and clarity. Be warned that my writing reflects my mood. I feel sick in my mind and like I am struggling to swim to the surface out of the dark. My writing will reflect the journey. My writing won’t always make sense but that’s the whole point. My mental illness won’t make sense to anyone if I can’t even figure it out. As long as I get whatever it is I am looking for out of this blog experiment then that will be everything and more. This is for me. No one else.

If anyone is reading this – until next time.

Overwhelming Feelings

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Good morning reader. Today I want to talk about something that everyone has experienced at some point. Guilt. I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten mad at myself or had a crying breakdown because I felt guilty for something. Mainly food related. How do we navigate these feelings? Especially when being told to just buck up or get over it. The feelings of guilt that I have are probably what derail my progress of getting better more often than not.

I track my food on a daily basis. Everything that I eat gets scanned or plugged into my food/calorie tracker the night before during meal prep. At first it was this cool app I discovered to help me keep track of what I was eating and to try and lose a bit of weight I had gained when my fiance and I moved in together 2 years ago. Today is a completely different story. The transformation of how obsessed I am with my tracker is astounding. It has influenced the amount that I workout so I can see how many calories I’ve burned compared to intake. It has influenced the number of daily calories I allow myself to take in every day. This alone has caused many fights in my home as the number continues to drop past the threshold I promised never to cross. At the time I was being honest about never crossing the line. But then I started to feel guilty.

I don’t know how many people have this mindset about food but I think it’s pretty common. First you start out at a reasonable, easy to maintain number of calories you allow yourself in a day. No problem. Slowly you start to lower the numbers – within a reasonable amount – until you hit a large but sustainable defiicit between calories in and calories out. I have come to the point where I am only allowing myself 600 calories in my tracker. 600. How did I get here? The scary part is that I thought my brain would see the number and say ok. The tracker says 600 so if I have those little snacks that I always try to avoid but inevitably end up eating won’t cause me too much strife because I am eating so little. That’s not what happened.

I feel guilty eating above my calorie allowance for the day. I just get that sinking feeling in my stomach when I see the counter reach 750. 800. Based on the amount that I workout and my fitness level I should be eating closer to 1300 calories a day. But now I can’t go back. My brain won’t let me go back up. It’s like once I started decreasing the number I didn’t think of the consequences that come with irrational thinking. Because my eating disorder doesn’t allow for rational thoughts 95% of the time. But I didn’t think about it because I never thought I would get to this place. I never thought I would reach the point where seeing a number on a counter would cause such utter disappointment in myself. That immense guilt is mixed with overwhelming disappointment in myself that I can’t just follow the plan I have set for myself.

Even as I write this post my mood is just turning sour thinking about how I failed yesterday to follow my strict diet and workout regiment. I know it is not sustainable but I also don’t know that. Does that make sense? I know it’s wrong but I want to see results faster and more drastic changes that I am seeing right now. And I have reached the end of my limit.

I know I am not the only person out there who has dealt with this issue. I know that other people have overcome this problem and are healthy and happy. I get little spurts of body positivity and empowerment every once in awhile and it’s amazing. It’s what allows me to on rare occasions enjoy chicken strips from my favorite college hangout or get an ice cream cone when on vacation. But it takes seconds. SECONDS. For those guilty voices to start up in my mind. For my focus to shift from the happy moment to how my big arms feels against my side. I will look in a window or mirror the next moment I can and just feel and see all the flaws. How big my legs are, how my arms look big compared to my body and how I shouldn’t wear short sleeves or a tank top. Just all the insecurities are being fed by the guilt for eating something.

This is why you’re fat.

This is why you’re not losing weight.

This is why you’re gaining weight.

Ugh I’m getting fatter.

I could go on. But I won’t. As everyone who has an unhealthy relationship with food and their body has their own library of phrases they have told themselves. As I’m sure many people have experienced, the phrases get more direct and cruel the longer you have been saying them to yourself. That’s one of the main problems I think. Being your own worst critic. No one will critique you to the level at which you will critique yourself. Easy to know, hard to let go of that little critique in your mind. Baby steps.

I am sure I will return to this topic at some point as it is a feeling I grapple with on a regular basis. It may not be as easily identifiable as the title but it will be in the words and feelings I express. Each day will be different. Some days will be nothing but positivity. Others will be like this. Where the post slowly becomes more focused on what I hate about myself in the moment. What I am feeling. Rather than the journey as a whole. But I guess that’s the point of this blog. To write how I feel every day so I can work through the destructive thoughts and behavior. Crossing my fingers.

Since that was a lot of negativity on my part, I will leave you with this: It can get better. You can feel better. I know because I have had moments, even weeks at a time where I feel GOOD. Like truly happy with myself and where I am physically and mentally. I’ve had a taste of what normalcy could feel like if I had this thing under control. It is a feeling I strive for. It’s easy to forget when you’re in the dark, sad moments. It’s what makes the journey so difficult. But so worthwhile at the end of the tunnel.

I want to just say that the end of the tunnel, the end of the journey looks different for everyone. I have a feeling that my journey will be a lifelong one where I will have good days and I will have dark days where I am destructive and in that place I hope to never return to. My hope is to prolong the amount of time in between the downs. Increase the length of time I feel happy and content. I don’t think the sadness and feelings I have about myself will ever go away completely. I can only strive for feeling happy as long as possible.

Do something that brings you happiness and get rid of the people and things that bring you down. It can be something small. Just go for it.

Until tomorrow.

Obsessed

Featured Stephanie2 Comments

Good morning readers. Or reader. Or just myself. I wanted to talk about obsession. It’s a word I use a lot when describing myself. “I’m obsessed with counting calories. I’m obsessed with what my body looks like.” My mother and boyfriend use it sometimes but more when they’re at the end of their patience and I won’t shut up about food or dieting or exercise.

I haven’t always been like this. It sort of crept up on me til one day I realized I couldn’t eat anything out of the “safe zone” without feeling immense guilt which on occasion lead to intense breakdowns with full blown crying at screaming. Not a good look. And not a healthy regular occurance for my now fiance to deal with. I feel very lucky to call him that considering all the rollercoaster of emotions he has had to deal with over the past 5 years.

Looking back I can’t actually pinpoint the moment when my hobby turned into an obsession. I went to college as such a happy young woman who was nervous about going away to school without any of my friends. Didn’t take long for me to make a few and I can only think of a handful of memories that weren’t full of laughter and poor (stupidly fun) decisions. Which I am sure will come up later in this blog if I manage to remember through all the other things on my mind I want to write down.

Like I said I can’t remember what happened to me. In this moment I think it might have been when I came back from school for some break and was told I looked amazing. Like I had lost some weight. That compliment alone is such an amazing thing to hear but life altering in the worst way at the same time. I started craving that recognition of my family and friends. I liked being known as the girl in my friend group who was athletic and fit. I had always been on the muscular size and decent at sports without trying, I just had quite a bit of fat covering it all up. Once I started to shed some weight and get noticed, without me knowing it things started to take a really dark turn. It was a subtle shift and wouldn’t make itself known until my last quarter in my senior year of college. Until then I would happily play the role of “curvy” athletic girl who went to the gym daily but still knew how to eat carbs, alcohol and every once in awhile order pizza late at night with her roommate without worrying about how many calories I was eating and not burning.

I wish I could go back to my freshman year self and tell her you are beautiful just the way you are. You are going to meet someone in 2 years who is going to love you for you. Your friends could care less if you weighed 90 pounds or 160 pounds. But 20/20 hindsight right? I can’t go back and the damage has already been done. The hope I have is that this thing, this obsession with my body image is going to get better. This blog is the last attempt I have at trying to help myself. I want to be able to look back on these last few years in my life knowing that I was the one who fixed it. That sounds pretty unlikely and I will probably eventually get outside help. But for now, this is what i’ve got.

I will leave you (whomever might be reading this) with this: You aren’t alone in obsessing about your body or what you look like. It may feel that way because people are afraid to tell their stories. To share what they’re going through. If one person can relate to this then that’s better than what I was expecting.

Until tomorrow.

Ugly Words

Featured StephanieLeave a comment

I wanted to start writing a blog to see if this would help me. I have been struggling with something for a long time but I don’t I haven’t aknowledged what it was until just a few weeks ago. I still feel so weird just typing the words. Eating Disorder.

Wow. Feels like such ugly words. Eating Disorder. When I see those words I see failure. But probably not in the way that you might think. I have failed because I need help, because I have let myself get to such a scary place, and I feel like the biggest failure because I’m not even skinny.

There is one of the biggest misconceptions I will be dealing with over the course of my life. Why do I feel like I try so hard, workout, eat right, and yet still be big. Yes I have an eating disorder. But I am not what someone automatically thinks when they image those words in their mind. I am not this stick thin, ill looking woman who you think needs to eat more. People tell me I am fine, beautiful even just the way I am. Yet all I see is the failure to be that skinny girl that everyone envys.

I am sure this blogging will get easier with time but for the most part it feels like a whining, rambling mess. Maybe the next one will be better.

I will leave you (if “you” is actually anyone but me) with this. I have reached the end of my rope and am desperate for anything to help me feel better. I am hoping that by writing every day about my goals, struggles, aspirations and life events it will help me achieve my goal, obviously related to weight, in a healthy way. But let’s take things one baby step at a time shall we?

To everyone who has been told their ideas about how they think or feel about themselves that it is all in your head, you are not alone.

Until tomorrow.