What was the cause of your ED?

Have you discovered why you developed your ED? What were the fears or situations that helped trigger it? 

I've come to realize that a big reason I developed my eating disorder was because I feared growing up. I loved my childhood and early teen years. When I entered highschool, I didn't talk to many of my old friends - they had either moved away or turned into skanks only interested in boys (they've grown out of that phase now, though). Also, I was very close with my two older brothers, and they both moved out last summer at about the same time. I was also a late bloomer and starting to gain some weight in "those" areas. So I was at a vulnerable stage but felt alone.

Now I know that women are supposed to have a higher percentage of bodyfat than guys, and need bums and boobs! Also, just because I'm not a kid anymore doesn't mean I can't still act goofy and stupid. It just means that I have more responsibilities, and therefore need more confidence to carry them out.

peacecalilove I couldn't identify with you more. I'm 6 feet tall. Luckily I was always slim, but it's still hard to feel feminine when you are taller than most of the guys.

I would also feel bad about wearing larger jean sizes even if they looked good on me. It was just a hard concept to grasp that 6 foot girls should not fit into size 0 jeans. Just remember that a lot of people wish they had our height and consider it a blessing. :)

Muttlover--

I can really relate to what you had to say. I was a late bloomer as well; in fact, I didn't get my period until my freshman year of COLLEGE. Crazy, right? Well, you know that once you start menstruating, you put on weight and your body fat starts redistributing. I had already been so insecure about my body, and this just added stress.

This is when my massive restricting began. Luckily, I have gotten over restricting; although I do have severe self-image problems.

I think getting to the root of what caused this has helped me a lot. I now understand that my body needs some fat and curves in order for me to be able to have children.

It's getting better little by little.

treatment

There are several things that I would say triggered my ED...

1.  I'm a perfectionist.  I have a 4.0 GPA, I have a routine for just about everything I do, I have to have my makeup perfect, etc...  Now I'm the same way with my food.  I have to have a certain thing for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack, or I do not and will not eat the next day.
2.  My best friend is naturally thin.  I used to loathe summer time because she was always wanting to go outside to swim in her pool, but I was slightly chunky and always felt horrible about getting into a bikini.  I always felt huge compared to her, and still do to this day.  One of the most difficult things you have to do while battling an ED is probably changing the way you think about yourself.  I still see myself as being 20 lbs heavier than I was six months ago, even though I know that I look a lot different at 120 than I did at 140.
3.  My sister was bulimic.  Since I was around eleven years old, I watched her go through her ED.  I shared a room and a bathroom with her, so I would see her binge, and then hear her vomit in the other room.  I didn't quite understand then, but as I got older, I understood why she was doing it.  Luckily, vomiting is one of my biggest phobias, however, I do believe that her ED contributed to mine in some way. 
4.  Propaganda in general.  Models, celebrities, musicians; they're everywhere!  And they're all stick thin and look amazing.  I used to look at those pictures and wish I looked like them.  I never thought it was fair that they could be a size 0, but I was a size 9! It made no sense to me what so ever.

Original Post by fallingupstairs:

hmmm

i feared that all my friends would be or were getting skinnier than me. i didn't want to be the "fat one" i just stood in the mirror one day, extremely paranoid, and pointed out all the things i wanted to get rid of. i would pose in my bathing suit everyday and just criticize myself. i've also been best friends with this girl my whole life who is just naturally thin. she's such a stick. and plus she's tall, so i wanted it to be like "well she might be tall, but i can still be short and skinnier than her". and just pictures in magazines too. bathing suit ads and advertisements for cute summer clothes and i thought "i'll never look that good". i was so afraid to gain weight, and of course i wanted boys to think i was attractive. and it was like my thing. just one little thing nobody ever knew about, i was organized, kept a little notebook planning my meals and exercise. i can honestly say i don't blame anyone but myself, and it wasn't even an issue of that being the only thing in life i could control. it was total vanity and wanting to be able to be compared to other girls and not completely dismissed. it was also somewhat of a rush, having my small secret nobody knew about it. like nobody knew this layer of my life. they only saw the surface, i was losing weight.

whew. haha i sound kinda crazy don't i?

 That doesn't sound crazy at all, cus thats almost exactly what I do and compare myself to. I haven't told anyone about it or anything and I do keep a little notebook planning my meals and counting my calories... I didn't know it was eating disorder related though... I think this helped me realize wut I'm doing to myself, cus I have been losing a lot of weight. Thanks for helping me.

acting. i wasn't allowed to audition for a movie because i wasn't "hollywood enough." i don't know why my agent told me this... i was 16 at the time. that's when it started. that was four years ago.

i'm a perfectionist and addicted to routine. i hate having things pop up that i don't expect, like someone dropping by for a coffee... or someone showing up early to pick me up. i just like things to go as expected.

as a kid, i never felt like i was good enough. being thin is the one thing that i've been consistently reinforced for. 

my mum... sadly enough... was anorexic as a teenager. when she came here, she "recovered" but maintained bad habits. as much as i love her, the way she talks about food and the way she handled my complaints about my body were wrong and coincidentally, i've been in a very self-destructive cycle. she still neglects to see that i have a problem. she says that if it wasn't this, it'd be something else. which breaks my heart, because it's really hard to admit you have a problem in the first place. 

Old topic, yes...

In April 2007, I realized that after every meal, I looked fat...bloated, I later learned.  Enough to make me look at least overweight.

At first, I thoought I was fat, and wanted to lose the weight.

Then, I realized it came and went; after a meal it came, after I peed it went.

But I was unsure whether I was "fat" or not, so I decided that if I ate 700-1000 calories a day I would know that I was skinny.

Depressing much?

this is an old thread but im glad it was revisited.

my ed started in college im sure, but there were multiple factors.  and even these, im not 100% this is the cause of ed, but the closest i could figure so far with my counselor.  my freshman year, i gained the dreaded "freshman fifteen" from eating all sorts of college food..late night runs to the fast food chains, eating out at places on my own with friends (not with family), eating things i never would have normally eaten.  then i started my first real relationship and was so thrilled.  he was the bad boy type and was always flattered that he chose me!  then he cheated on me multiple times and i was naive and always let him back in.  from that point on, i lost all confidence and self esteem i had.  blamed it on the weight and that all the other gals he saw were more beautiful and fashion saavy.  so i tried to be the perfect skinny girl friend.  at that point it was trying to win him back, trying to be perfect, trying to find something to control since i had no control in the relationship at all.  i would exercise like crazy and eat almost nothing.  this went on and off for my entire college career.  after breaking up with my ex for the last time (one thing i am very proud of as he was extremely manipulative and controlling and had a great nack for only lettimg me see what he wanted to me to see), i dated a few people but the low self esteem thing never went away.  again, i fell into the hard grips of ed and tried to control my life through food, exercise and being the perfect little doll.  it was the only thing i felt i had left to control.  i was also severely depressed and i know that had a part in it.  for a while after that i was fine and ed free for a while.  then i met my now hubby and got engaged.  planning for the wedding, stress, that low self esteem again..brought me straight back to ed.  at the time, i thought i was just dieting as most brides do, but those of us with eds, know we cant "just" diet.  so i started the atkins diet and was super strict.  i told myself and everyone else that after the wedding i would go back to normal and things would be fine.  well, i dropped to my low of about 85 pounds and was pretty think looking back on it.  people were generally concerned with my weight but i just didnt see it.  i thought i looked better than ever.  even at the receptions..the first thing my friends handed me was a lava flow to enjoy becasue supposedly, i was off the diet.  but as soon as the honeymoon started, for some reason, i could just not bring myself to eat like i did before.  normal.  so that was over four years ago and im battling ed.  this is the longest spurt but im definitely the most aware if it than i ever have been..which is a good thing as im fighting it now with help. 

sorry this got so long, but it really is an emotional thing..to try and remember when and from what it started from.  one day, my goal is to get back to the days before that time...its hard and everyday is a battle, to feel so care free as i once did..even i dont remember what that feels like now, will be worth it, right?  we can get there....

wow!! reading through allthese replys makes you realise here are sooo many things that contribute to EDs!

i dont know exactly what caused mine but it was a combination of:

being told by my mother i couldnt have something because i was becoming a little barrel

my overweight sister dropping several stone in a shortspace of time by restriction

mum becoming an alcoholic...felt like i lost my childhood

being severly bullied by girls at school (ie. punched, kicked down etc) and having no one support me

i can honestly say id love to know the true reason...but i dont think i ever will!

I think I have the stupidest reason - I broke up with my first serious boyfriend (You know, the one you you think is "the one" because he's the first person you loved who loved you back?...let's not go into it...haha...hm :( )

Well, I say I broke up with him, what actually happened is I was 16, living 365 miles from him in Scotland, and I had just started the pill. I was on Mycrogynon 30 which sent me CRAZY. I was depressed as all hell, and right about that winter I discovered the wonderful illness of S.A.D. Seasonal Affective Disorder is not very nice, and also is completely useless. Why would a person be depressed because it's winter? it doesn't make any sense. Anyway, this depresion, tied up with school being an absolute bucket of arse (pardon the expression), living in the back end of beyond, and then getting dumped by the then-love of my life THREE DAYS after my 17th birthday....I wasn't in any mood to do anything. I wasn't really in the mood to live. Which is a bit drastic, I'll admit, but I was completely low and had been so depressed for so long by that point that I just wished I would die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to wake up.

Cheery story huh?

Anyway, after he left me, I completely went off the rails. The little bit of sanity I had sortof corrupted itself into poison, and I spent most of my days smoking in the park down the road from my school with my friend who also had eating disorders of his own (He has pika - where you eat weird things like plastic and stones...it's kinof like self-harm I think. He once ate a wasp in class when he was 13. Ew.) I enjoyed being hungry, it was a real feeling, and I was doing it to myself. It felt good that my body needed me to keep feeding it. I think I enjoyed punishing it. It was like me against it (btw, did I tell you I was ABSOLUTELY CRAZY?!) I had stopped taking the pills by now, but they weren't quite out of my system and as I got better I started eating bits of bread. Up til this point I wouldn't eat anything except french stick bread, in tiny pieces that I tore off.

My mum has a picture of me in her front room, dressed all in black with pink hair (yep, I was one of those guys haha) with an ice lolly and a big smile on my face. She cried when I asked her why she has it there - I don't remember this at all but apparently it was the first day I went out in the sunshine and ate in front of people for almost 5 months. Even though I hate the picture, I am happy that my mum is so proud of me for getting through it like I did, all by myself.

Phew. What a depressing story.

Original Post by peacecalilove:

I'm 5'10 so naturally there's no way around it, I've just been bigger than other girls. Especially being heavier I just felt like an ogre compared to everyone else. I remember when Shrek first came out my brother even called me an ogre. I was horrified. So I have always thought I had to make up for my tallness in other ways to be considered feminine or dainty. Also I've always adored the supermodel look, I just want to be long and lean and happy.

the story of my life.  I can definitely relate to that

The cause of my BED has to be my depression and extreme loneliness.

Last year my life was seemingly perfect.  I had great friends, a great boyfriend, a 4.0 gpa, and I had lost 10 pounds (just enough for people to notice and give me compliments).

When I left college for the summer things with my boyfriend fell apart.

When I returned to college in the fall I expected things to go a certain, perfect way.  They didn't.  Most of my good friends had transferred and my classes were very difficult.  At this time I turned to binge drinking while at the same time not paying attention to what I was eating.

By the end of the semester I had reached rock bottom due to drinking.  I knew I was only a dangerous path since at least 4 nights a week I would literally drink until I blacked out.  I knew I had to stop after drinking 10+ shots of 151 vodka (I was only 112 pounds) and getting alcohol poisoning.  I decided that the crew I hung around with was toxic since we only drank.  At that point I entered a deep depression.  I was so alone because either my friends had left me or I had pushed them out because I knew that they would only cause me to drink. With no one to comfort me, I turned to foods. 

Now I am still as depressed as ever and I know that now my BED feeds not only my stomach, but my loneliness. My binges usually total over 5000 calories so my pain and bloating is so intense that I literally can't leave my room to do anything.  I have also gained a lot of weight, so I don't even like to go out in public.  Its vicious and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. 

 

This is a very cathartic topic. I've always been dysmorphic about my body. I can remember being in kidnergarten and looking at the other girls and thinking, "wow, my thighs are so much bigger than hers," even though my nickname at the time was 'lizzard legs.' I would wrap my fingers around my wrist and try to figure out if it was thicker than other kids'. That, and I was always painfully shy and literally didn't have any friends, plus I was bullied mercilessly throughout grade school. I never dieted until high school, but even then I wasn't extreme about it. I just wanted to be thinner, and was preoccupied with it all the time. My best friend even told me once, "You'd be okay looking if you just lost your gut." I didn't have a gut, but because she said I did, it must have been so. I've also been involved in dance and theater for as long as I can remember, so at least twice a year we'd get measured for costumes. yeah, you can only imagine how THAT went over. Well, college rolled around and suddenly I was in control of my own eating. I made friends with a guy sophomore year who wanted to drop a few, so we "decided to be anorexic" together. looking back, we did a fairly poor job: eating massive amounts of beans and tortillas for lunch and salad for dinner, chain smoking like fiends, and no breakfast or beverages except amazing amounts of coffee. I did lose a few pounds, but not significant. We went to the UK together and wouldn't eat at all except breakfast and dinner two or three times a week. Again, I lost a few lb but not enough to notice. Then I went abroad to italy alone. My roommate there lost a ton of weight because she had been extremely overweight, and seeing her lose, my super-competitive perfectionist side thought "I can do that!" I stopped eating almost completely. I'd have espresso and a half a slice of bread for breakfast and a half a slice for dinner and gulp water like my life depended on it in between. I kept my mind off food by walking everywhere and taking long powerwalks in the name of "sightseeing." Boy, did I start losing "properly" then! When I came home for the summer, I tried to keep restricting but the amount of food and variety in my parents' house was overwhelming after a semester of nothing but pasta, bread, and sauce in my cupboard. My parents were doing South Beach, so my diet at home was completely carb-free, allowing me to lose even more without really "trying." I started, slowly, to try to re-feed, but that led to bulimia. I spent that whole summer eating as little as possible all day, a "normal" protein and veg dinner, then b&p after everyone went to bed. The next semester I would eat only one meal a day, then purge that. It wasn't until I realized the damage I was doing around the middle of the semester that I stopped. Looking back, I know that my perfectionism, my field's (theater and magazine) emphasis on the physical form, competitiveness, and an ingrained sense of low self-esteem and body dysmorphia definitely contributed. I honestly think that I'm one of those people who has always had that predisposition to an ED, and I count myself lucky that it started relatively late and didn't last terribly long. Still, what an awful way to waste a year! I still struggle every day, but now that I know how it happened and what caused it, hopefully I can start to rebuild. At least that's what I'm banking on. . . 

Thinking about all of this is insanely triggering, but as i just relapsed today :/, i figured it'd be good to get off my chest. this is a longish one, sorry in advance

I always a bit chubby, chunky, you name it. From about 5th grade, i was an early bloomer, to about 7th i was well not healthy. I was a closet eater, and ate so much food, it got to the point that i would throw the trash out of my window or hide it so nobody would know. But of course my parents found out about THAT.  Then around 8th grade, i reconnected with my best friend, and became friends with a bunch of girls who i thought were great. My best friend, and two other friends had eating disorders. I sat with them at lunch. I know for a fact, that the way they ate and carried on about their bodies had a huge influence on me.

Next, all of this happening in 8th grade. Had a boyfriend, he dumped me and THEN told my good guy friend that i looked fat in this shirt i wore one day and to tell me never to wear it again. honest to god. so i cried a bit, then started taking my "friends" advice and stopped eating. i dropped 10ish pounds pretty quickly i guess. but of course it wasn't enough. my edos continued and then during the summer before 9th grade, this happened. my still best friend taught me how to make myself throw up. so we'd have sleepovers, and we'd hardcore binge, and throw up, and continue that cycle until we'd had enough, or ran out of food. [she was also a fat kid growing up] just to put that out there

9th grade, i got my first serious serious boyfriend, and i was chubby. But boy oh boy did i think i was goooood lookin'. i wore way too tight clothes and thought i was all that. he ended up dumping me for a skinny girl and him and my one former ED friend, called me mrs pigglywiggly, mrs oinkoinks, and tubs over the summer. you see how that was for my self esteem.

this year, i ran HXC and lost so much weight. i was averaging about 105 on my 5'3'' frame. during christmas, i just plain stopped eating, and dropped to 98 pounds. OBVIOUSLY that couldn't last. i blimped up to almost 120. i've been trying to lose it these past few months. i currently am 108 and just binged and purged for the first time in over a year. i do plan on discussing this with my shrink.

if i was asked to pin-point it, it would be on those friends and my serious boyfriends. but then again, it was my desicion to starve, so in reality i can only blame myself

 

EDIT: i am no longer friends with any of those girls, and i am on a on again/off again friendship with that boy.

A couple of reasons.
I got messed around by this guy who was too old for me. He dissapeared and didn't contact me for 10 weeks at a time. Turns out he was suffering from depression, but I was convinced he wasn't keeping in contact because I wasn't good enough. I was kind of chubby, and decided to see if I could lose weight and be 'better' by not eating anything at all. It was also to see how long I could starve for. I could go for 3 or 4 days at a time, then crack and binge to the point of being sick.

My best friend was anorexic, and would give me tips like how hot water tricked your body into thinking it was full. I didn't have any scales, and got to the point of making excuses to go to my friend's houses and use their toilets so I could weigh myself. I must have lost a lot of weight, but i didn't really notice, and it's only looking back that I realise how bad it was.

Another thing I realised is that people are scared of helping you. At least, they were for me. They don't really know how to go about it. I'm now trying to lose a bit while still eating normally, but still sometimes get panicky at the idea of 3 meals a day.

For me, anorexia was just a side-effect of being a perfectionist that has gradually warped into something much, MUCH bigger. I'm a gymnast, a straight-A student in all honors classes, and I'm friends with my entire high school. Over the years, the pressure I felt at everyone constantly reminding me that I'm "perfect" has warped into an obsession. I know I'm not the kind of flawless my friends and family proclaim that I am, but I want so badly to be. I've always desired to be that tiny, beautiful, smart, kind girl that everyone wants to know... I've just gotten out of control. ='[

And congrats to everyone out there who is recovering/recovered! You guys are so inspirational and I really love how we can talk to each other openly about things that others in our live can never understand. None of us are alone! Keep fighting! =]]]

I started out as a 250 pound 13 year old. Then my mom had gastric bypass surgery and started losing weight very quickly. Fast forward a year and I had lost 130 pounds due to anorexia.

The exact CAUSE of my ED is unknown, but I think it could have been sparked by a number of things.

I had never worried about my weight when I was little. I used to prance around and revelled when people called me 'cute'. But, alas, all good things must come to an end, and a thin, happy blonde little girl turned into a pubescent, greasy dumpling of a creature. Mix in a few pounds of teenage awkwardness, moving to a new country where you barely knew the language, a few rapid growth spurts and weight gain, a dollop of horrendously low self-esteem and you get a concotion of me at age 13.

And all right around the time of Middle school. Now, who the HELL came up with THAT brilliant plan?! someone had a fan-fraggin'-tastic plan to hoarde away confused, agitated pubescent children who don't know WHAT'S going on into a small area to be 'taught lessons' which eventually lead into a war zone even the most hardened of veterans would not wish to ever venture into for the rest of their natural lives.

Well, not being thin, blonde and beautiful anymore, I also got this GREAT idea to become a 'goth'. Well, let's just say after being jumped in the locker room countless times, being chased by angered students and pelted with rocks until you hid into your house and several mean and cruel jokes later, things HAVE to snap.

Though, I have to admit my ED did not really 'blossom' -I guess would be the word- until about high school/college. I had dabbled in bulimia (Never was able to make myself vomit successfully too much, thank God), and mild anorexia (I could only go about three days tops without eating before I'd snap, and only dropped from about 155lbs to 132lbs and then the weight loss reversed now I'm at 137-139lbs).

Also, I'm first to admit I have a 'save-the-world-first' attitude when it comes to things. One of the clubs I was in while in High school had a 'day of empathy', where all the members of the club had to fast for a full 24-hours so we could 'get just a SMALL fraction of what the children in 3rd world countries have to live with every day'. Needless to say, TO THIS DAY I hate even knowing I have food on my plate knowing there are children in parts of the world as well as this country who are starving and have nothing they can say about it, and here I am with food on my plate? Guuh, sorry, I'm STILL having issues with that now, and I doubt I'll EVER get over it.

Also, all of that ontop of a rather confusing, abusive childhood and... TADA!