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.

self-image and insecurities.

For me, a male, I grew up having a best friend who was extremely skinny and I always felt fat around him even tho I was a normal weight.  Additionally, it did not help that another natural skinny friend got mad at me after practice and called me fat and so I always grew up feeling insecure while my body was normal size of medium build because i swam 24/7 competetively since I was little.  I quit swimming after freshmen year in highschool because of the workload and, used to eating much of everything, I gained a good amount of weight.  I saw a picture a friend took junior year and printed for me and decided I needed to lose about 25 lbs to get back to where I was.  A perfectionist also with grades and what not (obvious trend?) I found the art of calorie counting and looking up restuarant facts to "perfect" my eating.  I succesfully went from 193 to 156 and felt good about my body and LOVED the fact that people noticed and wanted to know how i did it.  So as this "treated" my low-self esteem and continued to lose partially in fear of "I cant gain any back"and it was a great way to royally piss off my parents and to get what I want for once (bad relationship with parents) as they noticed and were freaking out as I got to my lowest 124 lbs at 6"1' before threatening from doctors and whatnot actually pushed me in the opposite direction.

So to sum up my rant (sorry it felt kinda nice)

-body issues since I was little and insecure about myself while finally feeling good about myself for once because of the weight loss achievement and was a way to control and "get back" at my parent