ED recoverers: post your worst ED memory

Hey everybody, let's get motivated to keep on keepin' on with recovery!

I was just thinking today about how being anorexic for a year has interfered with my life and ruined so many occasions that could have been happy.  For example, I remember one time my family was going out to a buffet that I used to love, to celebrate a big accomplishment for my brother.  They called me at work and asked if I wanted to go.  I begrudgingly agreed to go along, but I was terrified the entire time.  As soon as I walked into the restaurant I practically had a panic attack looking at all the food.  I couldn't enjoy anything, I just got a little salad and a couple spears of steamed broccoli, and watched my family enjoy themselves.  I made my mom come with me to the buffet line to help me get some things I felt I could eat.  I was practically crying while I was with her, and (this is the worst and most embarrassing part of all) I actually had a measuring cup in my purse and I would spoon the items into it before I put them on my plate.  OMG, I was in so deep.  I can't believe I ever let it rule my life like that.  Needless to say I had a terrible time and felt very isolated the entire time.  My family obviously didn't have as much fun as they could have either.

But now I'm determined never to let things like that happen again!  I want to LIVE my life, because it's too short not to enjoy it!  And who knows how much longer my parents will be around?  I need to have FUN while we are all still together and a family.  I could easily have practiced moderation and portion control at that restaurant, but instead I let myself get paralyzed by fear.  Well, not anymore!  I'm recovering just like so many other wonderful people on this site!

So my point is, I thought it would be motivating if we all posted an experience like this, in which your ED kept you from doing something meaningful, fun, or enjoyable.  Then we can kick it on its ass and get on with our lives, living them to the fullest.  Sorry for the long post--what stories do you all have?

Let me start out by saying that I think this is an AWESOME idea! It'll remind us all of the pains and ails we had to struggle with, and make us even more grateful that we've decided to move on!

For me, it was probably a number of things.. I HATED being cold ALL the time. I was always cold, tired, dizzy, and basically teetering on the edge of passing out every waking moment of every day! I used to dread going to 5th period [my teacher's aid period] because the classroom was SO cold that I could hardly write or grade papers. And, I'm a writer by nature, and before my ED I'd write and write and write aallll the time about anything, and I remember one day, while I was probably at my lowest, I sat down with a pencil and paper and could not bring myself to write, physically or mentally. My mind was wwaaayyy too cloudy and I felt like writing would just take too much out of me. I was so upset that I'd sacrificed that wonderful gift of mine. It wasn't until I got in a fight with my boyfriend in the beginning of October that I decided to start my recovery: We got in a fight over something stupid [not uncommon, as I was always so irritable] and I went home from school telling myself I could only have popcorn and coffee. It was awful. A few days later, we ended up breaking up because of my ED. It may sound like he wasn't there for me when I needed him most, but us breaking up was THE wake-up call that I needed to get better. Soon, I realized that I'd not only put my relationship on the line, but I'd also jeapordized so many of my friendships and had missed out on so many experiences and I was NOT going to let something so stupid consume any more of my teenagerhood.

Actually, that break-up was probably the best thing to have happened to me! haha :D

I could write an entire book about the times Anorexia Nervosa has interfered with living.

Every meal of every day I would (and on ocassion, still do) plan what I was going to eat, measure it, and separate it from everyone else's meal. Not only that but I would freak if anyone's fork so much as wondered over to my plate. If my fish touched the same grill as my mother's I'd flip, and not eat it. My food couldn't touch anyone else's or it would become "contaminated" with calories.

I refused to eat anything with oil, sugar, full fat milk or dairy, egg, flour, potato, pasta, rice or any other "unsafe" food. That crosses out going out for dinner with my family to pretty much ANY restaurant. Oh and there goes my 17th birthday cake (I refused to have it) so my birthday was, well, ruined. Oh and "wanna go out for ice cream?" turned into a fight, every time.

Family traditions such as Sunday breakfast (pancakes, fried casava and bacon, scrambled eggs etc), monthly BBQs with mum's famous guacamole, dad's delicious stews and casseroles, mum's wonderful chicken and potato soup, seafood salad and greek lasagna were crossed off the list as well. No more happy family dinners.

What about friends? I hear you ask. No more going to the movies (popcorn! ack!), no more going out for chinese (you don't KNOW what the put in it!), no more going out drinking (the CALORIES in ALCOHOL ahh!) and definately NO MORE PARTIES, especially BIRTHDAY parties... cake is the devil, remember?

School? Who has time for that? I have to count calories, I have to purge, I have to give my undivided attention to ANOREXIA. So what happens to school... I barely passed Yr. 11

Holidays? = fattening season. I was "not allowed" any holiday food. And if I had it, I had to purge it.

I can't sit on hard surfaces because my arse bruises, same goes for my back. And any small bump = excrutiating pain and more bruises. I can't eat cold stuff because my body literally cannot raise my temperature because there are no calories and no fat to burn. My eyes looked dead for the longest time. My face looked old, it's still not back to normal.

I became isolated, sad and angry.

And I'm still struggling to break free. But I will. I WILL

Wow, these experiences all sound scarily familiar.  In our own way I guess we are kind of like a family, united by these awful things we have had to go through.  I am with you though, coldthindream: We WILL beat this.  Thank you both for sharing your experiences.

omg...so many. I just remember the terrible terrible fights i had with my parents over food. I can't believe some of the things i did. I remember this terrible, horrible time where my parents were threatening to call 911 i was so out of control...because they wouldn't let me finish my workout on the treadmill. Or the time I hadn't eaten in so long I started shaking uncontrollably and passed out. Or maybe in the beginning of recovery when I was getting an EKG as part of a checkup...and I was rushed to the emergency room because my heartrate was 37 bpm.

yeah...not the best year of my life.

I'll never forget...walking in the hallway with my best friend of 8 years...we were in health and ofc in the middle of the nutrition/eating disorder unit. She had it first period and I had it later in the day...I asked her what we did in health that day. She said we watched a video on anorexia nervosa. Then she stopped walking, looked my straight in the eyes and said, that's what you have. It just kind of hit me then how out of control I was, and how many people i was hurting.

I have so many memories from my ED/recovery...most of them terrible.

experiences?

ha, there are no "experiences" when you have anorexia... all of your waking moments are spent planning on how to avoid these experiences.

parties... no way, too many calories in alcohol

birthdays... yeah, if you want to get fat; birthdays=cake, ice cream, and pizza

christmas... *sigh* holiday food, don't even get me started

movies... popcorn, soda, and candy + sitting for 2 hours with no excersize... need i say more?

easter... ah, tis the season of chocolate

valentines day... greaat even more chocolate, and no one to share it with because guys="romantic dinners"=calories galore

love... guys don't like stick figures; and they don't like the burden of a girlfriend with an eating disorder

friends... why waste your time with people who "like" to eat for fun, and bond over junk food?

amusment parks... ick hotdogs, hamburgers, french fries, cotton candy, corn dogs, popcorn, icecream, pretzels, mini donuts... no salads?! there are apples, but they are covered in caramel!

anything, and everything that involves food is a huge anxiety attack.. what to eat, what not to eat, what to do, how to burn it off, how to make up for it, how long to fast afterwards, how to not eat but yet act "normal"...

school... forget getting good grades... all of your efforts go into counting calories, planning your meals, watching the clock counting the minutes till lunch time, you can't consentrate in class because you keep thinking about calories, weight, food.

but probably the worst memories I have are how many relationships were ruined because of my ED... boyfriends, friends, family...

all of my efforst went into making me skinnier so the boys would "like" me, and the girls would envy me...

BUT the worst was when my mom was drunk one night and decided to come clean with how much she resented me... drunken words are sober thoughts.

 

Ugh, so many! My first, and this was the first time it even occurred to me that I might have a problem, was when my roommates and I in italy were all getting drunk one night. We were planning this huge bash and had made a tub of jungle juice (sort of, it was mostly just juice and vodka) but no one came to our party (yeah, we were pretty cool.. . ) so the five of us just sat there and drank and played a card game. At one point I made a comment about how drunk I was and one of my roommates goes, "That's because you don't eat! That's right, I'm calling you out!" and then everyone just sort of stopped and looked at me. That was bad.

 Then there was the time when I passed out in a Dollar General because I had purged right before going on a bike ride and woke up in the back of an ambulance with no idea where I was or how I got there. . . that was scary.

 And the number of times people told me I was too skinny/should eat something/needed to put some skin on my bones/ etc. So many moments, so many times. I remember talking myself into walking home from classes, because I literally didn't have the energy to get home, and when I'd get back to my apartment all I could do was lie on my bed and try to convince myself to go the dining hall for my nightly binge-and-purge of SALAD and DIET PEPSI. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, I'd let myself put tomatoes on the salad. 

 I skipped parties. I stayed home on halloween because I couldn't face the idea of candy or alcohol. I stayed sober because I didn't want the calories or the binge eating that I knew would come after drinking. I didn't go out to eat. I didn't go much of anywhere. When I think of how much I missed, of the friends I lost, of the year of my life I let slip by. . . no more.

 

I'm starting to cry just thinking about it. How my ED ruined my life. That's not me being dramatic. it's just true. But you know what?  

 

Not anymore.

 

 

I'm going to live every single solitary moment from now on. No exceptions. Because life is too short to waste. 

Oh God... I have so many.

Well.. the scariest one I can think of is this one time that my aunt told me that she had bulimia and puked up blood one time, and then was told by her doctors that she could've instantly died.  At the time, I had been bulimic for a long time, so I was convinced that something like that could never happen to me because I 'knew what I was doing'.
So One time I went with my friends to the grocery store, and I bought Crystal light, raspberry ice flavor.  The we all hung out at my one friend's house and while they were all chugging sodas, I opened up the packet of Crystal Light and mixed it with water, surprised at its astoundingly deep red color.
Later, we all went to Jack in the Box, where I had a double-bacon something with curly fries and decided I needed to purge, so I quietly went to the bathroom.  As I was trying to rid myself of the gooey mayo and 4 slices of bacon, I noticed it wasn't coming up too well, and I was straining a lot.  When something did come up, the result looked alarmingly like.. blood.  Needless to say, I freaked out a lot and my friends eventually wandered ino the bathroom wondering what was going on, and I had to conjure up a stupid menstrautive excuse while panicking over the fact that i thought I had just puked up blood and was going to die...
And then, on the way back from j-i-t-b, it hit me.  The damn Crystal Light, it was the same color as blood when I drank it, so it looked like blood when it came up.  -.-

1) I used to wander around in the dark around dinner time, after not eating all day, absolutly starving and I'd feel extremely fatigued and sick but I just kept wandering around a mall/the streets because If I arrived home AFTER dinner I could take it into my room and throw it out.

2) The day I hit my lowest weight, I remember sitting in my room in oversized jeans, and a t-shirt that read "TOUCH ME; IM SICK" (yeah, it was a LOL IM ANOREXIC inside joke) that had become much baggier..my family wanted to go for ice cream, and I was like 'no' and they pretty much begged me to come (which in retrosepct i realize was because i was looking so sick). We went there, I got one scoop of caramel and sat there eating it ridiculously slowly with such a rude and sour expression on my face and if anyone tried to talk to me i was just absolutly spewing. I was horrible :/

3) I didn't eat all day, and went to a party, and had 2 1/2 drinks and was absolutly off my face, puking and passing out...

 omg so many now that i think about it :/

I would be really embarassed about my bony figure, and so when people would pick me up I'd be really self conscious about it. One day a friend went to hug me and was like 'omg, there's nothing here!' and I was so embarassed I just squirmed away... 

Ooh ... what a nice, self-indulgent and interesting thread ;-).

and (this is the worst and most embarrassing part of all) I actually had a measuring cup in my purse and I would spoon the items into it before I put them on my plate.  OMG, I was in so deep.

- At least you can see how ridiculous that was now!

1) I used to wander around in the dark around dinner time, after not eating all day, absolutly starving and I'd feel extremely fatigued and sick but I just kept wandering around a mall/the streets because If I arrived home AFTER dinner I could take it into my room and throw it out.

- I've had odd moments like that, too, even though I'm not anorexic or anything. It must be terrible to have pretty much every day like that! One that sticks in my mind is deliberately missing two trains so I'd get in after my mum had eaten and I could continue with my three-day "water fast" (already really annoyed that I'd messed it up by eating ... a brazil nut ... LOL) so I was there for three hours, freezing cold and feeling faint ... pacing up and down the platform, wanting nothing more than to get on the nice, warm train home which was being announced. I wouldn't even buy a herbal tea (all of 2kcal) from the stand because that would be messing up even more. Crazy times!

Mine is just ... like ... crying and throwing up into stupid things like carrier bags or cereal boxes and, once, a drawer (???!) and trying so hard to be as quiet as possible, but knowing that people could still hear ... and eating so much that I couldn't breathe ... and not eating enough so's my legs wouldn't work for what felt like hours. Lots of memories ... but they all kind of merge into one ... because the cycle I'm (hopefully!) getting out of is so ridiculous and repetitive and tedious.

My worst eating disorder memory is going for a blood test after I was diagnosed, to check whether all my electrolytes were still normal. I passed out while they tried to get my blood, which took about 3 tries because my veins were so small. When I came round I was having an ECG and my heart rate was 42bpm. I was so scared and I can remember thinking 'It's not worth it anymore.'

Also I have bad memories of birthdays, Christmas, Easter, and holidays with the family. The worst was my 18th birthday. I remember sitting there crying because I was stuck in on my 18th when all my friends were out enjoying themselves.

Same thing with the EKG and my body temp.

 

We were about to leave for vacation to go skiing, my doctor took my heart rate: 41 BMP, my temp. didn't even register on the thermometer, it was 93 degrees. She threatened to hospitalize me. Luckily she ended up not hospitalizing me and I was allowed to go on vacation if I promised to try to gain weight.

 

But those 10 minutes she was going to check me in were simply horrible.  

Mine was Halloween night when I was 20.  We were all ready to go out and all of a sudden, I got the chills.  I put on sweats and got in my bed with the electric blanket on, but was violently shivering---I could not get warm.  So I got in the bath tub in the hottest water I could handle and after a while, I was able to warm up a little.

Everyone had watched me whither away, but no one said anything until that night.  Then my boyfriend tried to make me eat and all I would eat were carrots and hot water because I was still worried about getting fat. 

I had a temp of 103.9 and could hardly move.  I waited to go to the doctor until the next day and found out I had a massive kidney infection.  I finally came out that I might have a problem and she actually told me "A lot of people with your major (journalism) have problems like this" and she made no recommendations to a counselor or even health recommendations.  She gave me some pills and sent me on my way.

Luckily, at that point, I realized I had to stop, but I still have relapses once in a while that I think could have been prevented had she only taken me more seriously.

I counted calories then, and I count them now, but the difference is that now I see an end weight in sight, and I finally understand that I can take it slowly and once I reach my goal weight (which is more than I was back then), I can increase calories just a bit to maintain and I WILL BE OKAY.  And I would rather weigh a little more but be able to maintain it forever than continue yo-yoing like I have much of my life.

"Let me start out by saying that I think this is an AWESOME idea! It'll remind us all of the pains and ails we had to struggle with, and make us even more grateful that we've decided to move on!"

     +1!!

movies... popcorn, soda, and candy + sitting for 2 hours with no excersize... need i say more?

     Mhm, been there... Still kind of there now, actually... :(

     Personally, I can't think of any ''worst'' memories, none were worse than any others -- they're all nightmares to me!

     Two of the tops, however, would be 1) when throwing my best friend of twelve years a surprise birthday party! and 2) the two days leading up to my (first) inpatient stay.

     1) It was around Halloween, her b-day is October 27th so I devised a birthday celebration under the guise of a costume party, and one of her friends from her school, someone I really didn't know other than through stories and from speaking to her over the phone briefly, brought this huge bag of candy! Um... #*^&!!!

     The entire night I tried to figure out ways of getting it out of the house and spent about the last half hour of the party stuffing it into treat bags for all of the guests -- I had to get it out of the house! The rest of the party was spent hovering by the space heater in the basement. Skin + bones + not much else = no insulation and feeling like a naked eskimo in the Arctic. Not fun!!!

     2) It was a Thursday night and I was called in to my PCP's office, he had been telling me that if I didn't ''straighten up and start eating'' ('cause apparently it's just. that. easy. >_<) that I would have to go in for a stint at the psychiatric hospital to refeed. Whatever, I thought, not gonna happen, I'm not that bad. This is such a waste of time! Yeah, um, no...

     He told me upon arriving to the office that he had personally set up an eval at the hospital and that I was to be there at 10 AM, Saturday morning. Oh... shoot.

     The next two days were spent crying, hugging my mother, crouching in front of the heater in my bedroom (like that was different from any other day!) and going grocery shopping 'cause I was gonna start eating! It couldn't be that hard... could it... ? My bad, apparently, it was.

     That Saturday we arrived in the city and were sentenced to sitting in their eval/intake area for about eight hours. During that time I suddenly felt this rush of energy and binged. One girl who was there (not eating disordered, I found) for an eval told me the nurses were passing out peanut butter, graham crackers and juice. They also had cereal. There were two vending machines filled with junk food also for anyone who felt peckish. This would be when I began binging, determined to get me weight up enough to keep myself free. It didn't work. I did gain a fair amount though, which is no surprise -- one, all of that food just sitting in a belly that probably didn't remember how to process it, and two, my metabolism was so jacked up it was probably dormant and totally ignorant that I'd begun to consume nourishment again!

     It wasn't until four months later that I was released and had to struggle on my own, teetering between keeping my freedom and being shipped back in for a third visit to the Center for Overcoming Problem Eating. What a nightmare!

     Gah! How horrible. It's funny how easy it is to block these things out. Seriously though, this is a wonderful thread. Great idea, RatinHat!

now that i think about it

THE WORST MEMORY WAS BEING SO UNBELEVIBLY COLD 

more of the reason i didn't want to go out was because i was SO COLD.
i wore so many layers of clothing.
i wore a beanie and gloves to school.

i remember one day i just couldn't handle it (during class) and i just curled up in a tiny ball and sat there shaking.

i dreaded breaks at school because it meant having to go outside...i didn't want to go out at night because i was too cold. i was just so horribly cold. it was like the coldness was INSIDE my bones and i couldn't get it out. it was awful. 

oh dear. I'm so sorry about all these experiences, no one should have to go through them. But I'm glad everyone's pushing on.

I have tonnnnssss... many of them similar to these, but what sticks out in my mind-

When I was only 12 1/2 I was completely in love with this guy, but I was overweight and anorexic so I constantly felt self concious.
One night at his house, his mum came in and says "Lane I don't believe I have ever seen you eat, and you've been coming here every day but holidays for a whole year." And I was just like, I always eat before I leave the house. And the guy says "You are eating aren't you?" and I was like of course! Then my stomach growled reallllly loud and his mum offered me a huge plate of sausage and eggs. Oh boy, I couldn't deny it because I didn't want to be shunned because of my eating disorder. So I took a bite, and wanted to puke. But they just looked at me. Then I remembered what eating was like and how much I missed it. I scarfed down everything like a hungry MONSTER, then said I had to go home. I ran like the wind, and when I was in my house, I tried to vomit but no food came out. Then blood did and I was mortified and sat crying by the scale. Thank gerard I've grown up...

And the feeling of having no energy and being like a newborn that can't walk definately wasn't fun, when I was lifting weights 2 hours a day with 1000 calories of nourishment.

The worst now, ever, was yesterday. I ate the most I've ever eaten in my life, probably 8000 calories. I was crying and stuffing down food even though I wanted to puke.
Today I still feel like dying.
But this time a year from now, I know it won't make a positive impact so I'm trying to act as normal as I can and not restrict again.

Good luck everyone!

SO SO SO Many things about my ED has interfered with my life.

I cut off so many friends and family who I was close to. I couldn't enjoy my own 16th birthday. I was cold ALL THE TIME. I couldn't compete well in sports. I was always either sleeping all the time or not sleeping at all. I had NO period for a year.

Now I have some serious stomach issues that I'm still trying to figure out. I've been to the doctor 3 times in the last month, and I'm about to go to the GI doctor for my stomach in a couple weeks. I've ruined my body. I hate what I see when I look in the mirror. I don't feel beautiful...so it's hard for me to be in a relationship and to be confident with myself.

For a long time, I stopped singing....writing.....dancing......and laughing. My passions are in the arts, and I completely stopped doing those things for SO LONG. Now I'm back into writing dancing and laughing, I'm almost there with singing; but after so long of not using those vocal chords, I kind of had to retrain and strengthen them all over again.

I tensed up the relationship I have with my parents. It's still tense. But during the lowest point in my ED, it was GOD awful. It's almost unfixable.

I'm damaged...emotionally, physically, mentally. I am still struggling; and sometimes I feel as if I will NEVER fully get out of this deep, horrible hole I've dug myself into.

Its really sad....

Probably the realization of how bad my ED had become. My mom had confronted me and told me to 'eat something RIGHT now.' She made me a piece of toast and a lite 'n fit yogurt. I ate half of the toast and ran upstairs - I had no idea that my brother was up there. I plugged in the nintendo and my mom came running up, ripped the cords out, and made a huge scene in front of my brother. All I could do was cry and deny everything.

Then the issue with my skin. When I would take a shower or shave, all this dead skin would come off. It was disgusting. The skin would be darker in the dead area - so if I gently rubbed it, it would shed off. Once after shaving my legs, there was this grey gunk all over the floor - my skin. Ew. ):

Other than that, the stress I've put on my family and how horribly I've treated them. Although my relationship with them has become better, it feels like there are some things that will never be forgotten or unchanged. But that doesn't mean I won't try to be better to them everyday.. :)

omg, is that why i had dead dry skin on my chest??

i always thought it was from tanning...

but now that i think about it, i am still tanning... but no dry skin flaking in the shower anymore...

 crazy... i never even made that connection

hands down...worst memory is breaking my dads heart and my moms faith in me....this happened when I was forced to go to the doctor and then forced to change or go inpatient....

another memory though was when I woke up one morning and I couldn't feel my leg and I had bruises all over me (apparantly this happens when there is not enough nutrients flowing in the bloodstream)...

and I know this is graphic, but I remember not even being able to do the 'nasty' with my bf because I was either a) freezing b) grumpy or c) to boney that it hurt to be touched

ughhh...so glad those days keep getting further away!

being hospitalized so many times i cant remember and having people have so litle trust in me that i had to be watched while i was freaking PEEING> talking about humiliating.

or, freaking out so badly over what i had eaten that i ended up being chased, frisked, and commited by cops, handcuffed to a bed and being carted off to the pysch ward

or maybe last summer  makeing myself throw up into the bowl i had just eaten of while the nurse watched. that was stupid and odd.

im really wishing i hadnt started to think of  this stuff :s its depressing.