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?

Also, not really a memory but I was going through pictures from the past 8 months and seeing my weight drop, seeing myself look sicklier and sicklier is totally depressing. I looked so much better and healthy then =/ But I will get back there!

hmm...

where to start?

- had to stop dancing, the love of my life, because i was too physically unwell and couldnt do it

-fasting for days on end and waiting for the one day a week i would allow myself a dish to which i would purge anyway (im so disgusted in myself)

-refusing to go anywhere or do anything

-having my mum check on me during the night to make sure i was still alive

-my sister crying asking mum if her sister was going to die?!

-being told i was about to go into cardiac arrest

-GOING INTO HOSPITAL! definately the worst of memories. Being tube fed overnight is horrible

-exercising every single day.

-purging at work! (for gods sake)

-sitting practically on the heater alllll day long instead of school

-layers! says it all.

 

i could be here for hours....

and im still struggling to get my a** into gear. only eating 1400 a day. i want nothing more in the world than to live my life. im only 17 once. im so blind to myself.

I hated feeling extremely week, one day I felt like I couldn't even get out of bed. One time, I was reading about how iodine stimulates your thyroid, so I got kelp pills (which is iodine) and took like 13.Then I read that that was the toxicity and I was so nervous. Before that I actually ate kelp...and I don't think I prepared it right. It was the worst thing I ever tasted, later I exercised and I threw up from the kelp.

I remember yelling at my parents almost every night for making me eat with them. I always carried a really heavy backpack which really hurt to have to walk with it everywhere. 

All the diet sodas and gum.

 

Junior year of college, near the end. Taking two huge boxes of laxatives. Waking up in the middle of the night in such pain that I really believed I was going to die. I laid on the floor sobbing for hours, trying to massage and punch my belly, vomiting from the pain and the chemicals inside of me.

Wow, after reading all of your posts, I don't feel so alone. :)

This is a really repetitive one, but always being cold. My toes would turn dark purple and I looked like a zombie. 

One time, I was trying to do a 24 hour fast, but when my brother and I went to a movie, he bought me Welch's yogurt covered raisins. I thought they were only 110 calories, but after eating the whole box, I realized there were 4 serving sizes. I ran to the bathroom and had this horrible panic attack even though that meant I'd only had 440 calories that day. I still scratched at my stomach and arms and tried to throw up over and over again.

Spending hours upon hours looking up recipes, staring at the pictures, but not actually eating anything. I remember spending 3 1/2 hours on hungrygirl.com one time, hoarding and writing down different recipes (none of which I ever made).

All of the the negative self-talk. There are pages in my journal filled with the words 'I am fat. I hate myself.' written over and over again. 

Looking at the number 89.6 on the scale and not feeling a thing.

I'm still trying to recover, every day is a fight. But there's hope! 

Well I'm tall male, so being anorexic/bullimic was easy to hide to everyone. Anyway I remember the most horrible things like:

Being cold all the time, I remember looking at my hands during classes in school/university and my collegues. Mine were blue and their were of normal color. Mine were skeletan-looking, while they were normal-looking. I didn't really get why other people didn't feel cold, only I did, i kept telling 'why the hell is it so cold here' and some girls were telling 'cold? are you crazy, i wish they turned off those heaters its freakin hot here!'

Feeling hunger all the time.. I remember all the people in school and college buying some snacks to eat, while I didn't, if they offered me to bite some chocolate bar i told them 'nah i don't want' and it was pretty easy to make them believe, im male, can i be anorexic? yeah i just have fast metabolism...

I remember myself in trolleybus in winter, I forgot to take gloves, my hands were totally blue and like dead due to cold, i had weird wound on my fingers, that looked like my fingers are tearing apart it was because of deficiency of vitamins, and I saw some girls talking about me... one told to another 'look at his hands' 'OMG so thin...havent seen thinner'.

My dad/mom/brother and everyone else from my kins talking to me that im too thin, that i need to gain weight.. and my responses 'i just have fast metabolism, im tall, im working out. Its just my hands, i have naturally thin fingers'.

And probably most ridiculous thing was my ridiculous calorie counting.. I remember counting my salad like : "tomato 100 calories, lettuce leaf 50 calories, 10 slices of cucumber 50 calories, chinese cabbage leaf 50 calories, 10grams of sour cream 100 calories".. I thought I was eating like 1200 a day, and i thought I was healthy, with fast metabolism. I thought it's okay to eat 400 calories meals three times a day that are from vegetables only, but the point was that it was not 400 calories, my daily portion of vegetables was even less than 100, so I was eating about 300-600 calories each day, drinking gallons of water, green tea, working out as much as possible, walking as much as possible "mom do i need to go to shop maybe?".. Even walking to shop has become difficult, I felt that I need to stop for break, while shop is like 2 minutes "journey" from my home.

Oh goodness. There are sooo many.

- The hate and guilt I felt. I was constantly bringing myself down with negative thoughts.

- I never wanted to go anywhere. I was so afraid of people judging me (and I guess I kinda still am). 

- We go visit my grandpa about once a month and I remember one time we went up there, I had lost about 20 or so pounds in the past 3 weeks, and when he saw me, he started to tear up. Now, my grandpa is a tough man. I've only seen him cry/get emotional once, and that was when his wife/my grandma passed away.

- I was always cold. Everyday after school, I would run to this stash of shirts/jackets/sweats that I had and put on layer after layer until I wasn't freezing. Must have been at least 5 or 6 layers. And this was only in September--wasn't even cold out.

- I could wear my sister's clothes. She was 6.

- I would have these like attacks at supermarkets, looking at all the food. I started breathing really hard and would get really clammy and dizzy.

- Sleep? I was lucky to get 4 hours a night.

I'm sure there's a bunch more (some much more worse) but I've tried to block them out.

The most recent was looking at my wedding pictures (my wedding was about 3 mos ago).  It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and I look absolutely horrible in the pictures....skin and bones and really pale.  I'm so mad at myself for not being healthier on my wedding day. 

EVERYTHING!  Seriously all but like 5 memories during those 2-3 years are marred by the ED thoughts that came with going to social events and the constant, obsessive exercise and calorie counting.  It really ruined everything good about life.

And sitting here trying to even think of 5 good memories that don't include any **** eating disorder stuff is impossible.... So sad, that I don't even have 5 good memories to pull from a 2-3 year period of my life.

One morning I woke up to have my usual coffee, and realized there was NO splenda. i was looking obsessively everywhere around the house thinking maybe there was a packet somewhere but couldn't find one anywhere. i was freaking out for some really weird reason and started pacing and got into my mom's car to drive to a store and buy some. i went to the local loaf and jug and they had nothing. i just kept looking for a drink i could have that was 0 calories and everyone in the gas station was looking at me like i was a phsyco. oh man what was wrong with me! never going back to those days... if i just used a teaspoon of regular sugar it would only be 15 calories! but i couldn't handle those empty calories. gah and i would hide measuring tools and spoons in napkins and bring them in the living room to measure the cream so my mom wouldn't notice, and immediately stuck them under the couch when she walked by. i was so obsessed! and i have no memory of anything good in the last 6 months.. :( I HATE ED and i'm never going back

This is such a great thread-so many reminders of why getting healthy is necessary!

For me, I'd have to say just feeling like utter crap ALL the time, like walking or up a hill was sooo much effort for me and I just would want to sit down, but even sitting kind of hurts because my butt has basically disappeared!

Trying to read a textbook and having NO idea what its saying because my brain was so cloudy...not being able to concentrate on anything in class because I just couldn't focus...

Puking into plastic bags in my room by myself with the music turned up loud so no one in the house would notice me purging...

Scratching open the back of my hand time and time again until it bleeds and scabs and gets infected.

Being so hungry at night I can't fall asleep and all I can think about is being able to eat those 200 calories the next morning.

so many!

In my ED, I would only eat at certain restaurants and get certain things, so everytime my friends or family were going somewhere different, I'd throw a fit or just not go. I had many fights with my parents about food and them trying to get me to eat things.

It caused me to lose so many memories from my sophomore year of college. I isolated myself from my friends. All I wanted to do was sit in my dorm room, obsess about food, weigh myself, and do endless crunches.

Dry skin. That was so annoying, especially since I hate putting on lotion. My skin looked like someone who was at least twice my age.

After so much restricting, I started "binge eating" (although the quantity wasn't that big at the time). I remember waking up and eating some ice cream, trying to make myself throw up, finally giving up (because I couldn't do it) and laying in bed shaking because I was freezing.

Speaking of being freezing....that was the worst. I was cold all the time and sitting in chairs was uncomfortable because of the bones in my back and butt.

Also, keeping the binge eating a secret. I felt like I was living a double life, being a fake. I wanted everyone to think I had so much self control and that although I had been in treatment, that I was still the one that was good at eating healthy. Telling my friends was one of the hardest things I've done.

The biggest thing though, was losing myself. My ED became who I was, and that person was boring, lifeless, silent, obsessed, consumed, scared, timid, and isolated. I was no longer the fun, sweet, happy, silly, creative that I used to be. Regaining myself has been a long, difficult journey and I'm still working on it.

Wow, didn't realize I had so much to write! It was really good to write out all the things I lost to ED. Put's things in perspective. ED is NOT worth it. Being 'thin enough' is not worth it.

-no clothes that fit me since they all hung off

-constantly looking tired

-arguing with mom all the time and causing her pain

-everyone asking if I was okay because I had so many bruises

-people whispering about me

....just to name a few

Gosh... self-indulgent, indeed.  But realistic, and an important collection of poignant reminders. 

Being outrageously frozen, during summer even... inviting friends over (rarely, as your social life obviously dwindles), yet being entirely debilitated and refusing to move my shaking body away from the heater... despite wearing literally thirteen or fourteen layers, making people question what was wrong with me.  (hint:  blankets/jumpers are futile when you’re extremely malnourished... unless you’re granting your body calories to burn, there’ll be no heat to trap, so you might as well wrap jumpers around a corspse... excuse the bluntness)

Sitting in exams, trying to concentrate, yet your vision drifts precariously and everything seems blurry and indistinct...

Feeling disconnected and alien, because your body has been whittled into such hideous contortions that you don’t resemble a recognisable human... 

Bone count hugs.  Friends approach you and feign genuine affection, yet actually grasp you tightly, their facial structure wrought with tension, as they run their fingers along your back, determining how much further your bones have protruded since the previous investigation.

It heightened workaholic tendencies and made me dysfunctionally ambitious... and sleep deprived.  3 hours nightly was typical, as the remainder of time was allocated to exercising or studying (the latter proving especially prolonged, as it was so difficult to force information into my starving brain.)

My beloved granny staring at me with horror... then me feeling the cruelest person imaginable.

Food obsession, hoarding recipes when I was hungry (hint: constantly...) rather than eating.  Smuggling food to my room and just inhaling, but refusing to actually eat.  Meticulously transcribing recipes into battered exercis books (kind of dumb.)  Spending two hours disecting an apple.

Surprisingly, I do not remember having trouble sleeping when I was anorexic. Eventually, after recovery when I re lapsed and became too underweight again, I suffered insomnia. But for the worst part of it, I slept fine. Weird.

It did not seam bad at the time, but another thing I remember is that I always looked forward to my meal times at college. A little too much so!  Because my body had no extra weight to fuel it, I literally NEEDED to eat regularly, or my body would run on empty. Therefore, every break I looked so forward to the food.

I did hate going into shops and spending ages agonizing over my food choice, too.

Personaltrainer87: I slept fine too when my ED was at its worst. Sleep was like my escape. If I wanted to get away, wanted to not eat, etc I just slept. It's probably like people with depression- some suffer from insomnia and others suffer from hypersomnia.

I too really looked forward to meal times, which is odd. You would think someone with an ED would dread meals, but most of the time I didn't. As long as I had control over what I ate and how much of it I ate, I couldn't wait for meals.

 

as much as the physical stuff can be hard - being cold, tired, no wait, EXHAUSTED, feeling dizzy and nauseaus, depressed and cloudy etc ALL THE TIME. as much as it all sucks, for me, it's the isolation. feeling so alone. not being able to let anyone in, not wanting to, because the ED is controlling me, telling me not to. for me, that's the hardest part. not wanting to go to parties, unless i only have club soda and go home early, before people get drunk and want to "talk". not wanting to participate in holidays and birthdays - i've been avoiding family christmas since i was 15 - last year i had a breakdown because the plans for family christmas dinner was changed last minute and i couldn't deal. it was just too much pressure. not wanting to go to people's birthdays, because birthday = food and often alcohol, and those are "bad foods". not being able to deal with regular social situations at least 75% of the time.

losing close friends and isolating myself from the rest of them.. even my boyfriend. even when i feel really close to him and try to talk to him about what's going on in my head, i end up not being able to do it.

ending up lying, not because i want to, but because that stupid ED is making me do it, to protect itself.

that's the worst part about it for me. i can deal with the physical stuff, even though it can be pretty bad. it's the mental, social isolation, the loneliness, the feeling that i am not capable of normal human interaction and being close to someone, even though i want to.

another really bad part about it, is the face that i feel like i've become so much dumber. my therapist keeps saying that it will go away, that my brain will start working full speed again, as soon as i have a healthier eating pattern and get the calories i need to - but i can't help thinking that i've become that stupid girl, who cares for nothing but superficial and dumb stuff. not because i don't care, but because it doesn't take a lot of energy to think about and talk about. i hate being this dumb, can't-talk-in-longer-sentences-for-a-long-tim e, cloudy, spaced out person. i used to be super smart, and now.. it's been years since i felt completely clear in my head.

but the feeling of being so cold, shaky, exhausted and nauseaus that you literally cannot function. that's so bad aswell.

My worst ED memories:

The first time I refused to eat anything and sat in my room and cried, I knew then that it was no longer just dieting and something a lot worse.

When I went to hospital and was told I would not get better without tube feeding (I did!) and my mum sat and sobbed in the waiting room.

My little sister coming into my room one night, crying for me to please not die.

Crying in the middle of the P.E changing rooms at school over everything and nobody daring to come and comfort me.

Eating a low cal ready meal on xmas day.

My parents fighting and my dad walking out over my illness - I thought they were going to divorce - they almost did.

The horrific panic attacks I had earlier this year and the one time when it was so bad I ran away and walked the streets all night, crying.

Having radiator burns all over my back - man they hurt.

Finishing my 40cal breakfast and realising I had to wait hours and hours until my tiny lunch and I was already starving hungry.

God, there are so many painful things...

Oh goodness, there are so many that I don't even know where to begin. I will never for the life of me understand why anorexia is so glamourised, I cannot think of a single memory that does not want to make me burst into tears. Here are some that are particularly painful...:

The need I had to carry around my own food whenever going to another's home. I remember a time when my grandmother, a woman who has cared for me more dearly than my own mother ever had, invited my parents, sister and I over for a elaborate dinner she spent the last few days planning. I sat at the table with them and refused to eat anything. My grandmother begged me to have anything, so I went to the store and bought rice crackers. I ate only one whilst the rest of my family uneasily consumed the dinner my grandmother prepared...everyone looked shattered, terrified, and absolutely heartbroken. I felt guilty about the rice cracker so I spent the next hour running up and down the eight flights of stairs of my grandmother's apartment. 

For weeks I would plan 'feast days' for myself, in which I would cut up a single tomato and eat it over the course of a day. This felt so terribly gluttonous, as normally I wouldn't eat anything at all. I had such a terrible fear of calories that it drove me to being unable to consume anything at all. I remember going to the supermarket for a pack of chewing gum and standing there deliberating for over an hour, eventually leaving empty handed because everything was over 2kcal, which I determined was a sinful.

I made my dad, the closest human being to my heart, cry time and time again and eventually ended up nearly destroying him with my eating disorder. I had never seen my dad cry before he was confronted with my anorexia. He would check on me during the night, to see whether I was still breathing, and silently collect tears whilst watching me. His worry for me drove him to develop high blood pressure, anxiety disorder, amongst many other emotional problems. I knew if I ate something it would help him ease a little of his own pain, but I just couldn't and so he suffered for months, until my hospitalisation.

I started skipping school because I was so cold to the point of my lips turning blue and my fingertips dotted purple. This was in the late spring when everyone had already begun wearing light dresses and skirts...meanwhile, for me it felt as though it were the middle of winter - I wore bulky sweaters, tights under jeans, huge wool scarves. My back and bum bruised from sitting in chairs all day and I was too fatigued to concentrate, so I started skiving lessons in order to go home and sleep.

I, a 5'11" tall girl, had to start shopping in the children's clothing department. Six year old sized clothing had a baggy fit on me. People at the shops would give me such pitying looks that I would feel ashamed. Before anorexia people always commented on how thin I was, but that I looked healthy and beautiful. At this point, I was too thin and got no comments whatsoever; I was probably too painful to look at.

I have to take a break, talking about these things is really draining...

Wow.. there are so many bad memories.

One of them is definitely feeling weak and dizzy all the time. Most days it was so hard to get out of bed and I felt like I was going to faint all the time. Also my bones really hurt a lot, especially in my arms and legs and it was difficult for me to walk so I spent a lot of the day laying down.

I would spend hours a day looking at recipes and hoarding them. I would never make any of them. I remember once I was up till 4am on my laptop, i had been looking at recipes for 5 hours. It's just the complete ridiculous obsession with food in general. I would think about food most of the time.

I was completely obsessed with food, calories and weight. I would plan everything I was going to eat and never went over 200 calories a day. I would go grocery shopping with my mum to get my safe foods and the rest of the time would be spent looking at the nutritional information on everything else and all the 'bad' foods that i really wanted to have but couldn't.

I could hardly sleep. Some nights I was just so hungry that I felt like I was going to throw up and I would just lay in bed for hours trying to sleep, but could never get comfortable because of my bones protruding.

And one very bad time I remember. I did an 8 day fast, and at the end of it, it was about midnight. I suddenly started having breathing problems and chest pains. I got up but my legs couldn't hold me up and i felt so dizzy and weak that I just fell to the floor. I was in so much pain it was unbelievable, my chest hurt so bad and I honestly thought I was going to die. I thought "this is it". I couldn't even scream or cry for help because I couldn't speak for some reason as I was having difficulties breathing. I thought those would be my final moments of life and I remember thinking about how shocked and heartbroken my mother will be when she finds me on my bedroom floor dead. I was in a state of in and out of consciousness for what seemed like forever, but in reality it was only about 10 minutes. Then suddenly, the pain started decreasing. I could breathe normally again and I got up and drank some water, I layed in bed and felt better. It was the most strangest experience of my life. I had no idea what had happened. I didn't tell anyone about it because I thought I would have to go to hospital.

I can't believe how much ED took from me. I completely isolated myself from everyone. I felt angry and depressed all the time. I didn't want to be around my family and I was very irritable and I would get extremely angry if someone pressured me to eat. Unfortunately I still get like this. I am only in the early stages of recovery, I have a long way to go. But I hope that one day I can overcome this. I won't give up the fight.