In an inpatient hospital for an ed--need help!!!
I am currently in a hospital in treatment for anorexia. I am eating 3,300 calories a day and I am allowed no exercise or even excessive movement. I am really struggling with being here, since I still dont feel skinny. I am 5 feet 8 inches, and at my lowest about 106 pounds. I dropped to that from 130 in a little over a month. My goal was 95. I was eating less then 300 calories for about a month, and then all of a sudden I found myself here, with a slowed heartrate and low white blood cells. I have been here for three and a half weeks and I have been gaining slowly but steadily. I just have such trouble staying motivated for recovery, because i look on websites like calorie count and feel like i am not even anorexic because I restricted for such a short period of time, and i never got to get into the double digits. i dont feel like i have an eating disorder, any advice???
Jackie my girl,
Here are some questions for you to think about:
1.The hospital you are in for anorexia...do you think you fooled them? Do you think they don't recognize anorexia when they see it? Would they really admit you if you didn't have an eating disorder? Think about it, are hospitals so flush with money that they would simply treat people for the heck of it?
No, you are in treatment because you have anorexia.
2.What happens when that slow heart rate slows down even more?
It eventually, or even suddenly stops; making you dead.
3.Who do you love so much that it would hurt you if they cried? Now, if you do not recover from anorexia...will they cry? If you recover, how could you be an example for them? What can you do right now to make them smile? Who else can you help?
I would cry if you died. Please admit that you have anorexia; that you are worthy to be treated. If you made me a list of all the wonderful qualities you have, I would definitely smile.
Never "got" to get into the double digits? Still don't think you're sick? Seriously? You're VERY SICK.
Then realize that you are where you need to be to get better. While she did her absolute best in the end to try to recover, because she wanted so desperately live, she unfortunately waited too long and had done too much damage to her body. She passed away in April at the age of 18.
You are on that path no matter whether you have been restricting for a month or a few years like her, because a month can easily turn into a few years and your mother may end up burying you like Sam's mother had to bury her.
Low heart rate and low white blood counts mean that you have already put your life in serious jeapordy. You ARE anorexic, accept it and work at getting better. Life is better than death.
If you want to see your weight in double digits convert the pounds to kilos.
The weight that you are aiming for 95lbs is the same weight as a small child.
I am also 5 foot 8 and I weigh 147pounds (67kilos) and I am still not overweight yet I would like to slim down to 60kgs 132 pounds at the (bare minimum).
Even then that is far too skinny for someone who stands at 5foot 8 inches. I have battled anorexia and bulimia since I was 15 years old (I am currently 26y.o), what you see in the mirror is not what you look like to others. Bulimia and Anorexia are mental health illnesses that can be overcome.
You are lucky that your organs didn't start to shut down and your heart didn't stop. You obviously have people that care about you, looking after you. Believe what they are telling you, you are unhealthy and you do need help.
There is a massive difference between slim and healthy and sickly gross looking skinny.
Take steps in the right direction and reclaim your life.... put on weight to allow your body to function properly.
When back at a normal healthy rate, eat well and exercise daily, you can oversome this.
1. get off this website. delete your account. it won't feel safe but you MUST. 1/2 the girls on here are severely unhealthy and you are way worse.
You are underweight, anorexic, sick, dying.
Hear me? UNDERWEIGHT, ANOREXIC, SICK, DYING.
Get off this website and find inner peace. You WILL find it. Listen to your support team and put your trust in them, professionals. Not in a website with a bunch of random 13-year old girls--they're all talk, most of them. They say they're fat but then they eat (as they should)--you don't eat.
Understand? PLEASE don't look at this website!
I just feel so hopeless and pathetic. When I am lying in my hospital bed, I self-destruct and look on sites like this, where I see girls posting that are so much lighter, and it just fuels the eating disorder. I look on bmi websites and according to some, I was at a heathy weight at my lowest (bmi 16). I know my goal of 95 is terribly unreasonable, but those numbers torment me constantly. I have gained to a bmi of 17 in the 4 weeks i have been here. I am so scared I will never recover and just keep gaining. Please, I am so fed up with myself, and i cant help reading these posts about girls in the double digits, and i try so hard not to compare, but it kills me. sorry if this is triggering or upseting. I just dont know what to do
...they let you go on the internet and use your phone at IP? wtf kind of IP are you in? I'm sorry if i sound idk...shocked or anything but I was IP 8 years ago and they confiscated my phone and didnt let us use the internet. We did have internet time, but we were monitored because they didnt want us going on pro-ana websites or calorie counters or dieting websites or anything that is triggering...just homework related only.
Maybe you need to stay off the internet until you recover (mentally, until you know how to combat triggers). Change your focus on other things like writing in a diary or drawing pictures of objects or playing board games, watching movies, making simple crafts, take a nap, meditate. I hope they are teaching you about things like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which helped me with ED thoughts as well as other horrible thoughts in my head and make them positive and reasonable instead of worrying and blowing things out of proportion.
This website is great for the truth about eating disorders. They are mental illnesses that distort reality. Here is the link:
Anosognosia is a symptom of anorexia, which means the patient does not see their behaviors as sick and they fail to recognize that they are ill.
My anorexia started in 5th grade, and my parents forced me into hospitalization many times. I never understood why. But once you are eating regularly and are physically and mentally healthy again, your life will improve so much. You only realize how hell-ish anorexia is once you're recovered. Then you ask yourself why the hell did I do that to myself?
You deserve recovery. You deserve to escape the hell of living with an eating disorder.
This too shall pass. Keep fighting.
