Question about my ED

Ok. This is NOT pro-ED's, I'm only curious about what I was doing, because everything I've heard from other people with ED's contradicts what I did. 

When I was starving, I didn't hide it. I hid the REASON (I made up illnesses-- to the point where my friends and family were convinced I had some medical mystery of a stomach illness that made me sick everytime I consumed food, therefore stopped. I even went to specialists, knowing it was BS. Meaning, I never, ever, admitted it was an ED, rather blamed a made up sickness so that no one would get suspicious.) but everyone knew that I didn't eat.

I tried to look as thin as possible, and though I was very skinny with bones protruding and all, I never tried to hide under big clothing. 

In response to my hard work of restricting, I wanted the reward of people verbally acknowledging it.

Is this abnormal?

Honestly? Eating disorders and starving skew our common sense and our thinking completely. But I have never, ever known someone that I've spoken to now in recovery that wanted people to know they were starving unless it was a silent way to cry for help. I know I certainly didn't want to make it obvious.

I agree with lalabanana...When I was at my thinnest, I hid my body because all I would get were people staring because of how thin and fragile I looked and I would feel a bit self concious even then, so most of the time I wore jackets to hide my skinny, figureless body. Also I would never admit that I wasn't eating enough but in my case it was mostly because I didn't think that 400-500 calories a day was starving, plus I had no idea of how damaging it was. If I were to know back then what I know now, I probably would've never suffered from an ED. It's a shame but what's done is done, and now it's time to mend it.

To me, honestly, your case sounds more like a cry for attention than an ED based solely on other physical and self esteem problems.

I won't say you're wrong,  because honestly, I don't know what qualifies an official ED. What I DO know is I dropped 25% of my body weight in a month and half (BMI to 16.7 i believe?), I would have anxiety attacks if I was forced to eat something that wasn't "safe", planned, or able to be worked off. It consumed my life (I'm talking like it's in the past, though its not 100% there). I lost friends, kept to myself, rarely went out. I would rather stay home alone and focus on not eating than have fun. I do have self esteem problems, obviously, but although thats where it started, I don't think it was all vain. I couldn't stop. It was a compulsion. 

Thank you for your feedback. And I hope I didn't explain it in a way that made it seem like I was going around showing off the fact that I was starving -- because that was absolutely not the case. It's just hard to explain how I didn't always hide it. When I did start hiding, it led to the beginnings of bulimia. I would eat so that people would think I was better, but then be so anxious about it that I would purposely throw it up. Slippery slope, kids...

i totally get what you're saying. i never really will admit to anyone or myself that i have or ever have had an "eating disorder" officially, whatever that means.. i think it falls under the category of 'disordered eating'.. so stupid lol. either way its bad for you and a horrible trap to fall into. but anyway..

i never hid behind big baggy clothes either.. on one level i always thought i was fat, even when i was like barely more than 100 pounds, but i think on another level i knew i was getting pretty skinny.. because people would constantly comment about it.. and i liked it a lot but it would scare me too. i went to great lengths to like.. hide the evidence that i was doing anything weird or unhealthy, because i didnt want people to think i was crazy, and i most certainly didnt want a bunch of weird attention..

i dunno. all im saying is that i get what you're saying. if that means that you didn't fit perfectly into the criteria for an eating disorder.. then you didn't. either way, it's good that you're not doing it anymore. like i said, "official" or not, it sucks and you suffer.

" on one level i always thought i was fat, even when i was like barely more than 100 pounds, but i think on another level i knew i was getting pretty skinny.. because people would constantly comment about it.. and i liked it a lot but it would scare me too."

Yes. Word for word how I felt.

Oh, don't worry. You made sense - it just struck me as odd, I'd never really heard of someone wanting to make it clear they were unwell with their ED.

It's good to hear you are at least as free as one can hope to be from your ED, now. Unfortunately they rarely ever completely leave. But they are devestating, as you clearly know and have described, and being rid of it as much you can be is inspiring to those still deeper in their struggles. [:

Original Post by lalabanana:

 I'd never really heard of someone wanting to make it clear they were unwell with their ED.

Yes, that's the part I wanted to make sure was clear. I didn't go around saying "Look at me! I have an eating disorder, watch me not eat!" There was always an unrelated reason as to why I wasn't eating -- so that I could get away with going out with friends and having an excuse as to why I would not eat anything at dinner. Ex. "I have this stomach issue. The Dr's are trying to figure out what it is, it makes me sick to my stomach every time I eat." Once people knew that, I never had to re-explain it, or think of new excuses every time. That's what I meant by not hiding, really.

But anyway, I don't want to exhaust the topic, just really wanted to make clear what I meant, cause I realize how misconstrued it could get.

I realize lying about an illness like that is awful, and I am still very ashamed by it. It was a year long lie, the biggest most elaborate I had ever told, and by the end I started to actually believe it myself.  Very ashamed..

I've never been anorexic, but I am a pretty severe bulimic (exercise, laxative abuse, purging, restrciting, 'cleanses' etc) I'm now in recovery, and recently I've been overcome by the urge to starve even when I haven't been binging. I tell my mother and my therapist about this because I want to recover and know that I need their help to get me to eat. However, at another point in time, when I was not activiley trying to recover I wouldn't have told anyone.

I don't know if that was what you were looking for ( especially since our illnesses are quite different) but I can relate to being open in recovery if thats what your talking about.

Sorry if this wasm't what you were looking for!

Actually I disagree with what some of the people here have said.

I am a recovered anorexic now struggling with bulimic tendencies. I am 5'8" and at my lowest weighed 62lbs, so obviously it was no secret I was anorexic. However, what surprised me was that I did not have to make excuses as nobody asked me why I did not eat. To this day I am still astounded that I got SO sick and my family and friends (all except a couple of close friends) pretended they couldn't see me shrinking before their eyes, like it was a problem in the "too hard" basket and no-one wanted to deal with it. So I didn't show off about being sickly skinny, but nor did I have to hide it either.

However, I stayed at an inpatient facility for a while and there met quite a few girls who acted like they were proud to be so skinny, wearing tiny clothes, doing exercises in front of the rest of us, etc.

I think it's pretty normal to try and look skinny. After all, most anorexics think they are fat, and a lot of people who actually are fat tend to dress to look as slim as possible (hope no-one is offended by these generalisations).

I was like that, I didn't try and hide how skinny I was. I was proud of myself.

I don't think that's weird, to want others to think you are special. You wanted people to think you had power over food. You didn't want them to know you had an eating disorder. Because if you have an eating disorder, that means food controls YOU!

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there, warbler.

Original Post by merylwhite1:

I think it's pretty normal to try and look skinny. After all, most anorexics think they are fat, and a lot of people who actually are fat tend to dress to look as slim as possible (hope no-one is offended by these generalisations).

Now that you mention that Im actually blown away...I never even realized this before but its partly true, at least it applies to me. Now dont get me wrong, I've never been fat, I myself know that...I always was on the skinny side...I barely reached the considered healthy BMI o f 20..I ate and ate and always maintained a bmi of around 19- 19.8 never above this (sorry if it seems Im bragging, im not! Im just pointing that out).....anyway the point is...that even though I was never fat, I always felt kind of "fatty" but because I was very flabby, and I thought that I needed to lose weight (when in fact all I needed was to tone up!- durr)...so I would wear tiny clothes...like...clothes that fit me tight but that fit me at the same time... I remember trying to make my shirts as tight as possible, wearing pins on the back of the shirt so that any extra bit of fabric was wraped as tight as possible around my body. Like I felt a need for people to say "oh, you have a great body!" or at least I liked to pretend that they thought so whenever they looked at me. But when I lost all the weight and was barely 100 pounds...I always covered myself up...its not until I Got up again to 108 pounds that I Started showing off my body again...weird huh? The closer I get to my old body, the more I want to prove Im "good looking" but when I was super skinny, something that I always wanted (that thankfully has changed  A LOT since recovering) I hid my body as much as I could thinking I looked bad :S

funny stuff these eating disorders....geez lol

The only reason why I wore baggier clothes wasn't because I was trying to hide my body (which most people thought was why) it was because I was always damn freezing and the more clothes I had on the warmer I would be.

Have you ever seen a psychologist to consult about your situation? You sound to me like a cross between and ED case and a Munchousen (sp?) syndrome case. Munchousen syndrome is a disease when a person makes themselves sick in order to be attended by many doctors and get attention - eating weird things, poisoning themselves, etc. This disease is very rare and I'm no expert, so I can't say what your diagnosis would be. But talking things out might be helpful -  understanding why we act the way we do, we stand a better chance of not repeating our actions :)

All my best wishes on your recovery.

I just have one thing to add. Among other things, my reason for getting thin AND dressing to show it is because I have so much pain inside from so much trauma in my life, that I wanted it on the outside for people to see - I wanted to look thin and hollow eyed and haunted, so that people would see how hurting and traumatized I was on the inside so they would finally acknowledge and validate my pain. Kind of like cutting, I guess - self-mutilation as a way to not only bring the pain out to where you yourself can see and understand it, but also to leave physical scars for the world to see, to reflect the scars and wounds of your soul.

This may not be what your reasons are, but they were why I didn't try to hide my thin body.

So, maybe some people do it for 'attention', or because they're proud of what they believe is their new hard-gained supermodel body, but for others like me I think it's more of a cry for help, a visible in-your-face expression of the horror we've been through, a plea to no longer have our pain ignored, overlooked, turned away from. To make it blatantly obvious. Instead of tattoing a tear on our cheek or something.