Rant from a male with an ED (Every doctor wishes I didnt exist.)

Its either sleep or its food. "What will you deny yourself in the next 24 hours, Dan?" A hungry ghost with teeth longer than my body bellows from the core of my soul every 6 AM. Despite whether I actually calm down enough about my body image, drained my body with excercise, actually DID SOMETHING to feel like my day was for ME and not my weight, good day ED wise or bad day ED wise, or whether I slept the night before at all, at 6 AM its mouth opens and the sudden sensation of teeth slowly retracting through the puncture wounds they left on every top and bottom of my body awaken me.

Today I chose sleep.

There are stories of musicians who sell their soul to the devil for an unprecedented ability to express.  Bankers whove sold their soul to commerce for wealth that cannot be physically weighed. Mothers who sell their bodies for sex to feed their families. More common but no less of a testament, the average member of a westernized society who willflully puts their frontal lobes on standby while they attempt to force their hearts to beat in rhythm with the 84/95824 time signature called selling your time, the only thing you actually have when everything else is taken away, for the ability to live under a roof, clean yourself, eat, etc.

And here I am, selling my soul, my body, my time, and my ability to live under a roof to a demon (it is fair to assume this entity is a demon, considering acknowledgement of its existence causes pain) who bears no description (the only way to describe said demon, as discovered by ~200 years of modern science, is to describe the sensation of its teeth moving in and out of you as it demands you to do ridiculous things to please it) and offered, from the get go, nothing but the slow killing of my physical, emotional, and spiritual self.

And here I am, for what must be the 400th time since this started, acknowledging the existance of this big stupid hole in me that I let this thing live in. Here I am, outside of my own cave calling for you, you stupid pain! Come out and fight!

I have to get over the fact that this will be with me for the rest of my life. I've quit alot of things (drugs, cigarettes, y'know, addictive stuff.) and this may very well be something that never goes away. I need to accept that. I need to figure out more effortless ways to fight this other than wasting hours of my time debating in my head what is the reality of the situation and what I am making it out to be so I can go out and, oh, I dont know:

1. Have friends.

2. Feel like I have a life outside of self destruction

3. Feel empowered

4. Feel like I matter.

Once, a person who gets paid an insane amount of money to wear a stethoscope and work with people in a room that has (oh my) AN EXPANDABLE RECLINING GURNEY in it, after describing the situation (unending pain, etc.) to me, "You are homosexual, yeah?"

That makes me wonder if college is worth it at all. Thanks doc.

I really needed to get some of this off of my mind. This morning I woke with 5 hours of sleep under me (last night I relapsed into bulimia, and 'ate too much' as the closing chapter to that days dietary epic struggle). I woke up this morning in panic, feeling that demons teeth move in and out, and felt like if I didnt express myself somehow somewhere today would end with my fist in somebodys face.

Now what I want to know is, anyone else feel the same way? Also, if there are any other men out their struggling with an ED, what have your experiences been with medical professionals? Mine have been nothing but ridiculous.

Toodles!

Hey! welcome! first off I have to say you express yourself extraordinarily well. As an avid reader and sometimes writer (i try...) I really appreciate this quality of writing. What that tells me is that you're an intelligent and talented individual and therefore so much more than your eating disorder. You are strong enough and smart enough to outwit the demon, so don't let it convince you that you're stuck this way forever.

I'm sorry doctor's have been useless, i've given up on them myself, though I"ve been considering therapy. While it has been difficult to recover on my own, it's not impossible. It's definitely slow, sometimes 2 steps fwd, one step back, but eventually you get there. And while ed's are more common among females, you are definitely not the only man struggling with this. If you go check out the weight gain forum, there is a ton of support there, we have seen a few guys drop in and they are just as well recieved. One member I've become close with is Clay010, he is also a college aged male with an eating disorder. I'm not sure if he visits the site much anymore, but i'm sure you could send him a message.

hope to see you around the weight gain forum soon, we'd all be happy to help!

do you want only to sit and whinge about your disorder (colourfully as you might) or do you actually wish for the power to change?.........coz i think -as poetic as you above post is- that it is rather indulgent

Thanks Fidget and Gibbit...are you two related? :)

I would be lying to you, fidget, if I said I am never fearful of getting over this. Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not. But either mentally or physically trying to squash it, yes. I guess I just needed some honest straight talking to from strangers. Just you pointing out the fact that it sounds indulgent, when I had no intention of making it such, makes my own perspective on the situation clearer.

Thanks Gibbit for the hope. It's a huge relief for me to hear that its possible to step up and overcome, despite how hard it may be.

Thanks for making my day a little easier. Seriously, I appreciate it.

dude this mess can be overcome. but i have learned (the hard way) that i can contemplate it all day and be no further.  i think eating disorders are the most enveloping and all-consuming conditions that anyone can suffer. but the road to freedom often lies within structure and the choice of structure.

this means (and yes.... this is rich from me sitting here in ireland at 3.20am!) but that means choosing at some point to put ordered structure on your day. a reasonable bedtime, and a meal plan, a cap on exercise and some events in your day which help further you into recovery social stuff, art, music etc. and at least you have some anchor to some order instead of absolute chao

yes, I agree that is a very eloquent & expressive way in describing how it feels to have an eating disorder.  I'm not sure how long you have had yours, but you mentioned that you have quit both cigarettes & drugs, which are both very addictive, so that shows you have the willpower & drive that is needed in order to overcome the eating disorder as well.  Believe in yourself--you are worth so much more than the pain you're feeling inside.

Anywho, when I was recovering, I found it helpful to read about other people who have successfully kicked the eating disorder to the curb.  I don't know if it will help you or not, but here are a couple links for you to check out......

1.  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/the- voice-of-an-eating-disorder/

2.  http://www.ichosetolive.com/index.aspx

You may have seen the first one before--someone posted it on here a while back & I bookmarked it because I found it quite interesting.  The second link is for the website of one of the people featured on the "Voices of Eating Disorders" blog.  Also, he happens to live in the same small town as I do--Hagerstown, MD.  Small world, right?  And kinda scary at the same time because it makes me wonder how many other people have eating disorders that are close to home.  In the meantime, good luck with it all & keep up with the fight.