Body image/eating disorders

[goodbyeharrison]

I always say i'm weird, and sometimes a little crazy. But what's normal?

 

And i'd say it's normal to be nervous when you talk to the opposite sex and you find them attractive. I think it's about perspective. Do you view it as a challenge to overcome? As a chase? or do you just see it as a possibility for rejection/failure? Your perspective will determine a lot.

[Cr33g]

Oh yeah. I can relate to that. I'm pretty weird. Sometimes I think I'm crazy too, especially with some of the stupid things I try and do sometimes.

 

I think it's the possibility of rejection and failure. I think that's what freaks me out the most.

 

I think it's also the idea of never succeeding, if that makes sense. Every time I've "liked" a girl, it's failed. I think that's just due to a lack of confidence. To be fair, sometimes when the feeling was mutual, there were just other obstacles in the way that made it so it was never meant to be.

[goodbyeharrison]

Dating is tough, no doubt about that. But i also find it so fun and exciting. So i tend to enjoy talking to the opposite sex, especially if the guy makes me nervous, that's even better.

 

I am actually trying to figure out how to move into the "friend zone" with guys. I want to be able to meet guy friends, and not just potential guys to date. That seems to be a tough one for me. how to get guys to view me as just a friend?? 

[Cr33g]

Wow. That's... wow that is different. I've never heard about that one before? This may not be the best advice but I'll try and come up with something.

 

Well all I can say is, it's up to you really. If you meet a guy and you just want to be friends, that's cool. You don't have to do or say anything about it, just... talk to them, hang out with them with other friends and do stuff, just... do what friends do, I guess. If they end up being attracted to you or whatever, just let it go and try not to worry about it. If they act on it like, I dunno, try and ask you out, or maybe try and do something, that's when you'll have to let them know that you just want to be friends. Don't drop 'em, put them down gently and just be nice about it. It'll be hard, they might take it the wrong way, they may not. Things may get awkward for a while but take it from me, time heals.

 

I'm really not sure how I end up being friends with girls, as I do have a lot of female friends, which has been pointed out to me all the Goddamn time when people ask "Why don't you have a girlfriend?". I think it's because I meet a girl somewhere or through someone, we may get along alright, one or the other (either myself or them) adds the other to Facebook or something and then well, there you go. To be honest, with some girls I meet I do feel an initial attraction to, but that's just physical. If I get to know them, then that attraction may disappear and then I'll just see that girl as a friend. Sometimes though it works the opposite, and that becomes a problem for me. This will sound stupid but it is actually true, where I live there are more guys than girls, so it is very common here for guys to be attracted to girls right off the bat and pursue that attraction.

 

If you're looking for "guy friends", have you tried meeting people and making new friends, through your current friends? Do you have any hobbies or interests that have the potential to meet new people? Are you looking to start something new that could involve meeting new people and making new friends?

[goodbyeharrison]

I'm not so much actively "looking" for guy friends. I just want to know how to get in the friend zone so guys don't try to make a move too fast or too soon. Lol my classmate has the opposite problem, she's looked at as "one of the guys" and just in the friend zone. We were talking about it, guess that just got me thinking.

[Cr33g]

Oh wow... um. In that case, I honestly have no idea. I guess it just happens naturally maybe? Sorry I can't provide a better answer, but that has seriously got me stumped. :/

 

As for guys trying to make a move too fast or too soon, I honestly think they're doing that to avoid being friend zoned. I've been told by a few mates that guys try and do that with girls, to avoid the friend zone and pretty much say to the girl right away "I'm interested in you" basically. It's a weird concept. Sounds pretty risky and nerve racking to me.

[goodbyeharrison]

im just going to get this shirt and maybe that will solve my problems.

[Cr33g]

That is amazing.

[Bekah]

 

So that's some of my story..yes i realize i sound crazy..but that's how i thought/think...

 

oh and just some thoughts...

 

- Size 2 is not the "right size" and 145 is not the magic number. 

-I think clothing using the word "plus size" is just plain evil.

- a number, clothing size, weight, etc...its NOT your identity.

 Your story sounds not crazy at all, god I am SO glad I am up at 3 am perusing the forums! I NEED this support and never have found it. I have been struggling with an eating disorder all my life, and knew I was completely insane....but now I know better, but my default has ALWAYS been starvation and "thin is better" and I have been going through my own hell the last month or so, and I ended up making one of my challenge goals to "eat 3 meals a day" and so I SO understand where you are coming from, and the addiction issues, binge drinking etc. etc. etc. damn....I don't want to get into my story at this late hour, but I am marking my place here, and feel free to check out my current challenge thread, some of it is there <3 THANK YOU FOR STARTING THIS!!!! <3 

[Bekah]

my two for today:

1) I applied for a job I really would love to have, and didn't have a panic attack over it.

2) I like that I can love so deeply, I never knew that about myself and it feels amazing. The body part I am really struggling with today is my legs, I bought a skirt yesterday, and I felt like I looked horrific in it, but someone else said it looks great on me, so I trusted them and bought it, but I'm very self conscious about wearing it, and then tonight in the pool I could feel my legs jiggling and it makes me want to stop eating and exercise all night long while the kids are sleeping, just to feel like I did enough to make up for how gross it feels...and that makes me sad. 

[Bekah]

im just going to get this shirt and maybe that will solve my problems.

 

awesome!!!!  

[goodbyeharrison]

 Your story sounds not crazy at all, god I am SO glad I am up at 3 am perusing the forums! I NEED this support and never have found it. I have been struggling with an eating disorder all my life, and knew I was completely insane....but now I know better, but my default has ALWAYS been starvation and "thin is better" and I have been going through my own hell the last month or so, and I ended up making one of my challenge goals to "eat 3 meals a day" and so I SO understand where you are coming from, and the addiction issues, binge drinking etc. etc. etc. damn....I don't want to get into my story at this late hour, but I am marking my place here, and feel free to check out my current challenge thread, some of it is there <3 THANK YOU FOR STARTING THIS!!!! <3 

 

My default is binging. i understand feeling insane. I understand disordered thinking and needing support so im glad you are here!!!

 

 

I talked to a girl who told me she enjoyed the empty feeling, im just on the flip side of the coin, I enjoy feeling full, and not just the satisfied full. I over eat. I enjoy the process of stuffing food in my face (like eating chips). just the act of shoving chips in my mouth turns my binge mode on. I get paranoid when i buy certain foods and ill hide them in my room because i dont want my mom or dad to eat them. Ill eat food even if im full and dont need it just because i dont want anyone else to eat it. 

 

Personally, hunger scares me. This morning i was hungry and ate a banana and wanted peanut butter, i started to get hungry and could find the peanut butter for a few minutes. When my stomach started saying "feed me" i started freaking out. Then i found the peanut butter. Lately i get really anxious if i leave the house and know i don't have food. For a while i was hungry all the time, and i get super irritable when im hungry. So i would make sure i always brought food. But i was restricting portions and the types of foods i could eat, it was just exhausting.

 

Some days i get scared about my binging because it can so easily progress into a binging/purging disorder. The thoughts come and i have to ignore them. But they are there. I know its unhealthy and what it could to me, but my mind can so easily override the rational thoughts.

[Bekah]

I enjoy the empty feeling, when my life feels out of control, because it makes me feel stronger and in control of things to not eat because it means my mind is not weak, and the situations that make me "feel" crazy, dont mean I am "crazy" and then when you eat next to nothing and are thin, you get all the stuff you talked about with positive attention and thinking that thin is better etc. but I have noticed, that I also have an issue with anxiety feeling like hunger, and since I started trying to address my eating issues, I became scared of hunger in a way, because it means Im not eating enough (not necessarily true, but my head is NOT okay when it comes to my perceptions of food and amounts etc.) and so I eat to squash that anxious feeling, because its hunger...but in times of difficulty, my default is starvation every time. 

[Bekah]

and I've got time now to share my story. I never paid any attention to food/weight or anything as a young child (before age 8) but at some point (I honestly think it was somewhat triggered by sexual trauma, as a way to control my feelings around that, but there were other things that pushed it into existence too, but I do think that played a role in it) I began to really be concerned with how I looked, and what I ate/didnt eat. I know it was in part related to my mom's friend who was anorexic and I thought she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen, and my mom had told me ALL of my life (like literally since preschool) that I wasn't ever going to be able to take care of myself and needed to make sure I was thin to get/keep a man so he could take care of me. (That is one hell of a bitch to overcome, just so you know) but as a child I wasn't ever overweight, until I hit puberty and you know how our bodies change and all that, well I gained weight and was a size 10, when I was 10 years old (I remember it specifically because the anorexic woman's daughter made fun of me for being a size 10 when I was 10 years old on my birthday) which combined with all the other bullshit, and the sexual trauma which made "keeping a man" a reality (I never understood what that meant before then in real terms) I knew that thin was better, and it all began.
 

 I somehow got the idea that too thin was not attractive either, so I had a "normal" number in my mind, and a "normal" size, and I did whatever it took to stay there (starving, purging, over exercising, drugs, whatever it took) and did so until I married my ex husband, who had the exact opposite issue with food, he overate to the extreme. And because I was so obsessed with keeping him, and being "normal" I thought he must have a better clue what normal is, and compared to him I was still not eating enough, and he commented on it a time or two, so I started eating more to keep him happy and be "normal". Then I fell apart mentally and was put on so many psychiatric meds that I owned a pharmacy just about...lol. And if you have ever experienced any of those, the side effects ALWAYS include weight gain. I was on so many and had such severe issues with the side effects (hallucinations and paranoia, amenorrhea (not having a period...I had a doctor tell me I made that one up, till I found a research study online and brought it to an appointment...its a .001% of the women on this drug experience this side effect type thing...yeah thats me...a total oddball...LOL) 

So anyways, I gained almost 100 lbs, and was so screwed up mentally, I didn't get out of bed most days and did whatever my husband told me to and was just a lump for about 3 years overall. Then because I gained so much weight, that made my eating issues go crazy once I was able to form coherent thoughts again, and I was just a mess, and started starving, and then my ex told me he wasnt attracted to me because I was fat...which triggered a suicidal episode (because of course my mother's words were ringing true and I couldn't work or do anything productive at that point, I wasnt even cooking, much less anything that would provide money) and then I really started trying to fix my weight issues, and started starving again...but by then, my body was used to so much food, and starving like that just screwed it up, rather than actually losing any weight. I just stopped gaining it. I found out later that apparently I was under my basic metabolic calorie needs, so I would have never lost like that. 

So it went on like that for a while, and then I finally got into therapy again, with total Cosmic Synchronicity, my therapist was just the one who happened to have an open appointment at the time I needed, and no one knew anything about my past trauma history at that point, but that was her speciality....and after about a year we got to the point where the trauma stuff came out, and I ended up in the hospital again (for the last time thankfully) and then went to a PHP (partial hospitalization program) and the therapist there, had also been through trauma and had eating disorder issues in her past, so she REALLY helped me to see I needed to address that shit for good. 

 

So, I tried to do it on my own, because there was no way I could afford inpatient ED treatment, and my friends and family were NOT helpful, because when you are fat, and starving yourself, its seen as "oh she is disciplined and working hard to lose weight" and you are praised for it too...so to develop the motivation to eat MORE, was impossible. Then I finally said "I need help" and paid a nurse who was in school to become an RD and would see me for half the going rate. I saw her for about six months, and lost 80 lbs, eating cheeseburgers, but it took me 4 months just to eat breakfast regularly...and when I tell people I lost all that weight eating cheeseburgers...they look at me like I'm completely insane...but it really is true. 

Then of course my marriage went to hell, and I stopped eating again, gained back every ounce of the weight..and am back where I started with my weight, and had to start over from scratch this month, because I finally left him and was in total chaos and stopped eating almost entirely over that, but now that I am in my own place and relatively stable I have been able to start eating again...and lost about 15 lbs since the beginning of April. 

So yeah, thats my story...see why your's doesn't sound crazy at all?  

[Bekah]

oh and the BEST book(s) that I have found by far to help with this stuff are Life Without Ed and The rules of "normal" eating (the author of the second book lives in the next town over, and I would give my left leg to do therapy with her, but of course I cant afford it and have no insurance to cover it...but I do have a signed copy of the book that I got from a local bookshop )

[Cr33g]

That does sound crazy Bekah, wow. A diet from cheese burgers... seriously I thought "wtf?" when I read that, but I'm sure they wouldn't have been your average cheese burger from McDonalds or something.  

 

 

You have obviously been through A LOT... that's actually quite a powerful story. It's good to hear you lost all that weight, but I am sorry to hear you put it back on... but it sounds like you're back on track once again and doing the right thing to get your weight down. 

 

Keep up the great work... let everyone know your progress and how you're going. You've obviously come to the right place.

[goodbyeharrison]

1) saw my therapist today. 2nd appointment. lots of history and background stuff.

 

2) I like my hourglass figure. i always thought i was just straight and had no curves, but apparently i have some small curves. 

 

 

I don't know how i can be so dang confident and so insecure at the same time. 

[Bekah]

That does sound crazy Bekah, wow. A diet from cheese burgers... seriously I thought "wtf?" when I read that, but I'm sure they wouldn't have been your average cheese burger from McDonalds or something.

 

 

You have obviously been through A LOT... that's actually quite a powerful story. It's good to hear you lost all that weight, but I am sorry to hear you put it back on... but it sounds like you're back on track once again and doing the right thing to get your weight down. 

 

Keep up the great work... let everyone know your progress and how you're going. You've obviously come to the right place.

Thank you and no, they were not McDonald's! They were usually homemade (my ex husband tries to stay really strict paleo) and I ate a double patty (about 1/2 lb) with lots of cheese etc and had lots of fries or whatever else I felt like with them. My body was just that screwed up I guess. LOL! Yeah, I have no fear about losing the weight again, its just a matter of everything else getting stable enough that I can focus on it. I also had the issue that when I did get down towards the lower end, I started getting lots of attention, and that DID NOT help me want to stay thin. I had gotten used to being ignored by people and the attention has always made me nervous and anxious and scared, so I would rather be fat and no one speak to me, than be thin and have people pay attention to me and talk to me (I know I'm a total basketcase with that, but its true) but I have actually been REALLY working hard on doing what I wanted, and trying to be comfortable with myself and not letting my fears dictate my choices,  and I wore shorts in public for the first time in probably 10 years a few weeks ago (I live in South Florida and its in the low 90's now, and walking in that heat in jeans is NOT fun)...and some random person honked at me while I was walking to the bus, and I almost had a panic attack, and it took another week until I had the courage to wear them again, but that went well...and so I am intentionally wearing them almost every day now just to prove that I will be okay, with or without the attention. 

 

1) saw my therapist today. 2nd appointment. lots of history and background stuff.

 

2) I like my hourglass figure. i always thought i was just straight and had no curves, but apparently i have some small curves. 

 

 

I don't know how i can be so dang confident and so insecure at the same time. 

((((hugs))))) those are always the worst therapy days  

I don't understand the confident/insecurity dichotomy either, I have the same problem though. 

[Bekah]

1. I wore a mminiskirt yesterday... for the first time in at least 10 years.

2. I like my eyes, they are a very unique mix of blue and green, and I have been told on more than one occasion that they look like the ocean and that you can get lost in them, which always made me feel good.

[goodbyeharrison]

Thanks for the hug!! Haha sounds like we both need one.

And go you for wearing a mini skirt!!!

[goodbyeharrison]

1) Today i dressed up for a family occasion. I wore a LBD and small heels, and even wore makeup. Lol my legs are so frigging long in heels. Met some of my sisters friends, had a fun time at the restaurant. 

 

2) I like my brown eyes. I used to think they were boring because they are brown, but ive grown to appreciate the color.  

 

 

I'm super tired. Drove a total of 4 hours today. Had one glass of wine to celebrate my sister graduating...i haven't had a drink in a year and a half so i felt like a light weight feeling that one glass (that i baby sat for over an hour). I was surprised it did anything to me. Made me sleepy though. 

[Bekah]

1. Yesterday, I was having a meltdown, and instead of just letting oit spiral out of control, I asked for what I needed at the time to feel better

2. I like my butt, it has a very nice shape

I ended up needing quite a bit of alcohol andsome art therapy time to process everything, but eventually it felt better, for the meantime, but it. takes days of self care like that to really feel okay againaftera meltdown.

[goodbyeharrison]

I had a dream the other night i was a pregnant turkey. Talk about a random dream.

 

Today i didn't have much of an appetite to be honest. Had to force myself to eat a meal at the end of the night, but i wasnt hungry. 

 

1) I guess studying for finals. I worked today so i havent done much

 

2) Today i like...ummm... i like my ankles. i like how they look in heels and i like how they look in general. proportionate for my body. not too big, not too small. just right

[goodbyeharrison]

1) 2 finals down... 2 to go... study study study!!!

 

2) I like my ears. Yeah maybe that's weird that i like them, but i do. Kinda funny because i used to not like wearing pony tails because of them. 

[goodbyeharrison]

i'm in official "i don't give a crap mode" 

<Begin rant>

i have my friends that i won't see or talk to for months, and we get together and it's like we never stopped hanging out. Life gets busy but we don't get mad at each other or hold grudges. it's great, and i love them to death. Then there's the friends that i stop contacting and going over, and we stop hanging out. They start getting upset and wondering where i am. Well hey, i don't see any effort on your part to contact me or come see me. My schedule is busy and i have responsibilities. and my house is always open for them to visit (which it seems they only come on my birthday dinner, apparently im the only one to make an effort to drive). so anyways this last saturday i missed my friends game night that is a fundraiser to go to san diego for my sisters graduation lunch (she only graduates law school once). i asked how the game night went and my friends sister (i'm friends with all of the sisters) tells me that im a horrible friend. So i say "well if i missed san diego, id be a horrible sister, so either way i can't win" to which she says "your both hahaha"....whatever. over the crap.  oh and you misspelled you're. brains too fried and tired to really get upset, it was more of a wtf. so yeah maybe i'm not the best friend and went awol for the past few months when school got busy..but it goes both ways. 

</rant>

 

Edit:

Doesn't help that i feel like a complete cow from all my eating and lack of exercise. Thankfully my back is no longer bothering me, my finals end wed, and ill be able to get to the gym. Score.

Maybe then my skin won't be so oily or break out. Yeah i'm complaining a lot today, so what?

 

Oh on the the bright side... bacon wrapped steak for dinner. I don't care for bacon all that much by itself, but it sure is delicious wrapped around a steak. omg and roasted bell peppers. i'm in a food coma and not sure how i will be able to finish studying.