After Ana

Let the discussion begin…

Joanne raise quite a few interesting questions in her comment so I thought I’d go through them one by one.

Can you tell us about the length of time each of your stages occurred?

That is a difficult question because it was such a slow an isidious process.

My Father has been overweight and my Mother suffered from Bi-polar disorder my whole life. The negative reinforcement of my Father’s weight, combined with his inability to care for my Mother, rammed home to me that fat people are not successful. I was also desperately trying to “fix” my family, especially Mum. I thought, “If I am good enough, smart enough at school, popular enough and attentive enough, things will be OK.” Basically I thought it was all somehow my fault and if I was “good” things would get better.

But they didn’t.

Mum got sicker and sicker no matter what I did. I was cooking, cleaning and running the household. My sister was in denial, my Father had no idea what to do and I was running around putting band-aids everywhere.

That is when my food problems began.

Firstly, at about age 15 I became a vegetarian. I would often eat heads of lettuce for breakfast. Obviously, I became quite thin. But the worst part of eating so sparsely was my moods. I started to feel depressed.

The depression led to experimentation with drugs, sex and alcohol.

Luckily for me, I met my husband in the middle of the mayhem and things settled down for a while. Things seemed fine on the outside, but underneath the same feelings of worthlessness and depression were still there. I had gained some weight over the first few years of our marriage and this made things even worse.

When my drinking got out of control again, I could no longer hide my feelings from my husband. I was binge drinking constantly and twice attempted suicide.

After this, I started on some antidepressants. I felt my life spinning out of control. I felt totally numb, like a zombie. This was when my eating disorder revved up into full gear.

Once again I started cutting out food groups and counting calories. It gave me a sense of order and achievement in my rollercoaster life. I kept a journal of everything I ate and weighed every day. I would fast often and on eating days average around 300 calories.

As I lost weight a sense of euphoria set in. It was no longer about me, it was about the control, the numbers. The more I obsessed, the more erratic my behaviour.

As my weight plummeted, alarm bells sounded in my head. I was so happy, yet so depressed. It was like I was outside of myself looking in. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself. Finally a tearful plea from my husband halted my course.

A lot of counseling and determination later, and here I am. I still struggle with food every single day, but now, I focus on why it is good for me instead of avoiding it.

So to answer your question, I suppose it took 10 years to propel me into a full blown eating disorder, but my eating has never been “ordered” until now.

About the Author...

I've finally overcome my destructive eating habits by learning to accept myself, applying the WAPF nutritional principles daily. I'm now at a stable, healthy, slim weight, have lots of energy and no more guilt. I've been happily married for 7 years and am a graphic designer. In the near future I'm hoping to start a nutritional course and start practicing as a qualified nutritionist. At the moment it's all self education.