I suppose I can say I’m a suicide attempt survivor, coming up a year ago now I took an overdose but only landed myself in hospital and had to endure weeks of hallucinogenic hell from the over ride of drugs screwing up my mental state even more so than previously. After the attempt was the first time I learned that anybody would care if I had died, I know people think its silly when I say I didn’t believe anyone cared but it was true, I really believed I was doing the people in my life a favor by leaving forever. Sitting in a cafe next to an old friend I hadn’t seen for many months comforting her as she cried over my attempt was when it dawned on me that to end my life was really very selfish. but I desire death like a junkie desires drugs, I tried everything to find a value in my life. I’m still alive today because I don’t want to hurt anybody even though living this way hurts me.
Everyone said to me after the attempt that that was rock bottom and it would only get better from there but how wrong they were. Somehow in my self-destructive way I’ve managed to make things go from bad to worse. Depression is just another thing I’ve learned to live with. I can’t remember the last time I was happy and sober at the same time. But as far as I’m concerned that’s the least of my problems. I have been put in a clinic for an eating disorder but  why can’t they understand that not eating gave me something to put my energy into. I stopped obsessing over death, I didn’t have the energy to feel anything anymore, no emotions, all that mattered was to be skinny. The lower the scales went the better I felt. And then they took it all away from me. Force fed meals of ridiculous portion sizing to make me gain weight are ever so painful and sometimes given to me up to six times a day. I also suffer from a extreme anxiety disorder which only adds to the complications of everyday life.
I don’t really know why I’m depressed, I mean I could sit here and list every single bad thing that ever happened to me and divide out the blame but that’s just what councilors want to hear, they want a reason so they can fix it, fit you. Sometimes it’s not that easy though, is it? Somewhere deep down for some unknown reason something inside has broken and I believe it can take a whole life times work of ‘soul searching’ (in lack of finding a better term) to really understand what it is that makes you feel so empty and lost and hopeless. You need to know yourself to know how to fix you.
I found something that made me persist on living, the idea of becoming a writer so I can write about my experiences because if I can’t use them to help others then really what is the point of living through them? So often I’ve turned to a book hoping I can relate my life with a character to make be feel a little less alone, a little more sane. Eating disorders are looked down of society and something preferred not to be spoken about or joked over. I lost people I thought to be friends after being admitted to hospital for weight loss. The thing about the disorder is it’s not necessarily ditzy girls obsessing about weight for attention like so stereotypically portrayed but its a control thing, feeling the need for it after having a lack of it. At the start it makes you feel powerful and then it goes to far, it’s not fun anymore and you’re dying. It becomes an addiction and if you eat even a bite of a carrot you’re a disgrace. I wish to help teach that mental illness, whatever for it is, is not a reason to discriminate the person but to help. And I want to be a success story, be able to say this all happened and I got through it! Not be that girl in high school vaguely remembered to have topped herself.
Well if you bothered to read all my ramble then thank you, I guess I wrote this to get it all off my chest anonymously and share  a bit of my story.
5 comments
I want to write something profound or assuring, to make you feel better, but I can’t.
Just…try to be you and publish this.
At least One copy of it is going to be purchases. I would.
Hello. Your thoughts about what an ED is to you reminded me of something I read once. I’ll copy and paste it:
“”Eating disorders and the media.” This has to be one of the most socially self-indulgent, threadbare subjects in the media out there. Generally constructed along the lines of: “This is Barbara. She has been suffering from anorexia for seven years. All around us we see stick-thin models and advertisements for suctioned, highly glossed beauty. Oh dear. When will the media come to terms with the fact that they are killing our teenage girls with pictures?” It’s a load of shit. It is by no means a major factor. Self-criticism, defeatism, an inability to deal with things; a need to absolve oneself of expectations, of one’s SELF in its entirety—they are the building blocks.
The most perplexing thing about anorexia is that every case appears to have been hatched by a slightly different meeting of factors and circumstance. There is no set formula. That’s what makes me so angry when I see people try to explain it away as born of media saturation or thin models or vanity or even that wonderfully clichéd idea of “control”.
To truly, intrinsically believe that eating is superfluous in your case; that eating to maintain your life is somehow presumptuous; that you honestly do not have a being worthwhile enough to warrant preservation through nourishment.
It’s a psychological no-man’s land.”
— —
I’ve met other women and men legitimately affected by an eating disorder, and it was refreshing to hear them say things like:
“I do not have an eating disorder because I am actively and consciously trying to lose weight. The eating disorder tends to happen to me completely out of the blue during instances of intense emotional tragedy, and my weight drops as a result of the symptoms and behavioral patterns inherent to the disorder. In other words, I did not roll out of bed one day and decide I was tired of being fat, thus launched into a series of self-destructive dieting techniques before slapping the anorexia label upon my forehead for whining rights when I fail to lose the right amount of weight this week,”
“I’m not on a damn diet,”
“I am not manipulated by the media. I do not stare at “thinspiration”, or whatever the fuck everyone else on pro-ana sites do. [*] Those things have nothing to do with my suffering. Other people being attractive or thin does not illicit sadness or insecurity. [*] They’re very shallow; they lack any substance that sheds light on the suffering of the individuals. I find those responses really trivialize what’s going on beneath the surface and encourages people to think it’s just about crash dieting and being thin,”
“Just every now and then I become paranoid that I am entirely alone in my suffering because I so rarely witness anyone discussing matters with a bit more substance than what they ate that day, or how fat they feel,”
“I find it hard when people judge me without knowing the truth which they will never know, my desire to be empty inside makes me feel cleansed, when I’ve eaten it can make me feel incredibly dirty and unclean in my mind and body, a time of deserving to be punished in some way feelings that I just don’t deserve to be happy to socialize, to eat, to drink,”
“I want to underscore that my appearance was never the case. [*] While it is absolutely true that EDs develop due to our psycho and not the pursuit to be thin, we cannot judge others simply because we don’t know everything.”
I’ll stop there. That’s a lot of text. Feel free to skim over it. I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone and there are people (through quoting their words) who do understand. Good luck in all your endeavors.
Hi, it’s Gaara again~ I just noticed that *psycho* was supposed to be *psyche*
Ehehe… “psycho” — first time my own typos amused me.
Thank You Gaara for taking the time to write all that! It was nice to read those quotes on ED that were true rather than the most common of people thinking the illness is pathetic and narcissistic. I can really relate to the idea of not just waking up on morning and going “oh hey i think i’ll become anorexic today that will be fun” like so many people believe i did. I’ve had friends and family blame me for it and say comments like “well if you hadn’t decided to become anorexic we wouldn’t be here, would we now” which are frustrating and upsetting. thanks again for your comment it is refreshing to hear things that actually make sense about ED.
You’re welcome. I was much too tired to proof read anything the day I submitted that comment. I noticed that one of those quotes had another typo: the word *illicit* should’ve been *elicit* (the author was a feisty and intelligent woman currently weighing 84.2 lbs the last time I’ve seen her around (in another forum)). If you want, I can privately send you the link [via email] for the website where I extracted those quotes. It’s a non-judgmental environment (free from misconceptions) for legitimate ED sufferers.