“Don’t eat that”
“You’d better watch it. You might get fat like the rest of your family”
“You’ve put on a few pounds”
These are just a few of the things I heard as a teenager that sent me on a downward spiral. I was 16, weighed 79 lbs, and yet thought that I was HUGE. I began skipping lunches saying “I always eat a big dinner”. Then at home I would skip dinner telling my parents “I ate a big lunch”. Before I knew it eating just a cracker would cause me to bend over with stomach cramps because I had ate too much.
Twenty one year later and I still have to fight the urge to “not” eat. I ‘m not sure if you can ever fully recover from an eating disorder. Most of the time it no longer effects me, but then there are those moments when it is all I can do not to fall into old habits. Today was one of those days. I took 3 bites of my lunch and my stomach tried to tell me it was full. I began to feel nauscious at the thought of eating any more, but forced myself to finish. It’s one of those days that I can’t trust what I see in the mirror because my image is distorted by what my mind “thinks” it sees. I hate days like this, but I know that I will get through it and be stronger because of it.
