what was I thinking?!

originally posted August 4, 2005

So, since getting home from school and hearing from my entire family how much weight I'd gained, I've been having poor body image problems. I'd lost some weight since being at home, but it just didn't seem good enough. I hear at least once a day how fat I am (don't worry... more than half of the time it's from my own mouth). I'd been sorta considering anorexia (as though it's something you choose...), and I'd joked about going on a starvation diet, but never took it very seriously. I mean, I love food! So much so, in fact, that I'd say that I might have compulsive eating disorder... but anyways...



A friend of mine at work told me how she had cut back on eating and was exercising a lot, and she looked a good amount thinner, so I started looking around myspace. darn myspace! :D and I came across some pro-ana sites and it started to become more and more of a possibility. I figured, I can do to give up eating so much (or at all...) so why not try it? Well, to make a long story short, today was my third day of not eating/barely eating. I only ate an apple and a banana yesterday (to ward off hunger pains) and had only eaten like 7 toffees (virtually fat free and low in calories to keep my mind off eating worse things) and water all day today until 8pm. Eventhough I'd only been Ana for like 2 1/2 days, I started to see in my behavior what the girls in the groups had been talking about. Obsessing over food, counting calories religiously, telling myself that I couldn't eat no matter what, etc... It was then that I stood in my kitchen looking at the nutrition facts on the pickle jar to see if I could have a pickle for dinner that I was like, "What am I doing to myself? This is driving me crazier than being pudgy is!" (For those of you who wonder why my parents didn't see this odd behavior: their out of the house for the week.) I couldn't take it anymore! I got in my car and drove to taco bell, and then went to ray's and got some icecream. As odd as it'll sound, I felt SO guilty buying food. Part of my mind was urging me to continue to say no to food, even though eating is perfectly natural and healthy (well, maybe not taco bell, but you know what I mean...)



Why am I telling all of you this? as open of a person I seem to be, I have so many secrets that weigh on me like an unremovable burden! I've been trying this new thing of being perfectly honest about myself. I used to be fearful about letting people too far into my life, because what if they found something that was shameful or embarrassing? What would they think? They wouldn't want to be my friend anymore... and the list goes on and on. Well, I've come to the conclusion that I have all too little faith in people! Besides, if hearing that I have problems, like a normal person, scares people away, well then they're obviously too faint of heart to be my friend in the first place. So, yeah... that's what I've learned this week: Eat! not eating just to be skinny won't make you happy; it makes you insane!