A day in the life of 'atypical' anorexia.
Age: 18 Year: 2013
My eyes dart open. 5am. Go time.
I begin my day with my usual ritual. Lie in bed and check that I can still count my ribs, that I can still get my fingers wrapped around my wrist, and that at least as far as I can feel, I haven't gained weight in my sleep. Then its out of bed, the feeling of dizziness as I sit up reassuring me that I am in fact making progress. I know I only don't feel dizzy on the mornings after I have eaten or drank too much. Next it's push ups until my arms hurt, sit ups until my abs hurt, and mountain climbers until I am gasping for breath. So far so good.
I get the scales out from under my bed. I need to check. I need to make sure my mind isn't playing tricks on me. 65.1kg. Phew. Down 500g from last night and 850g from yesterday morning. I plug the numbers into the app on my phone. Progress.
Now what to wear today. I can't wear leggings yet, I'm still too big, and shorts are a no go too. Jeans and a baggy hoodie will have to do. Plus I need the hoodie in case I have to hide food today. Brushing my hair I notice that even more than usual is coming out today. Big chunks of my freshly dyed black hair end up in the hair brush and all over the floor. I think to myself, 'Good, even my hair is dying off, that must mean I'm making progress'.
Once I'm dressed, makeup on, hair done, it's walk time. 60 minutes, then I am allowed 150ml of water. It has to be from a bought bottle that explicitly states 0 calories, I trust nothing else. I measure out the water, set it on my desk, and then I leave for my walk, looking forward to being able to drink that glass of goodness the whole time. While walking I devise ways to fill my day up and stay busy with friends, but also completely avoid meal times. If I tell mum I'm going out for brunch that covers most of the day, and then I'm working this afternoon so I can tell work I ate at home and tell mum I ate at work. Easy.
After my walk and blissful glass of water, I organise to go out for coffee with a friend. I make sure we go to my safe cafe, which is the place I know I can sit next to a pot plant. With my trusty water bottle in my bag, I walk the 3km to the cafe. Sitting in my usual spot I wait for my friend, making sure I was early so I can order before she arrives. Green tea and a choc raspberry muffin. When I think no one is looking a large chunk of the muffin gets wrapped in a napkin and put in my bag to be disposed of later, and the green tea gets poured on the pot plant. I refill the teacup with water from my bottle and settle in, content that everything is working out.
While sitting chatting to my friend for the next hour, I am only half paying attention to our conversation. I am focused on making sure it seems like I am eating my muffin, but really every bit of it is going down my sleeve or into a pocket. It is getting smaller at a normal rate, but apart from two actual bites I took that both ended up in another napkin, really I am just breaking bits off and hiding them. Once it has reached an acceptably small size I proclaim I am full and how awesome it was, and only then am I able to pay full attention to the conversation at hand. Although, even that is hard, my brain can't concentrate very well at the moment. It is something along the lines of how well I am looking, how proud they are of me for taking control of my health, and asking what diet I am on to have gotten such good results so quickly.
On the walk home I dispose of all the hidden morsels of food at a bin in a park. I count my steps as I go, trying to control every little bit of what I am doing. See, I'm different now. I'm one of those people that has self control. I am 30kg down and suddenly everyone is treating my differently. Mum is happier with how I look, when I go out I no longer feel like I stick out like a sore thumb, and I have a boyfriend now. I must be doing the right thing, surely. Besides, I can't have a problem, my BMI is still 22.5, that's way above what would ever be considered an eating disorder. Even my GP is happy with my weight loss, he was the one always saying I needed to lose weight to help my asthma.
While getting ready for work at home, a huge wave of dizziness overwhelms me. I sit on the edge of my bed, trying to gather myself. I follow my usual drill. Sit until I can see straight again, then slowly sip another 150ml of water. I'll feel right again soon, it works every time.
Work is the easy part of my day. I am a waitress, which means hours of walking around carrying plates and glasses, the chaos of the restaurant making it easy to ignore any and all feelings and thoughts. On the 30 minute meal break I do my usual routine again, tell everyone I'm going home for dinner since I live so close and walk the streets for the full half hour. I finish for the night at 11pm and walk home.
Once home I shower, and then out come the scales again. Down another 500g, that's even better than yesterday. I take stock in my head of what I have taken into my body today and check the trackers on my phone. 5x 150ml glasses of water makes 750ml, and I would have taken in a few calories on each bite of muffin I had to take. I check the hour counter on my phone. 82 hours since I swallowed any solid food. Great, I'm getting even better at this. Who lacks self control now. Tomorrow I should probably have a few veggies, I don't want it to get to a point where I suddenly collapse, or even worse start bingeing again.
Finally, content that I have made it through another day safely, I lie down in bed. I scroll through pinterest looking up recipes of all sorts of decadent foods for the next hour, saving recipes that I'll eventually make for other people. The smell of it cooking will be enough for me. I don't eat that stuff anymore. I'm not about the throw away all this progress for something as stupid as apple pie. I am in control of my life now. I am doing well. This is the best I have felt in years, and as long as I keep this up I'll be safe from the sadness and anxiety. I am healing myself.
"Besides, I can't have a problem, my BMI is still 22.5, that's way above what would ever be considered an eating disorder."
What helped me push through?
Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses. In many cases they are indeed fed by the approach society has to food and weight, but these things still aren't the cause of eating disorders. They are mental illnesses that come about usually as a way of coping with some underlying struggle. No doubt they have physical ramifications, but the fact that a diagnosis of a mental illness still relies on meeting a physical criteria is something that has been damaging, to me and many others. At this point, I was still a 'healthy' weight, and everyone from my friends and family to my doctor were telling me I was doing well. I looked normal for the first time in a long time and fit in with the conventional view of 'healthy'. Therefore it became easy to convince myself I didn't have a problem, and even in the moments I did get scared of what I was doing to myself and was able to recognise it was abnormal, I was too afraid to seek help because I felt I was a fraud that would be laughed off.
Eventually I did reach out to a couple of friends, and these friends saved my life. They took me to my GP and sat in the appointment with me, and then also came with me to my first psychologist appointment and sat through that with me. Being able to get straight in with a specialist eating disorder psychologist was a huge factor in me being able to recover, as I had knowledgeable help from the start that validated that I did in fact have an eating disorder. But that is far too uncommon, with many getting improper help or not being able to access services. More is becoming available though, with recent changes to medicare funding allowing for more support for ED sufferers.
Still, the current resources do not meet the need by a long shot. Within a month of this day I was hospitalised for 5 days on an acute cardiac unit due to a suicide attempt. I had severe malnutrition, and had to be carefully refed and pumped full of fluids and potassium to save me. 6 days after admission, I was stable and moved to a general ward and assessed for the eating disorder program. Sitting in a bed I was told I wasn't allowed to move from because my body was in such a bad way, I was told by doctors that due to my BMI being in the healthy range they were unable to offer me a bed on the very small (4 Bed) eating disorder unit. I was sent home with mum and referred to an outpatient service with a waiting list of 2-6 months.
My only thought at hearing that? 'See, I don't have a problem, I'm too fat to need help'.
I will continue my journey through this eating disorder in the next post, but I would like to highlight the fact that the numbers are merely what the real underlying problem is projected onto. Eating disorders are not ill-fated attempts to look good or gain attention. I cared more about looking and feeling sick than looking good, and hated how I looked at every weight anyway. But when starved your mind does very strange things, and becomes easily obsessed with food, numbers and overall control as a way to cope. It grabs onto anything to keep itself going, and becomes borderline psychotic in its thoughts and patterns. The illusion of control anorexia gives sufferers is a huge relief when struggling so much with daily life.
If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, please, please reach out. They are the deadliest mental illness for a reason, but are treatable and are possible to work through. It takes a lot, and is one of the hardest processes to go through to truly recover, which requires expertise and a lot of in depth work, but the life on the other side is well worth the intense battle.
Today we do 124 push ups to signify the $124.50 it is possible to get rebated from medicare for psychology sessions under a Mental Health Care plan. You can get a MHCP from your GP, and thankfully now ED sufferers are entitled to 40 sessions per year rather than 6-10. To donate to Headspace, another place you can go for treatment options, please go to https://www.thepushupchallenge.com.au/team/the-power-to-push-on and visit https://headspace.org.au/ for more info.
Still We Rise.