My Story - There's hope

This is a message from my heart to all of you still struggling with Anorexia and Bulimia.
I am 28 and I haven’t looked back to my previous life for the last 2 years. Today I did, and felt a sense of gratitude for having this freedom I thought I would never get.
My message to you is that of hope for recovery.
After 11 years of dealing with eating disorders, all my obsessions have lifted, something I could never imagine possible. I genuinely thought I would live my life and die dealing with eating disorders.
I started with Anorexia at the age of 15, triggered by family problems and control issues (or at least that’s what I think), at the time I had no idea ED’s existed. This lasted about 2 years and the pressures to eat got so bad that it somehow transitioned into Bulimia.
I was never overweight before this happened, but the bulimia episodes had a great impact on weight gain and loss throughout the years.
I remember abusing laxatives, hiding food, throwing food away, making up excuses not to show up at the dinner table, exercising compulsively, counting calories, obsessing about food, about what I ate, about what others ate, about my weight, purging, having difficulty purging after eating large amounts of foods, eating my family’s food secretly and then purging.
It was hell for 11 years and no hope of recovery.
My episodes of anorexia were mostly triggered by sadness, whereas bulimia was triggered by stress and anxiety.
They were horrible years and full of isolation even when I had lots of people around me. I felt inadequate. I felt so lonely.
For a long time I wasn’t willing to give up my ED. I felt it gave me a sense of control, and I didn’t want think into the possibility of gaining weight by eating normally.
I can’t say today what was it that made my obsessions lift, but they have. And I some point I remembered genuinely asking God to help me heal, because I wanted a normal life. I couldn’t deal with so much waste of energy and time of this wonderful life we have.
I can, however, tell you some things I had to change in my lifestyle and in my thought process:
First of all, I had to be aware of the damage I was causing my body, a part of me was getting tired of this madness.
I do believe not eating / over-eating causes some type of chemical imbalance that inhibits the connection to your body and the capacity to feel hungry or to know when you are satisfied. My stomach was so used of not having any food for many hours or having huge amounts of food in a two – three hour span, and then losing it, that the natural process of my body and brain had long been lost.
This required effort on my part, and it started with having three normal sized meals a day for about 6 months. This was crucial in my recovery.
At the beginning it’s not so easy, I still felt the urge of eating a lot more when I was anxious (and I also knew that I had mastered purging at a level that was so easy for me to do, that it was tempting).
But the most important part was eating regular amounts of foods at regular times. Starting with meals I thought of as safe at the beginning helped a lot. Most of them didn’t have any carbs because that was one of my triggers to purge. Eventually I started including small amount of carbs as well and I can say they help a lot in sending message of being satisfied to your brain. But this process is personal and you have to know your boundaries to work within them.
Once your body starts sending signals of hunger and satisfaction, you start seeing the results and the process is so much easier!
To my surprise, the whole process made me be more focused in my daily activities, more motivated, have more energy and stop the obsessions. My weight finally settled at a healthy place, my hair, nails and skin complex got a healthier look in 1 year’s time. I still purged occasionally but it was a process until I stopped completely.
Somehow I started to realize how horrible really skinny people look, how unhealthy and unattractive. I remembered the times when people said I looked thin and sick and I actually thought they were lying because they were jealous of my weight. I was amazed at how sick my mind was. Now I like curves, I even wish I had more!
After 1 year of recovery I realized I can eat anything I want, and my body will tell me when I’ve had enough and will find a balance. I can still exercise, but I don’t do it to lose weight but to be healthier. Yoga helps a lot too.
The most important thing to me now is that I feel freedom, I feel healthy, I don’t feel inadequate, I don’t have food / weight obsessions, I can have healthy relationships, I can focus on everything that really matters to me, because life is too short to spend it destroying your body and worrying about things of no importance. I hope I can give my body all the care and love it deserves that I had been neglecting for so long.
All I want to say to you is that there’s hope to these diseases. I believe the process to recovery is a mix of consciousness, of balancing our bodies biologically, finding a healthy outlet to repressed feelings, talking about our problems with others, accepting our limitations and the fact that it is a process, not being to hard on ourselves. These disorders affect us and those around us very deeply.
We need to be willing to help ourselves.