It’s well known that the teenage years, when we all ‘blossom’ and try to discover our qualities and who we really are, can come with certain disadvantages. It’s a time when we’re developing both mentally and physically, making certain decisions that seem normal but can end up scarring us for life. This is how I ended up battling eating disorders (ED).
I mention now that the following story may have information that may be sensitive for some people (self-harm, suicidal intentions)!
Many cases of ED are said to be caused by other people’s negative comments about the body, or perhaps just small comments thought to be insignificant. These things didn’t mean much to me when I was 13. It wasn’t that that made me want to change the way I look, not even the memories of when I was still working out, but a simple advertisement promoting a certain diet that seemed to have miraculous effects. I had no idea that that would be the moment the “adventure” was about to begin, and the desire to make everything perfect wasn’t going to help.
For six months I thought I was doing the right thing, eating less or maybe not at all sometimes. I was getting compliments, so clearly I was doing the right thing. Sometimes my mom would come to me and tell me that if I kept eating like this, I would become anorexic. I remember the way I used to answer her – I would laugh with a proud laugh. That meant I would become very weak, which would have made me happy and fulfilled. I started distancing myself from close friends, not going out, not being able to do sports. I went 6 months without my period, and when I finally decided I needed help, I still didn’t know how to take advantage of it.
After a few months of becoming almost half of what I was, people still complimented me and hardly anyone asked me if I was ok. I was pale, with dark circles from sleepless nights and awake at 4 in the morning to study. I lived on two apples a day and still thought it was a lot. I couldn’t hear what people were saying. I still didn’t see the situation I was in. I was crying every evening, trembling if I saw food, but never touching it. Until then I had only heard of anorexia in phrases like “That chick is anorexic” when someone was referring to a very skinny girl, who maybe was genetically that way. I didn’t actually know what being anorexic entailed and I think that was a really big problem. Information about eating disorders is very scarce in Romania and there is not enough discussion about them (a good start is our informative article from March). Hundreds, if not thousands, of girls end up with ED, unnoticed by most people. They are even complimented.
It was Easter Day. I went down to the kitchen and, when I tried to eat half an egg, I couldn’t get the fork to my mouth. I was shaking. I started to cry. That’s when I decided to start treatment, visiting doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists. Although I started to eat “more”, it was still ridiculously little.
Besides, I was never eating food. I was always eating “numbers”. The word “calories” was going through my head non-stop and if I went even an ounce over what I was aiming for, I was destroyed.
In one of my sessions with the psychologist, he suggested that I also see a nutritionist who could help me with what I needed. I really liked the idea at the time, and decided with my mom that maybe it would help me. This was the beginning of another vicious cycle I got into, which led me to bulimia and BED (binge eating disorder), which is eating a large amount of food in a short period of time. Unfortunately, I was not referred to a psychiatrist right away, but it took quite a long time before my mom suggested we go. After talking to a psychiatrist, I was recommended a treatment which is still helping me enormously today.
All the nutritionists I went to were giving me weight loss diets (which were just a quick fix that was very harmful to my body), even though I was diagnosed with anorexia. It’s true that at one point I was asking for them, but I think, given what I had been through, they needed to help me in another way. I ended up gaining weight because of the shock my body went through, (not getting food for so long, it was holding on to any small food source). When I went on vacations, I started to eat more and more (this after months of being afraid to eat) and I always said “I’ll go back home and go back to my menu and lose weight if I have to.” This sentence became a loophole. So I started compulsive eating.
I was eating more and more. Indeed, it was because of the period of extreme hunger, but after a while I just needed to know that I was eating something. I didn’t realize I was sliding down the other side of EDs. I was always upset about my body changes. It was clear I had put on weight and it showed. I felt huge, even though I hadn’t even reached the ‘healthy’ weight threshold yet. The binge episodes started to become more frequent, each one with the excuse “it’s the last time” and “I’m over the minimum ‘normal weight’ threshold”. I put these things in inverted commas because I don’t believe that tables on the internet are to be believed.
Slowly, I started to believe that a normal weight is one where the mind and body are in balance and feeling good, happy, NOT a weight I was told I should be at because “it says so on the internet”.
Plus, as you can see, eating disorders are not dependent on a particular body shape or weight. They can occur in anyone at any time. You don’t have to be under or over a ‘normal’ weight to go through this. Unfortunately, EDs have no preferences and can appear in anyone.
I changed my psychologist and with that change came the acceptance that I have a different problem now, which needs to be treated differently. In my mind, I was no longer entitled to eat what I wanted as I had done before to gain some weight. In my mind, I had to do something as soon as possible to solve the BED. I can’t tell you how many times I thought that if I stopped eating and got to the point where I was the leanest, I could then gain weight “properly” and get rid of BED. My solutions consisted in diets, which of course I couldn’t stick to and always turned into binge episodes. After a while, I started to resort to compensatory methods (vomiting, excessive sports) to make sure I didn’t gain weight, which led me to bulimia. However, I managed to control them so that they didn’t last more than a week or two.
All these experiences made me want to stop living. Whenever I made a mistake and had a binge episode I thought I needed to be punished, so I started cutting myself. I thought that I would never find a solution to all these problems and I didn’t want to go on living with them. There have been suicide attempts, but I always had the image of my parents in my mind. I couldn’t put them through that. All this came from a girl who was very good in school, hardly complained about her problems and was always there when someone needed her. They came from a perfectionist girl who was seen as “perfect” in the eyes of others. The problem was that I never got to see what they saw. Even as I opened up to one of my dearest teachers, her words were “I can’t believe it…I didn’t expect a girl like you to go through this and have these thoughts…”.
I was good at masking everything that was happening to me.
After some time, with the help of my psychologist and a lot of support from my parents, I started to think differently. I have completely eliminated from my vocabulary words like “calories”, “diets” and related things that have brought me to the point of not wanting to live.
I stopped weighing myself, I decided to stop letting a number control my life and focus on how I feel, not on the “numbers” on my plate and on the scales.
I started to open up to those close to me (friends, relatives), who I know won’t judge and who don’t have (or didn’t have) complexes about their weight (drastic diets, difficulties in accepting their body), and who therefore wouldn’t be affected by my stories as someone sensitive to this topic would be.
I think it is very important to accept the problem so that it can be fixed. Very few people know that these disorders can sometimes make us act against our will. For example, whenever I had a binge episode, I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I felt like I was in my body but I was watching as a spectator. I couldn’t control what I touched and how much I ate. It may sound absurd if you haven’t dealt with it (which I wouldn’t wish on anyone), but that’s the cruel truth and the unseen side.
I really believe that all this has made me who I am now and made me appreciate people and all body types in an incredible way. Unfortunately, in Romania, stereotypes still prevail and the details that really matter about these disorders (for example, how dangerous they can be) are not made known to people. This is why I strongly believe that everyone, regardless of age, needs to be educated on this issue. The risks are enormous and much more serious than people think, and with such disorders, patience is needed. I was fortunate that I asked for help before I hit rock bottom and that I recovered, and even though I still have to fight, I know I have the support I need.
I urge everyone to think twice before saying anything about someone’s body or food around those affected! Those with these disorders often manage to mask it very well, but that doesn’t mean that they are not suffering; quite the contrary, and this can be read in their looks when around food. It’s important to try to be attentive to those around us and if we feel something is not right, it’s good to ask and be there for them, even if we don’t understand exactly what is happening.
For more details on how eating disorders manifest and are treated, see our factsheet.
