My StoryI have never been the type of person that handles traumatic events well – I tend to go into denial. My mum used to say I was like an ostrich – always putting my head in the sand and avoiding the world.
My eating disorder began when I was 11 prior to the start of secondary school. During primary school I had been a happy normal girl, popular and high achieving. Then my world was turned upside down when my parents divorced. My dad moved out and I stayed with my mother and sister. My mother was very depressed understandably, which left me to look after my sister and myself.
I was not eating a great deal and noticed that I began to lose weight. I loved the feeling of elation it gave me to have such control over my body when everything else in my life was in such chaos – that’s when I became anorexic.
I continued to lose weight steadily until my life was again disrupted when my mother remarried and we moved in with her new husband. I hated him and my life there away from my friends and further from my school. I became very rebellious, running away a lot and began smoking – a bad habit I have not been able to stop! They insisted on a family dinner every night so I taught myself to purge.
The weight continued dropping off (overall 10.5 stone down to 7 stone – my lowest weight ) with the healthy weight for my height being 11 stone. Two of my close adult friends noticed. They helped me to ‘recover’; I began to see a therapist and started eating more. I soon stopped seeing the therapist because I did not want to talk about or deal with my problems and past life but I started eating more and gained weight until I reached my highest weight – 11 stone. The issues were not dealt with however and anorexia was still there even though I was a healthy weight.
Then once again my world was upturned when I decided to move in with my dad. I was living with him in a two bedroom flat 3.5 hours away from my school and friends and also with his alcoholic nut-case girlfriend. I was too tired to do anything from travelling 7 hours a day to get to school.
During this time I was also drug-raped when out with my friend (I was 14 and a virgin) adding yet another traumatic event to the list of issues I haven’t dealt with. I have been suffering from flashbacks and nightmares for the year or so – a likely contribute to my now second relapse.
Then he split up from his girlfriend (also very traumatic) and remarried to another woman who we now live with. Life with her was bliss in the beginning – I was eating almost normally and maintaining a healthy weight. Of course anorexia was still there and the stress of my exams (GCSE’s) combined with friends telling me how much ‘better’ I looked at a healthier weight and a huge row with my ‘parents’ over my then boyfriend triggered my second big relapse which brings us up to the present day.
My family recently noticed how little I was eating and the amount of weight I had lost in the 8 months after the break up with my boyfriend (roughly a stone and a half) on a very recent family holiday with my dad, step-mum and grand-parents and have been constantly on at me ever since. I have begun purging again when I feel forced to eat and have discovered the joy of diet pills….
I am not particularly 'pro-anorexic', I just don't have the strenth to go into recovery. I just want to keep losing weight until I no longer feel fat and see fat when I look in the mirror. I don’t know if this will happen though because I still see fat although I have dropped a stone and a half and 2-3 dress sizes. (Now size 5 USA, 8 UK).
