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Just because you can't identify with every last detail in my Eating Disorder history, does NOT mean that you do not have a problem. I remember reading a magazine article about anorexia eight years ago and it said that in order for somebody to have anorexia they must be 15%-20% below there 'average' body weight. I remember working out that I would be 15% below my 'average' weight if I was two pounds lighter, so in my head until then, I was just fine and didn't have a problem. Everybody's disorder is different - the severity of an Eating Disorder is not measured on how light or how thin a person is but on how intense and strong their negativity is. Some of the most severe Eating Disorders have been in people who have been 'average' weight or overweight.
People can die at ANY weight.
Life Through Eating Disordered Eyes...
In 1992, when I was 15 years old, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder. Of course, like most people, I had been suffering with this condition for a rather considerable amount of time before the diagnosis was made. I believe that sufferers are born with the predisposition to having an eating disorder and it is only later on in life that the physical symptoms, such as starving, over-exercising, vomiting, etc. appear. For example, when I was younger, we lived in a house down the country. In my parents bedroom there was a mirror and I remember one day spending a long time looking in it, pinching my stomach and thinking how fat and ugly I was. We moved out of that house when I was three and a half years old so obviously the eating disorder feelings and thoughts had kicked in at a very young age. All through my childhood I had a very unhealthy relationship with both my body and with food, using it to comfort me or as a way of punishing myself. I spent my school days lacking confidence and feeling ugly and useless. Because I spent my whole life hating myself and thinking so negatively, I just believed that everybody felt like this. It was only when I started my journey of recovery that I realised this was far from the truth.
The biggest myth about eating disorders is that it's all about food and weight. These are only a very small part of the whole disorder but unfortunately they are usually the areas that health professionals concentrate on. Another common myth, as I've mentioned before, is that the thinner the person, the more serious their eating disorder. Again, this is far from the truth. The seriousness of a person's eating disorder is not measured by their weight but by the strength of their negativity. I would rather see an underweight person learning to accept themselves and look after themselves, than a person at a "normal" weight or overweight, living in a world full of negativity, where their condition dictates every move they make.
When I was first diagnosed in '92, it was very clear what was wrong with me. I wasn't eating; I was losing weight; exercising obsessively and no longer menstruating. Classic anorexia symptoms. By late '93, aged 16, I was admitted for the 1st time into a psychiatric hospital with an eating disorder programme.
I'm sure for my family and friends this must have been a relief. I was now in hospital and being looked after by a doctor who specialised in eating disorders. But 5 years, 9 hospital admissions, some lasting as long as 7 months, and 13 suicide attempts later, things weren't looking so great. All the doctors now labelled me a "hopeless case"; some even predicting that it would be a matter of time before I would be dead.
By now I was swallowing 23 prescribed pills a day, had gone through 7 sessions of ECT, other wise known as electric shock treatment and to make matters worse, I no longer fitted nicely into the label "Anorexia Nervosa". My weight was relatively normal; I was eating what I called binges but was told what I ate wasn't enough to be classified as a binge; I tried over and over again to make myself vomit but didn't have the reflexes so what was I now? Did I not have an eating disorder because I wasn't 15% below my normal body weight or any of the other typical symptoms anymore?
I no longer fit neatly into any eating disorder category in the psychiatrists Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I was given many other labels - Manic Depressive, Dysphoric, Personality Disorder to name but a few - one doctor even tried to convince me that I didn't have an eating disorder, I just saw myself bigger when I looked in the mirror (?!?). As a result I wasn't taken seriously anymore but I can tell you I was living in a hell that I cannot describe adequately with words.
The times I slashed my wrists open with a Stanley knife or swallowed rat poison or the multiple over-doses I took were just seen as childish and silly. Instead of counselling which was really what I needed, I was just given different cocktails of drugs.
Prozac, Rohypnol, Optimax, Librium, Seroxat, Dalmane, Tegretol, Serenace, Lustral, Normison, Lamictol, Melleril, Anafranil, Stilnocht, Cypramil, Largactyl, Zimovane, Inderol, Xanax, Lithium, Lexiton, Sparine, Zyprexa. These are just some of the drugs I was prescribed. None of them worked although having so many tablets around the house did come in handy during the many times I wanted to end my own life.
Now my goal was to stop eating again and lose as much weight as possible so I could get my all-important label back. So I would be taken seriously once more, so somebody would actually give a damn. This was easier said than done though. My body wouldn't co-operate anymore due to years of starvation and abuse and losing weight was extremely hard.
During my last hospital admission, I was on so much medication and getting away with eating so little that even to this day I have very little recollection of that time. I could hardly walk, was experiencing visual hallucinations, and my kidneys and heart weren't functioning properly. The doctors' reaction was to up my medication and I was labelled a hopeless case.
Thankfully this was when the Marino Therapy Centre came to my rescue. There I was given a gift that will never be equalled. I was given hope. I was told I would recover and eventually I actually started to believe it. That was really the first step in my recovery.
If you are caring for somebody with an eating disorder, it is vitally important that you believe in them. More importantly still, you must get involved in their therapy and learn about the condition and the language of eating disorders. Ignorance is dangerous. You need to learn the way the sufferer thinks, feels and interprets the world around them in order for you to be able to help them. Also, please avoid labels. They just intensify the behaviour and they become the person's identity. The sufferer is not an anorexic or a bulimic or a compulsive overeater. They're a PERSON who is fighting a condition but most importantly they are a person. You can see from my own story, the damage labels can do.
I have to thank my parents for all the support they have given me over the years and the lengths they went to, to get me help. Without them I am 100% sure that I would be dead now. I would also like to thank my boyfriend for being nothing less than an angel sent down from heaven and for all the help he has given me the time we've been together. I would like to thank my grandmother too who sadly passed away in January this year, for telling us about this place she heard about on the television called the Marino Therapy Centre.
Today I am doing great. Physically I am paying for 15 years of abuse and I would urge anybody who is suffering to look for help now because its only later on when certain organs don't function properly anymore and you've got the bone density of a 70 year old that you really wish you hadn't abused yourself in that way. Mentally, I'm freer than I've ever been in my whole life. I'm back in college full-time, have my own little place, going out and doing stuff that I could never do before. I may not be 100% recovered yet but I'm 100% sure that full recovery is not far off.
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