I have struggled with anorexia since I was about thirteen and I’m still figuring out how to cope with that. It’s hard and because I’ve never looked ‘eating disorder thin’ very few people understood what was going on. The lowest weight I ever got to was 126 lbs and, for 5’8”, that’s not necessarily unhealthy but I got to that weight by starving myself and pushing my body to the absolute limit I notice myself swinging back into bad habits every now and again when I feel particularly insecure. My anxiety calms down when I take control of things like my eating habits so by starving myself, I was also soothing my anxiety. This was the opposite of healthy and I’m still suffering from some of the after effects of that – eating disorders wreck your internal organs and my overall health isn’t what it should be. But that’s something I’m dealing with slowly. For the longest time, I didn’t think I had an eating disorder because I wasn’t dangerously thin. But I had an eating disorder because I was starving myself to lose weight. If you’re starving yourself to lose weight, you have an eating disorder. If you purge or try to purge after eating, you have an eating disorder. I’m not a doctor but don’t pretend you’re less sick than you are because if you have an eating disorder it can kill you. And it can kill you long after you’ve gotten back to a healthy weight and diet. Don’t start so you never have to stop (my mom has this philosophy about cigarettes but I believe it applies here as well). I get that sometimes it isn’t a choice – believe me, I get it – but get help as soon as you can. If you try to tell someone you think you have an eating disorder and they say you don’t because of your weight they are wrong. I was at a technically healthy weight but I couldn’t go up stairs without the little black dots dancing in front of my eyes. It doesn’t matter what you weigh. It never matters what you weigh, it is a mental illness that might be a symptom of something else (I’m pretty sure my mental illness goes hand in hand with my eating disorder). I’m serious. If you think even for a second that you might have an eating disorder, talk to someone. There are so many little ways to get yourself back to thinking in a healthy way that only work in the beginning. If you’re looking in the mirror and HATE everything you see and your solution is to stop eating/purge after eating, you are sick and you need help and that is OKAY.
The Life of a Mourning Dove 