The Cause

Like I mentioned in my previous blogs, I did not know I had an eating disorder until months in.

I was in a relationship with someone and you think that once you are in a relationship, you are safe from insecurities. This is so false.

Three months into my relationship, my boyfriend revealed to me that he was addicted to something. Something that many take lightly, but it should not to be taken like that. It is only recently that people started realizing how horrible this drug is.

He told me and I started to see myself and others differently. I started needing to be skinnier so I could fit his desires, so I could keep him. I loved the man, but he loved something more.

We'd walk hand-in-hand and I would notice really thin girls -- especially girls with thigh gaps. I would hear his voice in my head saying "Don't get fat. I do not want to be married to you and have to feel the need to go to cabarets."

Definitely harsh. If I were to remind him now about it, he wouldn't remember saying it. He'd say he never meant that. Somehow I do not believe it to be true because this kind of thought came from his addiction.

His addiction to pornography. 

I know this is a bad addiction. I knew it changed him and would continue to, but I never viewed porn before so I did not know the details.

He tried fighting it and I tried my best to help. He would give me his computer at night, or when he had a craving we would go on a walk. I did what I could.

He would update me if he relapsed. I would tell him it was not okay, but try to motivate him to do better. Late I would run to my room and cry. I would look at myself, even at 90 lbs, and see myself as fat. It dawned on me that if I was skinnier it would be the best way to help him. This fuelled my eating disorder.

We had a lot of problems regarding that, but I never once told him how this addiction made me feel. I was sure he already felt guilty and like failure every time he relapsed. Why give him something more to feel pain about?

Later, we went on to do a long distance stretch. His loneliness filled him with cravings. Cravings I could not help get rid of because I was over 3000 miles away. He would call me at work or late at night to help chase those demons away.

One night he called me at 4 am saying he was sorry. Sorry he kept looking at these things. Sorry he was doing this and sorry he was not strong enough to stop. Sorry he lied to me when he said he was going to do the dishes, or mow the lawn, but was really viewing pornography.

It was the next morning that I told him. I told him how his addiction had erupted an eating disorder inside of me. He was scared, stressed, and could not handle it.

He ran away, came back, apologized, and I stayed.

I worked at an accounting office. I saw all these older women who were heavier. I feared that if I ate at this office, I would gain weight and when my guy came home he would be disgusted with me.

This was the biggest fuel to the fire of my ED.

I remember having a container of lays stax. I looked at it and chucked it. I refused to eat it. The most I ate was three packets of oatmeal. Sometimes I would fail at that goal. I would eat an extra few ritz crackers or something and this tortured me.

Knowing he was looking at women who had a smaller waist, bigger boobs, and nicer curves tortured me. Especially when he could view them without any strings attached. He did not have to text them, or send them letters. A click of a button and there they were. Ready to please him. Ready to replace me.

I had to be perfect. I knew I could not have bigger boobs without surgery, so the next best thing was to have a smaller waist and nicer curves. On went the corsets and up came the food I consumed.

For a few months he was clean. I was convinced it was because of how skinny I had become. The coincidence led into more dieting so that he could resist the temptation of pornography.

When we were first reunited, he complimented me like he had never complimented me before. I felt dizzy from lack of sugar, but so confident in my body. After being reunited for a little while, I started to gain weight again. I guess I became comfortable being with him again. He was there and he was mine. Nothing to worry about.

Then he relapsed.

I ran around my room screaming and crying. It was ALL my fault. I had gotten fat.

HOW COULD I BE SO CARELESS?! How could I let my pleasure of eating DRAG him back down to this addiction!? It was MY fault. I was the one to blame. ME. MY FAULT.

I later learned that is was not, which will be written up some other time.

However, this made me relapse all over again.

Never ever tell me that pornography is harmless. Don't tell me it is something to brush off. Don't you dare tell me it does not torture your partner.

So question many ask me is:

Why did you stay?

This will be answered in my next blog. 

- SS

My Eating Disorder: Routine (Pt. 2)

It seems crazy, but I did not notice how unhealthy I was becoming. I did not notice how my ribs and hip bones were trying to tear through my clothing. All I noticed was this little bit of skin that I perceived as fat and how it would not go away despite all my efforts. 

I would run a minimum of 4 miles a day. I ran an average of 23 miles a week.  I would intake no more than 500 calories a day and I would fast three times a week. I was obsessed. I measured everything I ate. EVERYTHING. 

I weighed and measured myself every day. If I lost weight, it was good news! However, I had a long way to go until perfection. If I gained weight, I reprimanded myself. 

I was obsessed with the feeling of waking up in the morning ready to faint. It meant I was definitely losing weight because my body had nothing to run on. Waking up like that was comparable to whatever you consider to be the best feeling in the world. Dizzy, I would stumble down the stairs to the kitchen (grabbing onto the walls to hold my balance) and I would take a small sip of chocolate almond milk. 

I would sit on the floor with my hands on my head trying to focus my vision. I was really light headed. I'd take another swing knowing I'd regret drinking my calories later. Right now, I couldn't stand without help. I needed sugar - I needed calories.

I felt weak. 

No, not because I actually was. I felt that way because I had to succumb to the temptation of food. 

This was a daily event.

I worked with my mother, so we would lunch together. I could not tell her that I mentally could not eat, so I would forcefully shove food in my mouth, then I would go "brush my teeth." Though, I am pretty sure she had an idea with what was going on, I pretended she was clueless.

Feeling guilty and like a failure, I braced myself for what came next.

There in the employee bathroom at an accounting department, I was hunched over the toilet. Pausing in between each "set" to ensure no one heard me. 

I would walk out feeling brand new.

I would find any excuse to walk around the office to burn whatever calories I could. 

I remember this one day, I wore something that was somewhat form fitting. I walked into work and a lot of people said "Wow, Shay! You are so skinny". 

I loved it. I craved those words. I needed them to be said more frequently. It made me feel successful.

I thought they said that to compliment me, but that was a scream of concern. 

Dang.

OH! Don't get me wrong, I did find myself binging too. I remember coming home from work one day. My dad, who is an AMAZING cook, had just finished preparing one of my favourite pastries. 

Tempted, I took one and had a bite. My body went nuts! I needed more, but I wanted to get what I had eaten out of me. This is where a battle would begin.

I'd see my hand reach for another. My mind screamed "NO! STOP IT, YOU FAT, UGLY, USELESS THING!!" I would rip my hand away. I'd turn to walk away, but my legs stayed put. 

The next thing I knew I ate half the amount baked goods, a tub of yogurt, four apples, 1/3 of  a box of granola and who knows what else. 

Horror stuck me. What did I just do!? After all that work!

Angry, upset, and disappointed I would run to the bathroom. I would cry and purge. 

The cycle would start all over. 

This was my life. Every week seemed to play out like this. 

I tortured myself daily. I was killing myself slowly. 

-SS

My Eating Disorder Story: The Beginning (Pt. I)

A few of us went out to eat one day on my friend’s birthday. The restaurant was in a town roughly 30 minutes from where we lived. It was quite an adventure and a tremendous amount of fun. The food was delicious and I was so satisfied with my meal, until I started to feel it all hit my stomach. I started to feel it adding up to fat. I wanted it out of me.

“What do I do?” I thought to myself. I couldn’t just purge in a public bathroom. Anxiety kicked in. I started to become fidgety and anxious as we drove home.  Once we parked, I hit the ground running. My boyfriend at the time still wanted to hang out, but I was over it. Who wants a fat girlfriend anyway?

Once in my apartment, I found myself leaning over the toilet with my hair tied back and my two fingers down my throat.

What was happening to me?

It was only a few months later when I returned home to Canada when my family stared at me with horror and said “Shay, what happened to you? Where did all of you go?”

What did they mean? Why were they saying this?? I had lost 20 lbs and I did not even notice.

To put this into a better perspective, I am 5’1 and when I left for college I was 105 lbs.  So, when I arrived home I was 85 lbs.

I was a scary little thing. This was the beginning of a very dark path I was entering into.

This was the beginning of my eating disorder. 

For as long as I can remember I was into fitness. Eat right, work out, and enjoy every second of it. I was definitely influenced by my dad, but who’s complaining about being sucked into a healthy lifestyle?

I loved seeing changes in my body. Little changes added to bigger changes and I wanted others around me to feel that happiness too. So, I started to train my friends.  Definitely made me happier to see others happier with the way they looked.

I knew and still know a lot about healthy lifestyles and how they work and produce the desired results. THEY WORK. However, something happened to me that made me lose sight of that.

One day, something clicked inside. I looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. Every inch of my body was something I started to dislike. I was not good enough.

This was a lie, but of course at that time I could not see it.

I started to eat less, and work out more. I believed that eating anymore than 500 calories day was essentially a sin, or so I treated it that way. Purging became a regular practice.

Though I notice my clothes were becoming baggier on me, I did not feel that I was losing weight. I did not see any changes. So I became desperate for results. The fear of food was controlling me.

That fear led me to the dangerous development of anorexia and bulimia.

- SS