[Bruce's_Mom]

OP you should be really proud of yourself that you can be honest about the fact that you have developed a problem. Do not listen to any suggestion, from anyone, that this is not the case! I have been where you are, I know it is easy to brush off the problem when it is in its early stages or listen to others that it is not that bad. Eating 300 calories a day is not normal food behavior for an adult woman, even if you do not yet (because you are simply not emaciated enough) meet the criteria for a clinical diagnosis of anorexia you still having an eating disorder from what it sounds like. Please reach out and get yourself help, even if you are afraid of disappointing your family. Things can get a lot worse.

I have always struggled with my weight. In middle school I received a subscription to Seventeen magazine as a birthday gift, and that is when the comparisons began. I have now learned at that time I was far from overweight but I sure did not look long and lean like those girls...So I started "dieting." This consisted of eating 2 sugar free popsicles per day and a cup of rice which I would follow up with 2 to 3 hours of jogging. Eventually I started having fainting spells, so in to the doctor it was. The doctor figured I had a blood sugar problem so then I was given supplemental nutrition bars...I then became obsessed with portion control and rationing and would cut each bar into 10 pieces. Those 10 pieces were all I would eat throughout the day save for the dinner I had to eat in front of my family. On most nights this dinner wound up going down the toiled.

By high school I weighed something like 89 pounds and I wore the coveted size 0. It seemed great, but what I did not realize is that by chronically comparing myself, and having slightly disordered behavior I had laid the foundation for many serious health problems down the road...So I stayed the course and kept obsessing, nothing was ever quite enough, I will spare you the details, but in sum due to my obsessing I did not really enjoy my teenage years, at least not like I should have. Before college I never reached 100 pounds, I can see how sick that is now, but at the time I used to find it pleasing.

Through all of this my family suffered as much as I did. My parents felt responsible, they felt they had to keep constant guard over my eating habits; they spent in well excess of $100k of their savings and put a second mortgage on their house to get me failed treatment after failed treatment. They began blaming each other. Their marriage was nearly destroyed. I lost their trust and their respect. Of course I could have prevented this by being honest with them in the beginning, when I still had my mind around the fact that I had a problem, I chose not to.

I spent hours that I should have been having fun, playing sports or going to the mall in hospitals and therapists offices. Even when I did participate in normal activities a lot of the joy was lost because I was wrapped up in worrying about how I could avoid going out to dinner before prom or if I had snuck enough diuretics to not look "bloated." Shopping for my prom dress with my mom, I remember crying hysterically because the dress I wanted would not fit properly, at the time I thought it was because I was an awkward size, but it was simply because I was too boney.

By the time I reached college my habits became truly bizarre. Once there, I could go about attempting to be too thin unfettered by my parents. I began living off 1 bullion cube a day, eating cotton to avoid feeling hungry, taking 10-20 ephedrine pills per day, and having weekly binges in which I would routinely eat $200 worth of groceries in a sitting and promptly purge. I fought desperately against the fact I reached 100 pounds, and I did so brutally. One spring break I went shopping with a friend from the dorm. I was 20 years old at this point and the size 0 at Old Navy was too big. I fit into the large size children’s clothing. I felt like that was a huge achievement...I did not realize all the sales people, my friend, everyone was horrified...I kept on...

Once in law school, after 10 years of dysfunctional behavior, I fell in love with a fellow law student who ended up be a complete ass who broke my heart over and over again, but the one thing he did was watch my behavior. He urged over and over for me to reenter treatment, and worked with my family to try to get me help, etc. I refused naturally, until one morning. It was our second year and we had been up nearly all night studying for finals. I woke up and felt strangely hot, I stumbled to my bathroom and began vomiting blood, I blacked out and walked through my hall I am told now that I was crawling...The boyfriend picked me up and said I felt cold to the touch, I remember feeling like I was burning up. He rushed me to a hospital. As it turns out I had a heart attack. At age 22 I had a heart attack! Not only did I have a heart attack, I had several problems. I was malnourished, dehydrated and had a severe electrolyte imbalance which caused the heart attack. I had adema, muscular atrophy, tearing in my esophagus, gastrointestinal bleeding, thrombocytopenia causing me to have suppressed immune system, ketoacidosis, osteopenia (thing preosteporosis), I had not had a period in 3 years (I now may be unable to have children), my teeth that were rotting from vomiting (I did not choose my veneers I had to get them), I had a heart arrhythmia, and peptic ulcers. Essentially I had the body of someone 30-40 years older than I was. All to be thin, all because I could not stop comparing.

Today I still struggle. Just recently I had a horrible break up and of course I found myself fasting. I am somehow psychologically immune to feeling hunger; this has been profoundly negative in terms of trying to have normal eating habits. I am overly self critical and sometimes become depressed. I still have to attend regular therapy. I tell you all this because there was a point at which I had a problem, I knew it, could have gotten help and chose not to. I live with the consequences today, but it is not just me that does it is my loved ones, my friends, my family, the people that I burned over the years to hide my problem or because I was so unbalanced I did not realize I was doing it. Please find help for yourself before things come to this.