Mind, Body, Spirit


 People's Stories 

These are stories sent from amazing people who have suffered from eating disorders. The names have been changed to protect the privacy of these people, but the experiences are real. The photos are used (with permission) from a beautiful girl who suffers from anorexia and a binge eating disorder. If you want to contribute anything at all then you can email me at al_loves_you@hotmail.com. We would love to share your story <3

I constantly fall back into the habit of an eating disorder. I wouldn’t eat all day, if I 'slip', I’d go straight to the bathroom and throw up. Id do the chew and spit to 'trick' myself into thinking I’m eating. Everything revolved around my weight and not eating. Its a sick thing. That was my whole day. Trying not to eat and finding ways to keep me distracted, constantly getting on the scale and feeling so depressed when the number increases. It took over my life! I’ve been better for a while. I am a little bit over weight now and plan on dieting, the healthy way. But I’m in no hurry to shed lbs. I’m just trying to learn to love my body and feel comfortable with it Emma

It's really hard for me to admit to myself or others, cause most history of this illness is with girls, but I can assure you there are guys out there. I am 5' 10" and weigh 125lbs. I can not stand being over 125, and yes everyone tells me I'm to skinny, but in my warped mind I'm still not right, all I see is fat-Levi

I had an eating disorder which started when I was about 12. My older brother used to make fun of my weight so I used to eat and them vomit or just starve myself or eat crackers and drink only water for a week. I'm 19 and I still have some habits like making myself vomit or not eating for extended period of time. I have never gotten help for my disorder or the slight symptoms, but I wish I had or had the courage to. Well anyway hopefully you can use my story to relay that it is important to get help than live with such a secret, it's unhealthy and takes a toll on the body and it's better to have support than tackle the problem alone. Olivia 



 

It started when I was 11 and I went on to a pro ana website and I sort of got to admire all these people that had the will power to cut out food etc. It made me feel so bad after even eating one meal. So at about 12 I decided to cut out sweets, crisps, chocolate, cake, biscuits, cheese, milk etc. It was so hard but it made me feel so great when I had achieved that. I told my mum I was just trying to be healthier. I was doing this for about a month or two, when that good feeling stopped, so I decided to cut out more and more. But my Mum had noticed so she used to make me eat, but I would just purge after them.

I realised I had a problem when I admitted to one of my friends this and she seemed quite worried, so I started to try and stop.
Today I still worry about calories and excersise but I think I am recovered - Holly


I am 18 years old and in recovery from my ed. this being my senior year it wasnt what people had said it woud be "the best year of your life". i had just gotten out of a relationship with an abusive boyfriend, literaly ALL of my friends ditched me because i became to depressed for them to handle, my grandpa died, my dad got cancer, and my sister had just been hospitalized for a suicide attempt. i needed something to control. i may not be what most people call a "true" anorexic because i was only anorexic for 3 months. from the time i was 11 i have hated my body and often times tried to starve but never lasted more than a week. come december '08 i found out i had reached my highest weight ever 135lbs (i am 5'3) it started off with a healthy diet but within a week of my diet i reconected with an old friend and one of her friends. they were both anorexic. i thought this is great they can help me.. so together we starved. we'd have the funnest time together watchin ana documenteries and nibbling on letuce, comparing calories and telling eachother how good we were doing, smoking to curve the hunger. it took me about a month to start purging. and it wouldnt always be a binge just something i thought was "bad" i restricted to 200 calories and went to the gym everyday burning of 500-800 calories a day. i droped to 114lbs and though it may not be small to some people i have a medium bone structure so on me it was very skinny. from the purging the blood vesels in my eyes would pop so i had huge red blotches in my eyes that looked horifying. around 2 months after i started i got so crazy over food. i would take one day a week where i said it was me "cheat" day and i would eat anything i wanted without purging and then go back to restricting the rest of the week and purging during that week if need be. it only took 3 months untill my counselor told me if i continued this within the next week she would hospitalize me and i absolutely HATE the hospital so i started eating again. it has only been a few months now and i have gained most of the weight back i am up to 126-129 :/ i still want to lose weight. i continue to go the the gym everyday 2-3 hours a day. i no longer wear cute clothes in fear of how fat i look in them and i punish myself for every bad food i eat. i think about every morsal of food that touches my lips and ever calorie i burn off. i now burn off 700-1000 calories a day along with lifting some weights to try keaping up with the extra food intake. i was and still am obsessed with looking up and printing pictures of skinny girls or "anorexic quotes" and look up youtube videos and movies all the time about it. i wish to love my body one day but i know that day wont come soon -Belle



I used to work in a corner shop from 6pm until 10pm, this was dinner-time. Usually leaving myself to get something there, I began to buy my food as proper meals. Eventually, I started craving the snacks that surrounded me and before long I drew into binging on a ridiculous amount of chocolate and crisps. Sugary drinks didn't help, either, and I was drinking an indefatigable amount of coke. I used to do a lot of sport; I even had the privilege of going to represent the UK on occasion. It was after I fractured my back, I was unable to train and so I was still eating with my old habits, eating for an athlete. Not burning off what I was eating, I slowly grew and grew. Don't get me wrong, I'm not tall, but my weight jumped from 8~9 stone right up to 11 or 12. I'd never been fat in my life, but now I began to notice my belly hanging over my trousers at work.
It was enough to scare myself into purging, that very night at work that I noticed it at first. This continued for about six months to a year, before I finally managed to conquer it. I'd lost the weight, and then some.
I tried to eat healthily from then, and managed well. Still, people said I looked too thin so I decided to try my hardest to put on some weight in a healthy, controlled manner. Still, I began to notice a belly on me, so I decided against it and replaced my food with nothing at all to try and lose what I'd gained. I went for days without eating, then ate as little as I could to get by. It was then I realised that I'd gone into a relapse, and that anorexia would be harder to shake than I thought.
Still, I'm trying to eat healthily when I do eat and making sure to take vitamin supplements.
Anorexia has helped me get skinny, but it's become uncontrollable and I fear it may become a downward spiral -
 Simon 


 


Well i had an eating disorder for nearly 5 years. The reason i had one is because i had self image issues and stress and i just wanted to have control over something in my life. 
I still to this day have one.. i try so many ways to stop but everytime i get the help and become better there is something that triggers it off again.
when i started at the beginning i thought nothing of it. i thought i was just being a girl and wanted to lose weight and i was making myself sick everytime i ate. even at school.. but i still didnt see the effect that it had on me. so i become anorexic. and from that i just became me.. well i thought that i was okay and that i didnt have one at the start until it all changed my life. my moods were bad and still are because i don't eat much now. and my periods and everything like that are all over the place..Having an ED changed my life so much i thought i was happy and that i was going to be okay. I was in control and still am of what i eat and do. I exercised soo much.. i would get up in the morning at 5 and go for a jog/run i used to go for about 6 miles everyday.. and then one day..at school... i was in p.e theory and i thought to myself that i didnt feel good. so i told my p.e teacher that i think i have an ED and from there i got the help. everyone became all "oh you okay?" everyday and then that pisses you off cuz u want to be treated normal, not cuz you are ill. i always fainted and i looked like i was on drugs cuz i was pale, 
i was spotty because of lack of nutrients.

i was on maybe 50 kcals a day but that only came from liquids. like flavoured tea. as that had 2 kcals in it so i was keeping myself full of liquids. so i was having loads of cups of tea. i would measure milk out so i didnt go over the amount of kcals. My family knew about it but they didn't believe it was serious. It controls your life because you are so happy that you can control something that you don't want to let go. Every time i went to school and it was lunch and i didn't eat people would be like "eat" and they would ask why i wasn't eating. and i member the time i got so down, i overdosed. this was the extreme of it all. i thought i was too fat and everything and everyone got to me. my lowest weight was 7 stone and i am nearly 6ft tall. I am meant to weight about 10-11. My bmi was 13. I had to get help when i overdosed because i was in hospital i wouldn't eat so they put a tube in my nose to feed me! i didn't want that, i wanted to at least taste my food so i forced myself to eat. as an anorexic i allowed myself to have days where i would eat. i am not happy. i lost all weight again as soon as i got out of the hospital. i don't know what to do because i don't want to lose this control but at the same time i don't want to lose myself. i wish this had never happened to me -Katie 




 

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