Inside my Mind

                I have recently realized how little our society understands about nutrition, proper exercise, being "fat," and eating disorders. Whether it is on television , magazines, websites, and even schools, many times healthy lifestyles are promoted in an unhealthy way. Even my school district doesn't teach the true facts on eating disorders, if they teach it at all. Now, I could go into all the ways to truly be healthy and the real information on eating disorders, but I will save that lesson for another post. I thought a good way to help others understand an eating disorder better, is by giving common day to day thoughts and feelings of someone whom is struggling.
                First, let me clear up a huge misconception. An outrageous number of people (including the writers of my schools psychology book) think that anorexia and bulimia are just an attempt to lose weight because they think they are fat and ugly. While eating disorders appear to be only about weight and food,  they are normally a way for people to try to cope with negative feelings, emotions, or experiences. Near the begining of an eating disorder every meal you skip or time you purge feels like you are in power, happy, healthy, confident, and perfect. As you continue to not nourish your body, everyone else sees you becoming sick, while you see yourself getting perfect. After some time the  euphoria of your eating disorder wares off and is replaced with a mentally numb feeling. You start to just go through the motions, not feeling happy or sad. All the things that used to make you happy or upset don't anymore. You just continue the never ending circle of unhealthy eating. Your eating disorder starts to point out every imperfection in your life, making it seem that you will never be good enough, happy, or loved. The numb feeling turns into depression, you always are crying about how much you can't stand your life. The unworthy feelings get stronger as your eating disorder gets stronger. You feel alone as you slowly ruin your life. When people bring up your food or mental issues, you get angry and defensive, not wanting anyone to change or know about your secret. You don't care about how unhealthy you are becoming, you only care about your size, food, and worth. Every time you see the scale go up or stay the same you are filled with gut wrenching devastation, that only makes your eating disorder stronger. All you feel on your body is every ounce of fat. You spend hours staring into the mirror with self hatred until you end up sobbing on the bathroom floor. Your only thoughts revolve around food, body, weight, size, perfection, and numbers. Soon your eating disorder and emotions are so uncontrollably painful that you think everything would be better if you just didn't wake up the next morning. Your life continues to spiral down until you find the want and determination to get your life back. Until you start to recover, and see the true beauty of life and yourself.