Have you ever been working on a project that required following instruction very specifically and they had to be done in the right order then you come to find out that you skipped one right in the middle and you have to go back to fix or do that step in order for the project to be completed correctly? For the past 4 months or so that's what has happened to me, only it's with something I thought I had fixed in the past. I apparently though skipped quite a few instruction steps...the result is I am now fighting with my eating disorder once again.
Just a quick recap, I've had self-image problems since I was 8 years old seeing and thinking of myself as the biggest, fattest kid in school. I started binge eating at that time and kinda became a hermit as well spending hours in front of the TV. The result was I ballooned to a pretty hefty size (according to me) by the time I was in middle school. Somehow made it through that crazy time then in High School I went the opposite direction of binge eating. I began eating as little as possible, I would not eat for a day or two then when I felt like I was going to pass out if I didn't eat anything I would eat an apple and maybe a piece of bread. On top of that I started running and biking to try and get that "perfect" image that I had in my mind. I did get to a point where I couldn't resist food anymore and I would binge eat but that led to throwing it back up so that I didn't get fat. I honestly don't know how skinny I looked but I was never satisfied with how I looked. At the end of my Senior year I had come back to the Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) through figuring it out if it was true on my own and started to get better on my own (aka burying the problem down deep inside of me) so that by the time I started college I wasn't throwing up anymore and eating pretty regularly.
My self image though has never gotten better. And honestly since my eating disorder has come back not only am I fighting to eat everyday but I also feel like a fraud. I feel like a fraud because I studied and became a personal trainer and taught a boot camp for 2 years where I taught and encouraged those that took my class to learn to love yourself and to work on being healthy instead of looking a certain way. I taught them the importance of eating and that not eating enough will not do you any good. I thought I could help myself get a better self image by trying to help other with theirs. All I did though was ignore how I looked, pushed how I felt further down inside of me, and pretended I was getting better. I also feel like a fraud because I try and teach my kids how important it is to eat good healthy food so that our bodies can be healthy and also so that they can have energy to play. I mean I literally am a fraud because here I am now at 29 years old not wanting to eat anything because I'm scared that even one bite of food is going to make me the size of a whale...which I know sounds crazy but I've been told I'm not too logical lol.
I think that a small part of the reason that my anorexia came back was because I never got my appetite back after having Ben. During my pregnancy with him I lost my appetite along with pretty much hating food. I still don't ever feel hungry and I still hate pretty much most food. In fact I developed a fear of food since having Ben. The biggest contributing factor probably came from my break down in December when everything I had been holding inside of me came exploding out and since I didn't really fix my eating disorder correctly (apparently) the first time it came back. Since May it's gotten worse. I have my safe foods that I eat and when I do stray to the "unsafe" foods I feel like a giant afterwards. I hate how I look and I hate how I feel after eating. It's hard to think about eating everyday. There are days that I literally have to force myself to eat and I hate that too. It's embarrassing that I have this problem again from my childhood/adolescent days and that I'm having to work through it all over again.
The hardest thing though having to work through everything again is having to work through it while being a mom to 4 young children. I rarely focus on myself and I get so busy some days that I literally forget to eat. On top of that like I mentioned above is feeling like a fraud. Most days I make dinner for Duke and my kids then as they're eating I either go lay down or go to the gym to workout because I'm scared to eat. In fact since May my kids have rarely seen me sit down and eat and I know that is a horrible example for them. On top of that I'm paranoid that McKaty is going to go down the same path as I am because she is the age that I was when I started to get self-conscious about how I looked and that scares the hell out of me. I worry so much about that for all of my kids that it makes me sick then I see how I'm treating myself and it makes me more sick and makes me not like myself even more. It's a pretty vicious cycle.
Despite all of that though I am trying to work on it. With the help of Duke, my parents, and my therapist I'm working on the eating. I've told my therapist that I'll eat 3 times a day and have worked out with my dad that I'll eat at least a certain amount of calories, which at the moment is 1,100 and that FREAKS me out. Most days I accomplish this but it's still hard to do. Each time I eat, especially when I don't feel hungry, I literally feel myself gaining weight. I look in the mirror and see myself at 200 lbs. I feel like a whale and I wear biggest baggiest clothes to try and hide myself. I try not to look in the mirror at myself because I don't like what I see and it I look bigger each time I do. I try not to weight myself much because I do hold so much stock in that number and if it goes up I have a panic attack. I know it's ridiculous but it's what I feel and what I'm working through. I can feel good though that my kids don't realize what I'm going through and I don't breathe a word about it in front of them either. I always say thank you with the biggest smile and hug when they compliment me on how I look and I still encourage them to eat healthy, play and have fun to build strong muscles, and that the most important thing is to be healthy. I hope that I can guide them to a healthy self-image and eventually get to that point as well.
