I’ve suffered from anorexia for 35 years

[Jujujudo]

I’m a 50 year old mother of 2 boys and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t either starving myself, purging, or obsessed with my weight and food. The only time I was ever anything like overweight was in my youth, but looking back at photos, I was barely even chubby. I’m now hovering around 7 and a half stone and I’m 5’1”. I never feel thin or happy with my weight, despite knowing rationally that I am thin.
I will leave the rest of it to your questions. I’m not sensitive about it, so ask anything!

I didn’t know about the autism link… my brother was probably on the spectrum (he’s not alive anymore and nobody really knew about autism when we were younger).

I think this is the way I’ll always be.. I’m almost comfortable with it if that makes sense?

I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s impossible as a parent to deal with anorexia in the family. If she has no periods it’s because she’s not got enough body fat, and is probably very underweight. My periods were erratic when I was at my worst, and I take supplements for my bones - as I also have arthritis. I hope someone eventually finds a way to get through to sufferers of ED’s. It’s so, so hard to treat successfully.

I do understand. I have a chronic condition that affects me daily, (including how it affects my mental health) and the constant striving for “the cure” is exhausting. I find much more peace in accepting that is just how my life will be, rather than deal with the disappointment of feeling “cured” one minute and then being back at Square One the next.

Like you, I feel comfortable in the acceptance of this is just how life is for me.

How many calories do you allow yourself a day?

Yes, it feels like I’m fighting all the time when I just think I need to accept that it’s always going to be thus.. 🩷

I don’t count calories anymore. But a typical day would be black coffee and a couple of digestives in the morning, then black coffee or squash sometimes (if I need energy) until tea time when I’ll pick at whatever the kids are eating. I sometimes feel really hungry late at night (I don’t usually experience hunger, I think the rumbling tummy feeling to me is powerful and invigorating rather than hunger.. this is the first time I’ve admitted this!) and I eat a bowl of cereal or toast.

Do you think as women age they look more attractive with a bit more weight, I was very thin when I was young 20/30s but if I was that weight now I would just look haggard

Yes I think so.. maybe on the face? I look better skinny I think, and I genuinely look very young.. I’m 51 but most people think I’m late 30’s. I know my husband prefers my body larger, he says it’s sexier, and I know what he means. Yes I do agree that a bit of weight as we age helps us to look less haggard. I have very strong bone structure on my face, it’s square shaped (like that actress on House, Olivia something) which maybe helps me look less haggard.

I’m coming back to say that my opinion of my own attractiveness is directly related to my weight…

Are you doing a lot of exercise every day? What you’ve listed there is about 500 calories a day. How do you maintain a healthy BMI on 500 calories a day?

I thought you said you had worked very hard to behave “normally” around your children and others; that you sat and had meals with the children. Are they not there on a typical day?

I’m struggling to see how you mantain your weigh on this, especially as you said you will drop weight v easily.

Look. I know how it seems. I understand your tone and questioning. I annoy myself too! I take my kids to school (we walk) after they grab cereal while I make their lunches. Then they’re not around until tea time. If we sit and eat together I’ll have a plate of food in front of me. But we don’t sit and analyse our food, we talk about our day etc. Some days I eat relatively normally (as in not too restrictive), some days very little. It’s a huge big obsessive minefield for me, but I don’t let it be for them.
I’m sorry that you feel that because I’m not 5 stone needing a feeding tube that I am a phoney anorexic. I get why you’d question that, especially as my GP accused me of being too fat to have anorexia.. But I have spent 35 years terrified of gaining weight and eating, but also terrified of drawing attention to myself or projecting onto people I love.
My brother absolutely dominated our lives with his anorexia. In and out of hospital, in and out of psychiatric wards, collapsing during a 5am jog or riding his bike, horrific mood swings and violence, openly purging in restaurant toilets or at home.. the list goes on. My father had a heart attack from the stress, my mum was desperate and terrified every time the phone rang. He eventually managed to get himself killed in a road accident in his 30’s, taking my poor, destroyed dad with him a few months later.
That didn’t leave a lot of room for my own personal hell. Even at my very lowest point, I was able to love my parents enough to understand that seeing me in hospital, or skin and bones, or being sectioned would be too much for them to handle. So in my usual “I’m not that important anyway” fashion, I took my mental illness, my desperately miserable self image, my loneliness, my self hatred and I controlled it to the point of seemingly normal, to save my parents from hospitalising and burying another child.

I’ve just used my son’s nutrition app to work out what I ate today in calories. Today I managed about 1200 as I drank wine this evening and we had breakfast out for his birthday. Yesterday I had around 500. Tomorrow I’ll probably be around 500 again because the day after we’re invited to a family BBQ so I’ll have to eat more than usual. I guess it balances out. I also weighed myself just now (I HATE doing that!) and I’m less than I thought I was. It’s pretty erratic because my eating depends on my state of mind, my mood, my hormones, external situations etc. I also think my body has been used to restrictive diet for so long that my metabolism probably isn’t normal either.
I’m not lying to anyone here. I spent 4 years with bulimia when I gained weight, so the doctors wouldn’t help me. Then I started smoking and stopped binging and restricted my diet and went from about 9 stone to 7 stone in 4 months. The doctor still didn’t help me because I wasn’t thin enough.
There has not been one day in my life since I was about 11 that I haven’t been distressed about food, my weight, etc.
I eat enough to maintain around the weight I am now (I was 7 stone an hour ago), with fluctuations. I look in the mirror and I see a deformed, fat little person. Yet I wear children’s clothes size 12-13 from H and M. It makes no difference. Call it what you like: fake anorexia/ mental illness. It’s real, it consumes me and I wish it didn’t.

Your doctor sounds terrible, can you see a different one

I'll duck out of this thread now OP. I've asked a lot of questions and have made you feel worse, for which I apologise for.

I hope you find peace and love through your husband and children.

I have an amazing psychiatrist and therapist now, I’m ok.. 🩷

Noooo, I said AMA, I meant it. I just felt like you were questioning the reality of my situation which is a bit of a trigger for me (grrrr I hate that word).. I’m not always honest with myself but I am sensitive to being questioned about whether or not I’m anorexic “enough” so you touched a nerve.
Don’t go, we are all entitled to express emotion without feeling the need to be responsible for another’s reaction 💙

Sorry about your brother OP.
My worst fear was my DC would develop an ED and I would have to stand by helpless.
As for eating being dependant on appetite,events, hormones it maybe worth seeing food as medicine.
That what my therapist told me when I was struggling .
It's a game changer and almost takes away the responsibility as we wouldn't deny ourselves medication.

I can’t remember if I replied to this.. I feel like you’re questioning my motives here.. that maybe I’m not anorexic and I’m just attention seeking or a fantasist. I’m not. The problem with judging someone from their appearance when understanding an illness or disability is that everything is on a spectrum.
Typical presentation, diagnosis and treatment of anorexia is a very low BMI, cessation of periods, hospitalisation and feeding, intense therapy and nutritional education to maintain a certain weight.
But that doesn’t mean that every single person who has an eating disorder will present like that, because it’s a mental illness as well as physical and affects everyone differently.
My brother weighed less than an 8 year old boy at his lowest weight (5’10”), he was hospitalised, also put in a psychiatric unit etc. He just happened to be more extreme than me.
I was diagnosed in my 40’s by a psychiatrist after getting PND. My eating disorder has dominated my entire life, destroyed relationships, eroded my oesophagus, crumbled my bones, made my hair fall out, messed with my metabolism, and controlled my state of mind..
I eat just enough to maintain a normal weight. That’s the only difference between a “true” anorexic and me.

That didn’t leave a lot of room for my own personal hell. Even at my very lowest point, I was able to love my parents enough to understand that seeing me in hospital, or skin and bones, or being sectioned would be too much for them to handle. So in my usual “I’m not that important anyway” fashion, I took my mental illness, my desperately miserable self image, my loneliness, my self hatred and I controlled it to the point of seemingly normal, to save my parents from hospitalising and burying another child.

I’m so sorry @Jujujudo . I can’t begin to imagine how hard that must be.

Can you please tell us about the obsessiveness? Do you basically think about food 24/7? Do you have a tendency to develop other obsessive thoughts or is it confined to food and weight?

Also, do you have any other chronic illnesses aside from endometriosis? I think sometimes people with ED can have underlying stomach issues and subconsciously associate eating with pain, but not always of course.

What do you think your life would be like if you didn’t have anorexia? What would be different or better? What would you like to do that you can’t do now?

I’m very sorry that you have lived with this horrible illness for so long. I understand the control and the obsessiveness. I also imagine you are very intelligent as most people with anorexia are.
I think it is like having an abusive partner the way anorexia talks to you.
it doesn’t matter what you weigh it’s about the thoughts and compulsions
love and hugs to you OP

I can't believe how harsh people have been. If you said I m obsessive about drinking and only have x2 drinks on days when I know I m on show but have ten on days I know I m not..... I don't think anyone would say you are not obsessive enough.

Yes, apparently high achieving, high functioning ND women are more prone to anorexia.

Thank you for sharing, you are helping your readers, in ways which may not be communicated to you.

Please keep sharing, your honestly helps others. Xx