What's it Like To Have an Eating Disorder?

I just got asked by a girl who reads my blog what it’s like to have an eating disorder. I of course can’t answer for everyone but I can do my best to explain it for me.

Everyday I wake up and I right away worry about food. What am I going to eat? How much am I going to eat? Where and when will I eat? Will I have a time and place to purge? How will I hide all of it? Then the rest of the day the questions repeat in my head. I constantly watch other people. Their weight, what they eat, how they act. Now really criticizing it but more comparing it to myself.

Meals are all governed by rules. A list of rules I never thought were that insane but have realized rather recently are in fact a little mental. I’m planning a post about those later, though. If I break a rule it leads to me being angry with myself and usually some form of self punishment.

As a skinny disordered girl my life was ruled by not eating. I could refuse to eat junk food and lie saying I had already eaten. I was rather good at it. Exercising for hours at a time. But now I’m a fat disordered girl and it’s different. I can refuse food and I’m still good at it. But I purge. I purge and I eat certain foods just so I can purge and it all makes me fatfatfatfat.

Purging is the worst/best thing in my life. It’s killing me. It has taken over my life. I can’t eat without having a stomach ache because my stomach cannot hold the food in. I can’t eat foods without questioning if it will something good to purge. I can’t eat and not imagine myself with my fingers down my throat. I surely have medical issues from it, though I refuse to go get checked out. But it makes me calm down. It makes all my anxiety and out of fucking control feelings just stop for a moment. I can physically feel my body go loose. Though over the last 5 years the release has been fading.

My eating disorder is about the number on the scale. It’s the cliche standing in front of mirrors and pinching fat. It’s the fear of clothes’ sizes. But it’s so much more than that, too. It’s the fear of memories and the fear of myself. Without my eating disorder I won’t have an identity. Without my eating disorder I won’t be able to get rid of all my shit somewhere and it will end up leaking out so everyone can see my secrets. Without my eating disorder I wouldn’t be Lexi. I’d be a girl who can’t handle her shit and goes fucking mental.

It’s the funniest thing. My eating disorder is insane but at the same time its the only thing keeping me from completely losing my mind.

I wonder if I’ll lose my insanity or my life first.

This isn’t even a good image of my disorder. It’s so fucking complicated and impossible to explain. I guess if I had to describe it in one word I’d say it’s dark.