I've wanted to do this for a while and i was at a place of reflection today so here it is. My life story as it deals with my ED, and the current struggle and battle with EDNOS as i try to finish off my last semester in University/College.... I apologies for the length but i need to get this off my chest....
I am considered a woman by societies standards, i am currently 21, and will be 22 at the end of the year, but somehow i don't feel like i am woman. Sometimes in the way people speak to me i often feel like I'm still very much a child, and maybe to some extent i project that image, -something that I'm trying very hard to change-, but that doesn't give people or other the right to treat me that way. I have been doing a lot of reflection lately, and it sucks that in the 2 1/2 yrs i have had EDNOS the only time i am taken seriously is when I'm fasting or when i showed my therapist the ABC diet. I want help, i want to get better, but the way I've been treated my medical professionals tells me that well I'm not sick enough yet to really deserve help. Its ok to eat 1000cal because its not that bad, or exercising 3 times a week and becoming obsessive is ok because its not that bad yet. That's how i truly feel and maybe I'm wrong. The first time i ever saw my family Dr. at home he didn't take me seriously and instead put me on a rather restrictive diet, and explained to me that since I'm an adult we can just keep this between us and not have to involve me parents. I told I'm was counting calories that i was restricting and that i was becoming obsessive and instead of taking me seriously he put me on a diet, gave me a sheet on a list of food groups and sheets to record me eating. Now how does that not further promote ED behaviors?? Not only that but he broke confidentiality policies when i went in to see another Dr. and get a referral for an ED program, they had to do blood work and all these test and he picked up my results, called my home asked to speak to my mom because he wanted to do a test to see if my iron deficiency was genetic or not... neways my parents didn't know i'd been to the clinic of gotten blood work, so for the next few weeks i got the cold shoulder from both my parents as they were angry with me for not coming to them. My excuse was that i was feeling dizzy so i rode to get blood work done, needless to say that didn't go well with them. But i was pissed off, i was an adult i was 18+ and he broke my confidentiality. Just because you know my parents doesn't give you the right to break my confidentiality when i specifically said or told them not to call the house and to call my cell phone number instead. He didn't even call me in to discuss my blood work and ask me if i would like to get the test done or anything, nor did he even address my low iron issue. During my first year of ED treatment i was compliant to most requests, i increased my intake, went to ED groups, my Dr checked on me regularly, when i complained of chest pains she gave me meds to help with the pain, and it seemed like they were taking me seriously, probably because over the summer i had lost like 20lbs of weight and i looked and felt better physically or so i thought. My starting weight was 160lbs, and by the time i came from school i was like 145lbs-140lbs and i was happy i was back to where i was in high school and my weight seemed to have stabilized and i was on the mend. I went home for the summer the following year and i lost another 10lbs, i continued to restrict, i continued to be obsessive, and now i was lower than I'd ever been in my teenage life, i was 129lbs. Now bare in mind ism 5'4 so for a while i was happy with that weight, i was like if i can maintain it then I'll be fine and I'd lost inches, i started to get definition in my body and i seemed to be growing into myself, into my look and into my style, that was last summer. And now? I'm fluctuating between 130-133 but not sure how accurate that is because i feel smaller, I'm wearing a smaller size than i was last summer, and all of this should make me feel better, everyone is telling me how small i am, and how good i look and how much I've grown up into this young woman, but i can't see that, at least not all the time. I've lost all confidence in myself in my ability to maintain a steady weight and just how i feel about myself. My recent appointment with my Dr. further confirmed my fear that I'm not sick enough to get help. I need to be smaller and when i said that i wanted to be 110 she didn't even bat an eye, 110 is borderline anorexic, if i lost even one more pound I'd be considered anorexic. Right now i just want to get to the below 129 i want to move from the 120's, i don't want to be below 100 but if that's what i takes for people to start taking me seriously to start understanding that just because i don't want to take medication for anxiety or that I'm not willing to eat more doesn't mean i don't want help, it just means that its hard for me to do those two things, when i don't feel like i deserve help. Or worse when i have something to prove to myself and others, to everyone who teased me when i gained weight because of puberty, to when i became an emotional eater, and yeah I'm super sensitive but if you know that then why would u keep making those jokes, why would you keep telling me that i could still lose a bit of weight. Or that you told your friends that you're sister was super fast and then when she came to school she gained weight and became slow, i wasn't the skinny fast, athletic little sister that you knew. I don't blame you i don't begrudge you, I'm just stating facts as i see them. I am who I am today because of the circumstances of my childhood, and because I'm such a perfectionist i know that i will never be ok with who i am and that's something i need to deal with. But that being said when you say its ok to maintain 1000-1500cal and exercise 3x a week for an hr, i don't think you're helping or sending the right message to me. Instead you're challenging me to go lower because if 1500 is ok or is normal then i have to eat less to show you that I'm struggling that I'm not ok and that you need or should take me seriously. So i will endure the chest pains, the feeling dizzy, the heartburn, the nauseousness and all the things that come along with and ED to prove to you and to myself that i need and deserve help, in the form of monitoring and talking not sending me to groups that you think might be useful when I've told you many time that i don't want to do them. Just because you know me better now, doesn't mean i don't deserve the same kind of help that you gave me when you didn't know, nor does it mean that you understand what i go through or when i say its a cultural thing, just because my culture is not extremist doesn't make it any less hard or painful or easy to change, and simply saying just be independent, move out on your own and do w/e you want doesn't make it easy to do or the right solution. I generally pick the battles that i want to fight and you don't know the first thing about my culture so just because you moved out earlier, just because it worked out for you doesn't mean that it will work out for me, or that you understand what I'm going through.
