My experience

Hi everyone, I am a 17 year old girl who has struggled with anorexia for the past 5 years. It’s taken up a big part of my life. Ive spent most of my teen years in and out of hospitals and treatments centers. I’ve never actually been to high school and experienced normal teenage stuff. One of the roots for my anorexia was getting bullied as a 12 year old kid, I was made to feel like an outsider because I was still trying to figure out what I liked, who I liked, how I dressed, things I enjoyed. Most of the time I was the main target and was shamed and told I was fat and stuff like “I can see your three chins” “you have rolls” stuff like that. I thought that because they would constantly sit there and criticize my body then that must be the thing that had to be changed. I was always a healthy kid who enjoyed food, healthy weight range for my age. It first started wanting to loose a couple of pounds to not get judged. Then when they noticed it, it felt powerful the main bully couldn’t continue to say she was the smallest one of the group. These toxic friendshipss lasted for about two years. I did not know when enough was enough from them because I was lonely and they were my sisters friends. If I didn’t have them I had nobody I felt. Soon there was a desire to loose even more because of how powerful I felt. And it spiraled really deep without me even realizing it. I had a couple er trips before everything really started to get bad. My parents had hired transportation to take me out of my bed at night without my acknowledgment to restrain me and send me to a treatment center states away. I had gotten out after a couple of weeks because they couldn’t handle the SH I was doing. I went home tried to eat normally for a week but went of the scale and spiraled so I went back to restricting. I had been in the hospital a couple times after that before my first real stay. Prior to the stay I was waking up at 3 in the morning to exercise untill afternoon. If everything didn’t align under my routine I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night and I felt extreme guilt. I was forced out of the home by police to take me to the er. Where I had stayed for 3 months, I didn’t realize how bad it was until I had found out I had given myself SMA sydrome and had to be tube fed for a month when all I really wanted was to eat. I was dying they had to wake me up because they were afraid my heart would stop in my sleep. I came out feeling better and decided to give recovery a shot. And I was okay for a year just thoughts here and there but then I relapsed and was in the hospital for another month this year. I got let out a couple of weeks ago, I really do want recovery for myself but it sounds impossible.  I’m struggling to find motivation to live my life to as full as possible.