Experiences With Starving One's Self. (Potential Triggers Warning)

Starving yourself is a lot easier than you might think. It starts out with an itch, but one that comes from the inside, a feeling that fingers cant reach.

That feeling turns to pain, but not the pangs you would expect. Its a more hollow pain, like that ringing after you hit your head on something, the moment where everything hurts but is strangely clear at the same time.

After a while though, you just get tired. You find yourself wanting to go to sleep, even though its only 6:00 P.M., and you wonder why you feel this way. You had a full nights sleep last night — actually, you overslept. You overslept the night before, too. In fact, youve been sleeping a lot lately.

You stop to consider this fact and then you realize cant remember the last time you ate. You know that you had to eat at some point. You just dont remember it.

When youve gotten over the pain, staying in this third stage — the place where you dont feel hungry, just empty and tired — becomes like a habit. Some people smoke. You just dont eat.

I used to pride myself on this fact, my ability to go long stretches with almost no food. I knew that food isnt cheap, and I would think of all the money I must be saving.

I would look in the mirror and feel an unexpected sense of pride when I saw how my bones were sticking out and counting my ribs was like counting the dollars in my bank account. Some people put money into savings. I just got skinnier.

When starving yourself you tell yourself that youll eat later, when you can afford it and when youve worked for it.

You use this promise of food as an incentive to push yourself harder and be more beautiful, being the kind of person who has earned a hearty meal.

When youre cramming for an exam or you are on deadline, you feel your eyes closing – well into stage three, for a length of time you dont know how to count anymore – and you have another sip of coffee. Youll eat when you get done. If you just power through and get this done quickly, you can eat.

When you dont think you deserve food, youll find any reason you can to not eat. Youll tell yourself that youve spent too much today or that you ate so much for breakfast that you need to skip a meal – or a couple meals – to balance it out.

Youll avoid putting a label on it or talking about it and it might not ever occur to you that you have a problem.

Telling someone will make it easier and then it wont. You will go through periods where you eat more and then less again. You will try any alternative, look at the label of a bottle, one that promises to turn fat directly into muscle, and you wonder if a six-pack is hiding under your abs, just waiting.

You are certain this isnt how it works, but it doesnt stop you from trying. When youve barely eaten in days, almost anything seems possible.

It even seems possible that you might get better and that one day, youll be the person you wanted to be, and you dont need to starve yourself to get there.

You are certain this isnt how it works, but it doesnt stop you from trying.

You might not ever get better and you might get a little better. Better might not have a meaning anymore. Better might just mean different.

You might become better at forcing yourself to eat, even when you dont want to. You keep attacking your food, and you look in the mirror, expecting to look better to yourself. You want your body to reflect the progress youve made. But you just look the same.

You will look different — but always look the same somehow — and when someone tells you how good or how healthy you look, the compliment will startle you.

You will thank them, because you dont know what else to say. You itch, but its a different itch this time. One day, you hope to know what to say. When you finally eat, almost anything seems possible.

Wow...This is a post that is very relatable for me as a person who has struggled with an ED my entire life.

It really describes how an ED like this could develop and how easy it is to ignore the signs.

A part that really resonated within me and made me re-read it was: "Counting my ribs was like counting the dollars in my bank account."

As a person who has personally struggled with body image and eating for a very long time this makes a lot of sense to me.

I developed an eating disorder at thirteen and it started gradually like this post describes.

I would skip a meal or two and it would make me feel good about myself.

But slowly and surely it became a coping method for me. I would eat lesser and lesser every day.

For any reason that came to mind. Because someone said something or did something to me. It made me feel better. Like maybe if I was thinner then they would be nicer. If I was thinner then everyone would like me more.

And I started getting fixated on the imperfections in my body. I had too big thighs and my face was a bit too round due to the baby fat that still remained.

I didn't see the good parts. Only the flaws. I didn't see the color of my eyes which would make people comment on because of how pretty they were. I didn't see that I was already thin like I always had been.

I got depressed. When people commented on my body and asked me if I was on a diet then I would think that they noticed because I had been fat in the first place. They would comment on how good I was starting to look and I craved that.

Eventually I had gotten to the point that I was surviving on a piece of fruit or some yoghurt a day. I counted calories. I measured and measured again the portions of food I allowed myself.

Slowly I got...Less energetic and always exhausted. I could never seem to get warm anymore. I didn't want to go out or have fun and slowly my friends disapeared. One by one. Until I was alone.

And that to my mind was like a confirmation. That they were disgusted by me. That I wasn't skinny like they were. My mind which has always been my escape had turned into my worst enemy. I was so far gone that I couldn't even try to fight it anymore.

I was fifteen by that time. And the looks had started by then. I was too thin. I looked sick. They would all whisper about it. That I was chronically ill. Had Cancer maybe. Didn't know how to approach me. And it made it worse.

I thought they were all laughing at me behind my back. Because of how I looked. They weren't concerned about it in my mind.

And it got worse if that was even possible. I started thinking that I actually deserved it. To starve myself. That it was my fault for not being pretty enough or thin enough that they all hated me and talked about me in quiet tones.

I was consumed in self-loathing. There wasn't a day when I didn't think of just ending it all. I struggled with suicidal ideation constantly.

And then a male ex-friend approached me. And confessed that they had been struggling with bulimia for a while. It had been diagnosed a few months before that confession and they had asked me if I felt like they did as well. They were concerned about it.

At that point I didn't know what anorexia and body dysmorphia even were. Well...I didn't know the names for them atleast. I think deep down I had known for a while that something was horribly wrong with me.

As an only child who had grown up without a mother and with a distant father I had probably had Depression long before I developed my ED. But it only became truly noticeable to me then.

And with the help of that friend I learned about it. I hadn't wanted to accept it though. That something was wrong. I went to a professional and I got diagnosed.

I started going to a therapist. I spent all of my time with that friend who had confessed to me about his own struggle. And we got better together. Talking to him and opening up about it perhaps helped more than all the medicines and meal plans and therapy ever did.

I've had my set backs. I've gone through periods of it returning much stronger than it had been. My friend has too. I'm 25 now. And I can proudly say that I haven't relapsed for the past five years and I'm still going strong, even though I still have bad days at times.

I eat healthily and I'm at a good body weight. My friend has stuck with me throughout. And he's like a brother to me now.

This is about my own struggle with an ED and how I got through it. I wanted to share my own experience like the person who started this thread so bravely did.