to clarify

[efface]

i hear so many people talk about eating disorders and people who have them, i just feel the need to talk about it from my point of view.

what do i hear? how ungrateful we are that we can afford food but choose not to eat it. how we should just "eat a hamburger". how we're all a product of society's vision of perfection

Comments

[rememberingjae]

This topic always bothers me on some level. I don't know what I believe.
See, I had the reverse disorder of ana, which is where food controlled my life into being overweight. I have recently lost 150 pounds.
And my doctors always say "Obesity is a disease" and I've even run marathons to help raise money for the research of the disease of obesity...but how exactly do we catch these diseases? At some point, I think it's entirely physchological. I know I was born with the gene of severe addiction. So is that the real disease; addiction? obsession?
Just like in the movie Bounce "alcoholism is a disease". "Yeah, I hear you can catch it from open bottles." Because you're not an alcoholic until you take that first sip...
So, I guess I'm just saying, someone who's struggled with food their whole life, I'm not too comfortable giving away all the responsibility away to a "disease". I will always struggle with wanting to eat. My weight will always bounce up and down between those same 10 pounds. But there are times where I think I'm just a normal girl, who just has to eat healthy foods and exercise and I know I'll be ok.

[efface]

i don't give all the responsibility away to it being a disease. at first, it was just about being thin, getting in shape. but i think once i reached a certain point, my mind was so far gone that i didn't have a clear perception of what was healthy and what wasn't. i would look at pictures of bony, anorexic girls and think, god they look good (pictures that now make me disgusted.)

i guess the only way to really realize how far gone you are (at least, for me) was to hear other people say how much weight i've lost and how skinny i was. i didn't see it at all. i was always (and still am, at least in my mind) too fat. and knowing that i'm the only one who sees myself that way makes me think that yes, this is a psychological disorder as well as something i got myself into.

i hope that makes some sort of sense.