Making a list of ways I can catch my hunger cues better. My bullet journals used to be sources of very-well-masked self-harm with all my trackers and such, but these days I've switched gears a lot.
Only took 23 months to figure out. But alas. I'm getting to a point where I'm trying to get my life back.
tw from this point forward for disordered eating
My anorexia had been quietly progressing slowly for about 2 years, and triggered the spiral of my health that lead me to seek diagnosis. But I went another 2 years after losing a ton of mobility VERY SUDDENLY, and almost died because my DE wasn't picked up on (not even by me).
Because every piece of advice is dietary and exercise related, and because i was desperate to protect myself from the eventualities hEDS could being... I went off the deep end attempting to preserve my health, and literally almost died as a result.
When I discovered my anorexia was causing so many symptoms, I started my recovery. And I refuse to ever go back. Things have improved immensely, and I was kinda hoping I'd unintentionally gaslit myself into thinking I had hEDS - because then it could be undone.
2 months in recovery for my ED, after I blew my entire life up. I told my geneticist about my ED this morning, and he said even with malnutrition/DE playing a VERY LONG TERM AND LARGE part of my familial background- he still feels confident in diagnosing me with hEDS after meeting the criteria (thanks 4th grade leg scar).
I was kinda hoping it was all DE.
but now it's both, and I don't know what recovery is going to look like with both factors at play.
We are obviously much more than objects, but for those who might appreciate similie:
Trying to change the ways our bodies are shaped is like taking a sledgehammer to a Dodge Ram (sturdy pickup truck), with the intention of making it look like a Chevy Corvette (sleek sports car).
Sure, you can make a dent. You might even be able to make it smaller all the way around. But it's gonna sustain a lot of damage, and eventually you'll just destroy the engine.
Because you're built differently. Don't get pissed off about the year, make, and model of the vehicle you were given to experience this life. Just take care of it, because you only get one. Our bodies are fragile, and we can buy a new car, but we can't replace ourselves.
What's the opposite of an egg btw? Do we still call ourselves eggs when we're going through another transition? Even if it's back to the first one?
I'm trying just to do what feels comfortable and most natural, and not force myself to make any choices yet. Been experimenting with new things, eyeliner, crop tops in public (that's a double whammy for my ED too), femm hairstyles. Starting to think of myself as just a super fucking queer woman.
Been considering names, because I never legally changed mine as an adult, and I know I get to call myself whatever I want. Have some great candidates.
My 11 and 1/2 years of living as a man kept me alive, it gave me ways to exert control over my body and the way I was perceived. I let me protect myself from oversexualization and the literal trauma of becoming a "pretty girl", by becoming the kind of man I would have trusted to walk me to my car. I got to make changes to my body that weren't rooted in starving myself (60 days in EDRecovery today, btw).
The photo attached is my first job interview look since I started experimenting with my feminine side again, earlier this week. I really felt like I finally saw myself in the mirror after all this time.
Also wore eyeliner in public, tied my button up shirt crop style, and bought a shirt in my former quasi-recovered size ((scooby doo))❤️ kinda weird when I still catch myself pulling my stomach in. I have to consciously release the tension and talk myself through being okay with just letting my body rest and exist without shame.
Yall, we can do this. Breathe. Be okay with giving up control. Be okay with being comfy.
Hi ya'll, it's me again.
I'm desperate. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in 2 days because my body decides I'm hungry as fuck again -right at- bedtime.
Tuesday night, I tried to just go to sleep - for worry of keeping my partner awake. It did not work, so I had a rough Wednesday.
Last night, literally as i was getting comfied up, my stomach told me "by the way, we're ravenous"
So I got up, ate some cereal, brushed my teeth a secind time, and went back to bed. An hour later, same thing, but this time -hummus and crackers, in hope the protein would tide me until morning. By this point, it was inching to midnight.
At 12:30, I chose to sleep on the couch - normally my secret weapon against my insomnia, because the living room is quieter (window AC in our bedroom). Still, I know for a fact it was past 2am by the time I dozed off - and guess what?
Got hungry again, literally as I started to fall asleep.
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Halp, I'm trying so hard to honor my hunger - but I can't be waking up every 2 hours for food. I need sleep just as much.
I've been sitting with and writing about the traumas that lead to my eating disorder, and my story is very similar to many folks in this sub. I was a "pretty girl" with a LOT of complex trauma especially around my body.
Feeling sexually objectified so often while I was still so raw, vulnerable, and ahem--- under-fucking-age, I might add... yeah, binding my chest and being a man made me feel safer.
I became the man who would have protected young me to the ends of the earth.
So yeah.
Hell really is a teenage girl, and I'm choosing to give her a sword now. But I have no idea how to navigate these waters. The idea of coming out again is terrifying.
I'm not name dropping her, but if you were a particular kind of goth girl between 2007 and 2013, there is a specific Victorian inspired musican known for being Hella problematic and pro-ana... Knowing what I know now, if I'm not mistaken, she's still in the throes of it. Do we know if she's okay? She's always been kinda secretive.
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Having said that, her music is ironically helping me reconnect with parts of myself I've been neglecting due to my ED. My long term ED straight up turned me into a shitty person, and she's never even tried to hide hers.
I hope she recovers and we can all heal together.
Hey yall.
Let me start by saying I don't regret living the last decade as a man, and that I'm not even sure if what I'm experiencing is a passing fancy or actually a desire to detransition. It's just... on my mind a lot lately.
I've been in recovery from a very-long-term eating disorder for about 2 months, and in processing my emotions around said ED, I'm seeing connections that I was denying to myself.
A lot of my ED stems from a hatred of my "pretty" feminine body, and I'm not 100% sure I became a man for the right reasons anymore. I don't regret it, and I think living as a man has kept me alive, but i think it may have also exacerbated my restrictive behaviors in the long term because I wasn't man enough...
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I needed to put this -somewhere-. It might be nothing. It might be something. To be completely honest, I don't know what it means, or if it means anything at all... Either way, it's in my head, and I had to put it somewhere else.
I put a count-up, so to speak, on my phone. To help me stay on the right path. I like watching numbers, so this is a significantly better number to aim for, and as long as I'm choosing to live and nourish myself over my ED - I'm winning.
I mentioned my partner performs with a local drag troupe, but I left out that I used to as well when we first started dating. After a few years, we chose to withdraw from the other organization and took a break. My partner got back into it after my health spiraled out from my ED 2 years ago. I've gone to shows, and helped as the occasional henchman for a specific performer, but I hadn't gotten on stage for a long time.
Doing drag helped me a lot, to get out of my own head and get past my insecurities. The art form embraces flaws and encourages unique appearances. I can't be afraid of someone's opinion if I'm putting myself out there like that, and I can't be afraid to strut either.
Last night, I asked the cast director if I could audition at the next show. I'm really hoping she lets me, and I'm hoping I get in. I think it's going to be a great outlet to let off some steam about my ED, plus I plan on learning to love my queer body for all its curves and parts - which, what safer place to be a man with boobs than a drag show?
I haven't felt so strong, so steady, so brave but confident all at the same time for a long, long time. I know my performance numbers are going to have to evolve with me, as my body recovers, so I don't overexert myself or cause harm... But I do think it's going to be a marvelous part of my journey.
Hey everyone,
My partner is a key member of a drag troupe, and they have an upcoming performance this weekend. I love shows, so much. We plan to eat while at the bar, and the troupe is Good, so the place will be packed, and the crowd will be wild. Usually these events are pretty spoons intensive, and I'm only 6 weeks into recovery (started therapy this week!)
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How can I care for myself if I choose to go to the show? Should I stay home?
Hi yall. I'm about 6 weeks into recovery, and am keeping a journal to remind myself why I'm doing this.
To anyone on the struggle bus, especially long-term ED sufferers like myself, it helps me a lot to list all the reasons I want to get better, and the progress I've made so far.
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-i can take a bath for the first time in 2 years without my bones causing excruciating pain from being against the hard plastic tub.
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-I can use the toilet without it bruising my poor butt cheeks
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-my teeth are FINALLY starting to look healthier, and the discoloration around my gums is beginning to fade. My gums aren't as swollen anymore, either.
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-the amount of joint & muscular pain I'm in is still a lot, but goddamn, if I could verbalize how much of a difference I feel between today and two months ago? It's flabberghasting. I didn't know it was possible for me to feel this "good" anymore.
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- I'm not dizzy as often as I used to be
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-I can finally get a decent night's sleep
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-I'm not unhinged and cuckoo anymore. No more mold hallucinations, or extremely ill-advised impulse choices that seemed like the only option.
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-No more crippling sense of impending doom looming over my head like a piano, ready to drop & squish me. My brain isn't scared of imminent death anymore, probably because I'm no longer actively dying.
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- those dark circles under my eyes are faded now
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-I don't have any new bruises, and all my old ones are finally healing. It usually took a month to go away, if it did at all, with how often any bump or impact resulted in a bruise.
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-I was able to grocery shop and not crash for 2 hours immediately afterwards (though I was still pretty drained, I did make sure to rest up)
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-I was able to go on a walk today through my favorite part of town, and snap some lovely photos of a plaza I find beautiful. I'm resting now, and making sure to listen to my body.
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-I feel stronger, and less fatigued
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-My balance is getting better, and I'm leaning on my cane less.
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I know it's still really early, and that I've got a long road ahead of me. I'm sure a lot of us do. But goodness gracious, I cannot begin to verbalize how worthwhile this journey has been so far.
Drew this about a month ago after I realized how bad I'd gotten & that I needed to start recovering fast. I was dancing with the devil at that point. Meant to be an androgynous human character, btw, for inclusions reasons. I meant to enter it into an art show, but didn't do it after all.
Hiya,
Before I dive in, just know, I'm choosing recovery now and am all-in. Waiting to pay off some medical bills I accrued during the worst phase, and will be starting in consistent therapy as soon as we can afford it.
Having said that, I was hoping to share my experience with what I believe were the psychological manifestions of a long term ED. Because I straight up lost my mind, my perceptions on the world around me were unbelievably twisted.
I felt like an injured bunny rabbit limping around in dangerous, predator filled woods. To the point I semi-hallucinated an interaction with my long-term loving spouse, which resulted in my leaving in the wee hours of the night back in December. (Perception can change everything, folks). We've been together nearly 8 years, and I saw them through a lense that made no sense.
We were separated for about 6 weeks, during which i only got progressively more paranoid, like I was in constant danger. I was having hysterical anxiety attacks, my judgement was a joke, and my impulsivity pretty much turned me into a loose-canon. I quit my job and ran away to Portland to be a homeless wizard with nothing but a bus ticket, a backpack, and a fancy cloak.
My rationality was gone.
And my already disabled body was put under so much pressure (surprise, surprise), that I ended up having a seizure in a hostel room, alone. I was back home a few states away within the following couple of days.
Then, after an important doctor's appointment, I convinced myself I had a condition making me essentially allergic to just about everything - started playing the elimination game to "find what was making me sick" (you know, the one of the disabled body). I think i almost died. I gave myself panic attacks for three days, so intense, I was hospitalized for another 3. But because I thought I was sick, no one batted an eye at me starving myself in the psych ward.
Not a week after being released, I convinced myself a very visceral panic attack was actually anaphalaxis, and took an ambulance to the same hospital - where I was informed (and angrily screamed at the doctors for telling me, politely) - that I didn't show any markers of an allergic reaction, even for the disorder I thought I had.
I'm still awaiting for genetics test results , as I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis for what could be a connective tissue disorder. Many of which come with a bunch of comorbidities. But I lost myself trying to fix my health with food, and I think I probably exacerbated and accelerated the progress of my health condition by having an eating disorder for. So. Long.
Until recently though, I didn't identify it as such. I'm rebuilding strength now, and figuring out a way through scary new territory. The book Anti-Diet saved my life, but i was on a library waitlist for it for almost 2 years - thinking it would detail the magic diet that would heal my rapidly declining health.
That's how I learned I WAS sick, but not the way i thought. The malnutrition was eating away my cognition, my reason... I've been eating mostly normally for about a month now. Not perfect, but significantly more consistent and balanced than before. I'm noticing I'm calmer, more logical, and frankly - way fuckin' funnier now too.
Anyway. Did anyone else just genuinely become a stark-raving mad, egotistical, maniacal, unhinged, jackass? Incoherent and unstable?
Hi, so I have chronic joint pain - and as a result, I got really skilled at ignoring my bodily cues. Hungry? Pee? Everything hurts? I have to tune it out to survive most of the time, otherwise my quality of life would tank.
Having said that, I've had to outsource. Obviously, paying attention to my needs and signals is hella crucial to my recovery. But i can't remain plugged in all the time, for sanity's sake. Instead, i have alarms. Every hour from 7-10, and approx every 2 hours from 12pm onward. I obviously fulfill my needs as noticed, but I don't always notice.
Alarm goes off, i check in: Am I hungry, thirsty, gotta go potty, pain levels, movement --- it's like a checklist. And it helps me a ton. So maybe someone else will benefit from this idea, too.