Eating

I'm not anorexic anymore.  I no longer starve myself.  I feed myself.  And often.  Much much too often.  I never really had a true diagnosis of anorexia.  I had/have what they call "Eating Disorder Unidentified". The definitions of anorexia and bulimia are very specific so if your symptoms deviate at all, you can not be diagnosed with either disease.  And I wasn't.  I was diagnosed as having an Eating Disorder Unidentified.  I would starve myself all day and then binge at night.  I never purged.  I just could never make myself do that. So the calories I deprived myself of during the day would be packed in every night when I binged.

I thought when I was released from the outpatient eating disorder program at the hospital that I would never need the help of any one again for an eating disorder.  I thought that disordered eating was in the past and I could charge ahead with life.  It's funny how one can pull the wool over their own eyes.

I still have disordered eating but it has swung in the other direction away from anorexia into over eating, which, for me, has so much more shame attached to it.  I have gained 100 pounds since leaving the treatment program. And yes, I know what they experts say about not weighing yourself, and size isn't a number blah blah blah but let's face it being seriously under weight or over weight isn't healthy.  And that's what I want, to be healthy.

So, years later my war continues.  I'm sick to death of essentially using food to slowly kill me.  At first I wasn't using it enough so I would slowly starve over time. Now I'm over using it and facing a whole host of issues that comes with being obese.  

Obese.  Now there is a word I never would have thought I could use to describe myself.  But I have to face the facts, I'm no longer just overweight, I am obese. I can no longer do simple stretches like I have done all my life because my fat gets in the way.  I can no longer wander aimlessly about town all day because I get winded so easily. I can no longer just walk up a flight of stairs without getting completely winded and end up breathing big huge heaving breaths.  None of that makes me happy and it does in fact illicit an enormous amount of shame.  How the hell did I allow myself to get to this?

I need to extract myself from living this unhealthy lifestyle.  I do not want to live life this way.  Using food to stuff myself so I don't feel the feelings.  

I've started counseling again.  I hope it works.  I hope I truly listen and learn this time around.