TW: EDs.

I've had an ongoing battle with eating disorders since I was fifteen. My first was anorexia, the second was binge eating. The binge eating started about a year or so ago, but it's fairly manageable now and only occurs when chips or cookies are in the house. My anorexia on the other hand? It is a constant bat signal in the back of my mind. It nearly killed me in 2018. I starved myself to the point that I had lost roughly 50-60 pounds and as a result, my gallbladder started to fail. Which, you wouldn't think is that big of a deal because people live without their gallbladders all of the time. But for me, it turned my anorexia into what would appear to the outside eye as bulimia. I was throwing up everything that I ate, even if I managed to keep the food or drink down for a few hours. No matter what it was, I always ended up in the bathroom floor hugging the toilet bowl for dear life as my body purged the contents of my stomach.

The night that it became impossible for me to keep going was November 12, 2018. My back cramped up so bad that I could barely move, and every position I stood, sat, or laid in was painful. I went downstairs for tylenol, but when I couldn't find it, I looked at my mom and just started sobbing about how much it hurt. My shoulders were tight and radiating pain, my stomach was having convulsions trying to purge itself again, and I thought that I was dying because of how much it was hurting. Mom got dressed to take me to the hospital, and when I made it upstairs, I ran to the bathroom and proceeded to vomit everything that I had eaten in the last 24-48 hours. My stomach didn't digest anything in nearly two days and as a result, I had the worst gallbladder attack yet. When I say two days, I mean two days. I had eaten fried rice from Panda Express two days earlier, and it was projectile vomited into my toilet 48 hours later. 

The doctors of course said nothing was wrong. So they sent me home, and I had about 10 more attacks that week. I begged my primary care doctor to give me an ultrasound and to do whatever tests he could to find out what was wrong with me, so he agreed. On the ultrasound, they could see over a dozen stones moving around in my gallbladder which was then reaffirmed by the surgeon after my gallbladder was removed. There were over 20 stones. 

Ever since then, I've struggled with eating. I eat the wrong thing--such as dairy or fried food--and I end up sick in the bathroom. I eat too much, I get sick. I eat too little, I get sick. My relationship with food has drastically decreased in the last two and a half years. And the worst part is my triggers that sends me into my eating disorder days.

Binge Eating: being shamed for my weight results in self-comfort in food. It typically lasts for a day or two until I feel so gross from the bloatedness that I stop it really quick.

Anorexia: being made to feel guilty for what I eat or where I get food, being shamed for what I eat, stares at what I eat, and just comments about my appearance. I can eat a sandwich and a single serving size bag of chips, and I'll be halfway through when the person I'm eating with looks at me and how much of the meal that I've eaten, and it sends me into feeling ashamed. So I stop eating. For days at a time. 

It's rough, and it terrifies me, because all I want is to be able to eat and have a good relationship with food. But it feels damn near impossible when everyone around you makes you feel bad.