So, you'd think that things would be better now, but they aren't.. I don't know if any of you guys remember me. I think I stopped posting after summer break.. things are just.. awful.. Basically, my parents found out about my cutting and my eating disorder, and I've been going to a pyschiatrist every week since they found out, which was back in October (2005).. Its been awful.. they've been forcing me to eat 3 meals a day and watching me and ... it just sucks. But, lately they haven't, because they are trusting me more, and both they and my pyschiatrist thing I'm getting better, but I don't think I am... each and everyday kills me.. the mirror is my worst enemy... I hate it.. I hate getting weighed every week.. I hate going to the doctor every week.. I hate going to the pyschiatrist every week.. I hate feeling like a poor, sick, diseased child that needs constant care and attention. *cries*. They think I'm okay.. but trust me, I'm far from okay. I think i'm worse than I've ever been before.. *sighs*... but they don't know that.. these fake smiles must be pretty good.. because they're believing them...

At one point I was about to be put in the hospital, that's when the lies started and they started thinking I was making progress.. *sigh*.. I hate being so fake.. such a liar.. always pretending.. but no one here understands... I feel like I'm losing my friends in all of this.. I lie to them... I lie to everyone! I even lie to myself! *sigh*.. My friends get frustrated with me.. they don't understand why I keep doing this to myself... they think I'm stupid for doing it.. And they get mad when I don't tell them how I feel, but when I do tell them how I feel, they act like I'm stupid or something!! They just don't understand... I feel like I'm losing everything... I hate myself.. I honestly don't care what happens to me.. that's so sad, but its the truth... I know I'm never going to be thin no matter how much I exercise, starve, skip meals, lie about eating, use laxatives, whatever.. it doesn't matter what I do!! *cries*

So I was officially diagnosed with an eating disorder.. kind of weird.. I am considered a person with an eating disorder.. my doctor considers me bulimic, because I exercise to burn off the little calories that I do consume, and I do the chew-spitting thing (considered purging evidentally).. *sigh*.. Wierd, all this time I thought I was considered Anorexic... Oh well. Can you gain weight from chew-spitting?

Okay, so I don't know why I just typed all this out.. I guess I'm just frustrated, and I knew that you guys would understand and listen... thanks..

-Troubled

hey troubled, i remember you and it hurts me to see that you're feeling so terrible lately. this sucks, doesn't it? well, for one thing, nobody here thinks you're stupid and nobody here thinks you're "lame," so keep on these boards. you'll get a wealth of understanding and love, as i'm sure you know.

(for some reason, i can only think of one thing to say to you, but i think that's because i see it as the only thing you really can do, so sorry if this post seems rather blunt or something. i mean it with the best of intentions.)

are you sick of it yet? do you hate it? do you want to be miserable? do you want to keep feeling like a liar? do you want to be lonely? do you want to live the rest of your life hating every thing, person, action that relates to this disorder?

it's your choice and that's it. YOU are the only one who can decide that you'd actually like to live and be happy. so if you want to, then you know what you have to do. you have to be honest. that's the only way if you'd ever like a chance of the happiness you deserve. you aren't helping anyone by lying and refusing to recover. you sound more miserable than you did the last time you posted, so what's the point? why are you hanging onto it? i'd say just dump it and BE HONEST. if you can't eat, then you can't, but be honest about it. if you feel like sh** and you feel fat and digusting, then feel that way, but be honest about it.

all these secrets are tearing you up inside, sweetheart, and the only way to end your struggles is to just let them all out. imagine how good it'll feel!!!! you ARE sick and that's okay. the problem comes up when you try to "fake" that you're not. i know how tough it seems, but think in reality how easy it is. all you gotta do is be honest!

I don't want this to happen.. I don't want to hate myself.. to always look in the mirror.. to cry when I get weighed.. to feel like crap all the time! I want to eat like a regular person and not have people talk about me.. but I can't.. I just feel like I can't let go of this ED. And what's really killing me is that everyone thinks that I'm just fine, I'm great.. I'm okay.. never better.. They all think that everything is fine, but I'm not! *cries*.. Everything is so stressful... I just can't do this anymore.. I feel like I'm giving up hope of ever being happy...

-Troubled

TROUBLED TEEN! Oh yes I remember you. We had quite a long "conversation", remember?
And what a coincidence that i am just today checking the board again after having been absent for a very long time myself!!!!!!

So I went back to your old post which you had titled "My ED and weight gain" and read over some of it again.

Don't give up hope of ever being happy. Believe me when i say I felt the same way. ESPECIALLY during the time when I had started battling the eating disorder I went through. I was 18 at the time, or 19. I felt numb, unable to feel joy for things I had enjoyed before, too focused on eating and food, really preoccupied with it, stuck in little rituals I couldn't let go of, just totally un-free, and... I was just afraid i would never really "live" again. I remember I had just graduated from high school and my parents wondered why I showed so little interest in doing anything. I remember telling them that I just wanted to LIVE... meaning, just having a regular life back and not that state of... just vegetating.
Thinking back now I think I was probably clinically depressed.
I wrote a lot in my journal. Wondering if maybe I couldn't really feel anymore and thought about eating almost all the time because I was still underweight and maybe the body just does that when in an undernourished condition 9and experiments have supported that). And wondering where my life was going. And just crawling up inside myself a lot. Just living day to day, kind of a non-existence, battling so many fears and compulsions too... driving my family crazy with them and then feeling bad about THAT too... and always still feeling watched what i eat... and inside wanting to get better but not wanting to give up all of the ED at the same time...

OK but now let me tell you, a lot of things can happen in the space of, say... a year, or even a much shorter time. Gosh, during that time, if somebody had told me that a year later I would go to another country and spend the most fabulous summer I could imagine... would I have believed it? That a whole new world would open up for me?
Ha, i probably would have though, what me??? I can't even leave the house without worrying about everything, food-related and otherwise.... me doing something like that???

Ok I am 31 now, and yes I must admit there have been other battles in my life (maybe they are just part of life) but, OH BUT YES HAVE I EVER!!!! FELT REAL HAPPINESS AGAIN!
And I am now at a point where I am pretty satisfied with my life. It is quite an unconventional life, I don't have a regular job, I volunteer a lot and play street music and write poetry and live on the tiniest budget you could imagine... except for my trips between countries, because I live in two places, kind of... yes, that started THEN.
And as i said, it opened a whole new world.

All I am trying to say: We cannot know what the future will bring. How can we think we will never be happy again?
(I thought that again years later, when I had a different crisis, with obsessive-compulsive disorder, dragging on, making me miserable and feeling stuck - you thought I would have learned. When the happiness came back again it felt all the more blessed.)
Life is a series of ups and downs. Some people are more extreme in that. But all lives have ups and downs. Some down times are longer, some shorter, some worse, some just minor.

I have felt the thought it might never get better to be the worst fear of all, kind of.

All I am trying to say is, don't lose heart.

Kathrin