Thread: Triggering: Why did your eating disorder start?
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Re: Why did your eating disorder start? - April 7th 2013, 12:24 PM
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Originally Posted by Harlequin. View Post
If I didn't get 100% on a test, I'd soothe myself by saying I had an excuse, I had Bigger Things Going On and that it was understandable I wasn't on top form. I think I just needed something to blame all my mistakes on.
This was a huge factor in why my eating disorder started. I didn't do very well academically during my freshman year of high school and I would often use food as an excuse to help myself feel better. I secretly wanted people to find out about my disordered eating because then they would "understand" why I was doing so poorly and help me. Of course, no one ever did find out about it because there wasn't really any visible evidence and I kept it hidden. I was a binger and sometimes a purger, so I never lost a lot of weight.

Other factors were loneliness and anxiety. I felt really inadequate when I first started high school, being in a new place and not really knowing anybody, so I turned to food to console me. I would try to restrict during the day, only to be so famished by the time that I got home that I would binge. Ever since I was little, binging has been my emotional outlet. I remember being a young girl and devouring boxes of my sister's Girl Scout Cookies and downing cartons of ice cream. The purging piece came in when I was older (15) and I started to become afraid of the possible weight gain. (Although I was always a normal weight growing up, if not a little underweight.)

As others mentioned, it was also about control, even though my binging left me feeling totally out of control. Quite the conundrum, eh? But whenever there was any intense emotion I didn't know how to cope with, I'd turn to food. Especially anger. If I was angry, I would binge and purge as a kind of silent "F* you" to whomever was upsetting me. I realize now that I was hurting no one but myself, but at the time it seemed like the "perfect" solution.

So: control, communication, anger, and an excuse.