Anorexia Nervosa Binge Eating-Purging Type

Heck of a name.

Those 6 words make up the eating disorder that I have battled day and night with since I was about 14 years old.

Back then, I was incredibly sad. I still didn't know why. I just knew that I was on meds because I was too sad to function. It all started shortly before I began cutting myself, which started just before I was 15. I wasn't diagnosed with my eating disorder until I was about 16, even though the disordered eating had been present since I was about 14, if my timeline is correct. 

Having disordered eating habits is an incredibly difficult thing to handle, especially when you know that something inside of you isn't right, but you don't know why.

ANBEPT is not a very common eating disorder. So uncommon, in fact, that there are no statistics. It is unknown how many people have it, and there isn't a lot of information available about it. It was originally used to diagnose people who struggled with anorexia and similar disordered eating patterns, but would purge after they ate a meal. To them, that was considered a binge. It was found later that some people actually binge, and then go through periods where they purge to make up for the period of time that the binge lasted. So it is now used to diagnose both types of disordered eating. 

See, at 14, food became my coping mechanism. I originally developed binge eating disorder (the most common eating disorder in the United States) before I developed anything else. My average weight used to be about 120-130. Once I started to binge, I went up to 200 pounds in a matter of two, three, or four months. My psychiatrist noticed, because they record my weight each time I have a visit with him. We talked about my eating habits. I told him that sometimes with the money I was supposed to use for lunch at school or spending money for sporting events (sorry mom and dad), I would instead use to buy comfort food; food that I knew would help make me feel better. I would be sure to eat it while I was away from home. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would sneak into the kitchen to take food. But I would try to hide that any of it was gone either by placing the package back exactly how it was before I took some of it, or by taking something that wasn't eaten very often in the house. 

I told him that all I ever thought about was food. All I ever wanted was food. All I could think about was the next time I got to eat. And when I ate, I ate.

By 15, I was cutting myself pretty severely. There was so much sadness that sometimes food didn't always cut it, so I found another way to cut it. Literally. My self-esteem began to change a little. When you cut, you pretty much think you are the most worthless human being to ever walk the planet. You believe that every single cut you make, you and your body deserved because you're disgusting in your own eyes. That in turn began to turn into I was disgusting from how much weight I had gained.

Someone with binge eating disorder doesn't typically stop. I on the other hand would feel terrible after a bingeing episode. Sometimes they would last a week, several weeks, and other times they would last months. To make up for all the weight I had gained, I believed I needed to lose it as quickly as possible. So in turn, I would restrict my diet completely. Most people who purge either vomit or misuse laxatives. But I hate vomiting, and I was afraid my mother would somehow find the laxatives. So I just stopped eating. Sometimes all I would have in one day was dinner. I had to have dinner otherwise mom would question me, and I didn't want questions. My portions were always small, and I ate the least amount of food I could get away with.

I would drop weight as quickly as I gained it. I thought I deserved not to eat. After how terrible I made myself feel from the last binge, I didn't deserve to eat. I didn't deserve the nourishment that my body in reality, actually did deserve. 

These eating habits continued all through high school. I constantly went back and forth. I would drop and gain weight to rapidly and so often that I couldn't get rid of the clothes I had just outgrown. Between the years of 2014 and the end of the 2015, I didn't hear much from my eating disorder. It was almost like it was dormant, like a volcano. But just like a dormant volcano, I was ready to blow at any second. I had stopped cutting myself by 2013 and I didn't have a coping mechanism. So I was just waiting for the day when the eating disorder would wake back up and consume me. 

In February of 2016, I had a major PTSD trigger. Naturally, I went back to only coping mechanism that I knew I wouldn't get as much shame for. I knew I had been addicted to food for a long time. But believe me when I say that I had never been addicted to it like I was after that trigger. 

I was hiding food in my room, crying over the fact that I knew I had to eat, and couldn't convince my mind that I didn't need that whole tub of ice cream in one sitting. All I thought about while I was at work was that whole package of cookies sitting at home with my name written all over it. Except it never stopped at the package of cookies or that whole tub of ice cream. I had to keep eating. I had to keep eating until I had reached the "food coma" state, which is referred to as a binger's favorite place to be. It's almost like a high. People, who binge, binge until they reach that state and they are able to relax because it makes them feel so tired. The uncomfortable feeling of being too full doesn't even matter because the food itself has made all of your negative emotions disappear.

I had to move back in with my mom in 2014 when I moved home from Georgia. When she and my step dad would leave on vacation - which was quite often - I took full advantage of being able to bake a batch of cookies, or a whole pan of brownies or entire cake. They would be finished by the time my mom arrived back home. I put the kitchen back exactly the way that it was before they got home, so they would never know that's all I lived off of while they were gone. Sometimes all I had for dinner was something smothered in butter and salt, two things I knew were bound to give me a heart attack later on down the road, and a package of donuts or cookies. Someone at work would be talking about something good that they ate the other day and I could physically feel my body crave whatever it was that they were talking about. 

I craved food. I needed it every single waking moment. I needed something to mask all of the pain I was feeling. The PTSD trigger not only triggered one specific event, but it triggered all three of the traumatic events that have occurred in my life. 

It is currently August of 2017 and I am still on that same binge. I gained 40 pounds in three months and for the first time ever, I have not been able to flip my mindset and get myself to stop eating, or at least get back to a place somewhere in the middle. 

My eating disorder is not something I talk openly about like I do with the rest of my mental illnesses. It's quite embarrassing to admit, because I don't seem to have any control over the amount of food I eat in one sitting.

I have tried to come to terms with the fact that I may have permanent effects from the eating disorder. My psychiatrist told me a long time ago that going back and forth from bingeing to purging can be very damaging to the heart. It isn't good for my blood pressure, which is already high. It isn't good for my cholesterol, which is also already high. I risk the chance of a heart attack very early on if I continue bingeing. 

I have made a lot of improvement on where I'm at with my trauma, and I'm hoping that with a few current life changes, my disordered eating will start to improve. I find that with every single time I eat, I picture myself having a heart attack at the age of 40. I know that every single thing I put into my mouth and consume, puts me at risk for a heart attack. Hopefully someday soon I will be able to get back to eating patterns that are not disordered. 

If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text START to 741-741

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