I Would Take It In A Heartbeat!

I had always wanted to lose weight, but I never really had
the willpower to stick to a diet. I would get tired of the sheer boredom of having to eat healthier. However, this all changed about two months ago when I contracted the flu. That's when I lost the first kilo. Although it was a small amount of weight to lose, for me it was all the incentive I needed to start my much needed dieting.

I started cutting down radically on the calories. I cut out chocolate, chips, bread, and peanut butter, everything that I had previously loved. And I got the results! I felt amazing and people complimented me. "Lauren, you are so skinny!" "How do you do it?" "Wow, such willpower!" If anyone got worried about me, I would get furious with them. In my mind I thought that they were conspiring against me or just jealous of what I had been able to accomplish.

Because of all the concern, I stopped sitting with my friends at recess. Instead, I went to the library or the computer room. I became a lonely, sour and grumpy person. I became a bitch. Anorexia makes you a bitch.

As I got thinner, I got weaker. Walking up the stairs would take me ages. I was so cold that I had to get dressed under my duvet. I got so cold that I didn't even shower anymore. My complexion was terrible, sometimes it would be custard yellow or an off-white color. My mom was terribly worried about me, she was afraid that I might have cancer!

On the last day of the school term, my school counselor asked to talk to me. I had no idea that she was going to speak to me about my weight. She asked me about my period and I when I told her that it had stopped, she became very worried about me. Not getting your period indicated that you were losing bone mass and a lack of estrogen. I think that was a huge wake-up call for me. I started eating again almost right away.

Breaking my diet was not easy. When I started eating again, I thought that I would never be able to stop. I had a hunger so great that no amount of food could satisfy it. I no longer had the self-control I had when I was starving. That's when I began to make myself vomit. That way I could have the proverbial cake and eat it.

It was disgusting. Food would sometimes come out of my nose. My voice turned raspy and my throat was constantly sore. I got blisters on the tops of my hands from where my tooth had broken the skin whilst vomiting. My school counselor was on to me. She knew what I was doing but she couldn't do anything until I admitted what I was doing.

Eventually, I got help for my eating disorder. I went to a clinic during the school holidays where I put on some weight. I'm still underweight and I still struggle with eating disorder thoughts, but I am on my way to recovery and that's the most important thing.

The message I want to send out with this story is that anorexia and bulimia are not glamorous. They sneak up on you and trap you and before you know it, you've lost your friends, hurt your family and you've basically destroyed your life. Eating disorders are difficult to overcome and they're a horrible thing to live with. If someone could give me some magic medicine to make things go back to the way there were before my eating disorder, I would take it in a heartbeat!

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