Trigger warning: eating disorders
Eating disorders aren’t just for skinny people.
Mine looks like:
-not eating for 12+ hours
-taking 2.5 hours to try and plan a binge that will satisfy all the cravings
-spending 5 minutes eating enough food for 2 people
-waiting 10 minutes to feel full
-spending 3 minutes throwing it all up
-brushing my teeth for 4 minutes
-going about my life as if nothing happened
-feeling both satisfied and empty
-feeling guilt and shame
My shift work life easily enables long spaces between meals and not resting enough. I’m a nurse. Do I know better? Absolutely. Does it matter? Absolutely not.
It’s the thinnest line I’ve known between control and out of control: the swing from binging to purging.
You couldn’t tell if you watched me at work or in public, eating carefully balanced and portioned meat, quinoa, and veggies or having a salad as my side.
Nobody sees because I don’t let them.
I’m fat, I have an eating disorder, and nobody knows.
I wonder about telling my counsellor about this but we easily use up our time talking about the myriad of other thoughts and feelings taking up my brain. Ironic that I take up too much space and I feel as though this, too, takes up too much space.
Admitting it to myself is a start, writing it here is a little further. One day I’ll say it out loud.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
(Before you get all up in my grill about me calling myself fat, objectively I am a size 3XL, ~280lbs, and 5’6”. I will not use my BMI as an indicator.)
Sight Unseen 