Anorexia - From the perspective of a former anorexic

Anorexia - From the perspective of a former anorexic

How do you explain to people why you suddenly stop eating? Why can't other people see you the way you see yourself?

These are the two most common questions people with eating disorder anorexia face as their bodies gradually become thinner and thinner until they look like emaciated skeletons and, in some extreme cases, starve themselves.

Of course, there are no easy answers to these questions. Anorexia is an extremely complicated and dangerous disease. It is an eating disorder that originates in the sufferer's own mind. Uncovering the source of this terrible disease has long baffled families and medical professionals as they tried to deal with the tortured victims. However, I would like to give an insight into one person's difficult struggle that lasted more than 20 long years.

For me it started simply with Charlie’s Angels. Yes, I can definitely pinpoint the start of my obsession with the arrival of these three dynamic and slim small breasted beauties on the small screen. Now I know you may be thinking, “But anorexia has nothing to do with deep-rooted, terrible family trauma.” Well, that seems to be the popular thinking these days, but honestly, I don't necessarily subscribe to that view. In some cases it may be true, but for me and many other young women it is simply the desire to be thin. Nothing is more complicated than that. I wanted to be thin. I wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett Majors.

And so I started eating less and less until I was surviving on a bowl of All Bran and a tube of Smarties. Running miles and miles a day. Dancing around the house for hours burning calories and popping laxatives and diuretics morning, noon and night. And even when I was under 6 stone, I couldn't convince myself I was thin enough. Unfortunately, I was one of those people cursed with a big stomach. No matter how much weight I lost, my stomach always seemed out of proportion to the rest of my body and I felt fat. Even when Charlie's angels were a distant memory, the battle continued daily.

Of course, this kind of lifestyle could not continue. I had a child to take care of and a home to take care of, and somehow I managed to stop myself from destroying myself. However, eating disorders like anorexia never really go away. They nag you and threaten to drag you back down when you least expect it, but for me, I decided to use the experience to figure out why I had fallen into his grasp in the first place. My problem was and is my stomach. More specifically – flatulence. Bloating makes even thin people appear fat. It's a strange complaint in that the sufferer seems to have a completely flat stomach first thing in the morning, then for some reason it explodes like a balloon in the evening. No matter how thin your arms and legs are and even though your shoulder blades stick out through your clothes, you still feel fat when your stomach is swollen. So I decided to focus my energy on finding the cause of my problem and perhaps finding a solution. Luckily, I eventually managed to isolate the culprit that was causing my bloating. I realized that through careful dieting I could control my symptoms and discovered that, although I now weigh over 2 stone more than at those low points in my life, I actually look fairly well proportioned and relatively slim. This led to me recording my results in my book, The Flat Stomach Diet.

So there you have it. Although this sounds like an oversimplification of a serious and potentially dangerous illness, it is nonetheless a true account of my own personal experiences. There can be many reasons why someone becomes anorexic, and for some it is a lifelong spiral with no happy outcome. But if you are suffering or care about someone who is, I hope this report shows that some of us have found a way out and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

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Inspired by Elizabeth Hartley