*Trigger warning!*
It’s National Eating Disorders Awareness week, and today’s post comes from a desire to raise a little awareness about what an eating disorder really looks like. You see, we throw a lot of words around: you look anorexic. I just totally binged on ice cream. Strong is the new skinny.
But I don’t think we understand what an actual eating disorder LOOKS and FEELS like. So…what does it mean to have an EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified)? What does it mean to be truly anorexic? Read on…but please be aware that there are triggers here:
I come from a family of exercisers. Fitness, for us, was an identity. I am my last marathon. I am my PR. I am my boot camp workout. “Health food”* was an important part of that identity: how you ate affected your body composition and your athletic performance.
Fitness was also a ritual. It was Tuesday nights at the track. It was waking up early on race day. It was biking to the gym before I could eat a rice cake. It was squat day or sprint day or deadlift day.
At some point, I came to accept the “fact” that I was only as good as my fitness.**
My EDNOS, my eating disorder not otherwise specified, took on many different forms throughout my life—from apples and rice cakes to “clean eating” to vegansim—but it was always closely followed by compulsive exercise.
So here’s where I want to differentiate between EDNOS and anorexia proper, both of which I’ve experienced:
My final relapse with my EDNOS kicked into full gear in 2009. I had just spent the most difficult year of my life as the 21-year-old director of an award-winning high school drama department. I had spent the year eating nothing but peanut butter on brown rice cakes, apples, Clif’s Bars, and organic Publix cereal with almond milk. After I left teaching, I had a whole summer to kill before grad school, so I started going back to the gym to do my chronic cardio and “get in shape.”
My boyfriend at the time was into weight lifting, so we would go to the gym together—and split up: he would head for the squat rack, and I’d make a beeline for the stairs-to-nowhere.
I’ve written about this before, but in a nutshell, when he and I went “long-distance,” I realized that my chronic cardio and caloric restriction wasn’t making my body look “fit” or “sexy,” so I resolved to look like an Oxygen Magazine model by the time I saw him next.
Now, here’s the thing: there is NOTHING wrong with going to the gym, picking up heavy things, and wanting to have muscle. NOTHING wrong with that. Working out is not, in and of itself, compulsive exercise or disordered behavior. But I have a disordered mind. And my disordered mind latched onto the identity that I didn’t have—the body that I didn’t have—and forced me to work to embody it.
Compulsive exercise and compulsive calorie counting is a real thing, and it’s something that affects more people than realize it. I became religious about my workouts and my meals to the point where I would have panic attacks if I missed a shoulder day or had to go “off-plan” at dinner.
Part of this was willed (I want to be fit and sexy) and part of this was psycho/physiological. Like any other addict I became dependent on exercise. From the caloric restriction, the lack of fats in my diet, the physically stressful workouts, etc., my brain chemistry began to change. The endorphin rush from a good workout was as addictive as a cigarette; however, no one said a word because six-packs haven’t yet been outlawed in New York public buildings.
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[image source]
When I didn’t exercise, I was irritable and impossible to be around. I told myself that rest days were for people who weren’t serious about their fitness, but in reality, it was my brain chemistry telling me that rest days were for people who weren’t addicts.
The more I exercised, the more I needed exercise—and the more my compulsive behaviors started to take over my life. Suddenly, calorie counting wasn’t just a tool—it was an if-I-don’t-do-this-I-will-die kind of exercise. My schedule became sacred—any deviation and I would become an unhinged mess.
I was constantly hungry, constantly agitated, constantly anxious. 5 am workouts were the only time I ever felt happy or whole. But I paraded my muscles whenever I could, bought new clothes, worked out in a sports bra with no T-shirt over it so everyone would see my abs.
You may know someone like this. Heck, you may be this person.
So you can see: I did not set out to become an anorectic. At all. My intention was to become strong, to build “sexy” muscle, to fit in with my boyfriend’s ideal of “in shape.” What happened, however, was that a combination of heavy exercise, orthorexia, caloric restriction, and genetic predisposition*** led me into obsessive compulsive, addictive behavior that was centered around my body shape.
Now, many people “stop” there, or at least don’t get worse, but that’s not what happened to me.
Even though I was losing fat, dropping dress sizes, and whatnot, I wasn’t anorexic. Until I realized that I wasn’t “there” yet with my body. So I started restricting even more, cutting out my “cheats” with chocolate chips and replacing real food with protein powder puddings.
I was fat-starved, food-starved, and exercising even more than ever. My mental state changed again. I started to become heavily depressed. I would cry at the drop of a hat. I quit grad school because I was too depressed. exhausted, and brain-fogged to concentrate on my former passion for theatre.
I stopped going out, started hiding my body beneath baggy clothes. The idea of tight clothing touching my skin, reminding me that I even had a body was physically painful. While I continued to outwardly obsess about my muscles, inwardly, I began to want to completely waste away and disappear.
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[image source]
In my EDNOS, I was “okay” with the number on the scale reflecting my fat loss and muscle gain…in anorexia, I began to will the number lower and lower and lower. In my EDNOS, I told myself that exercise was going to make me a stronger, better person….in anorexia, I told myself that exercise would help me disappear faster. In my EDNOS, I wanted my body to be “sexy” for my boyfriend, so I worked obsessively to make myself perfect…in anorexia, I wanted nothing to do with sex, wanted to completely erase my female-ness, wanted never to be touched again.
Anorexia is a scary place to be. I’ve been there a couple of times in my life, and I can speak from experience as to why the fatality rates are so high.
When you get to a place where your neurotransmitters are so unbalanced, where the obsession/compulsion is so strong that you can’t change even if you want to, where the depression is so consuming that the women on the suicide hotlines come to expect your call, where the fact that you have to be encased in a human body is so overwhelmingly unbearable…that’s when the stuff hits the fan. And many people don’t have the support system to help them properly recover.
I fought with several psychologists and psychiatrists. I begged them for help, but refused their help as soon as they offered it, because help interfered with my compulsive behaviors. I wanted answers but told anyone who tried to speak that they were wrong, even though I wanted them so desperately to be right.
Anorexia is not just a thin model on the cover of a magazine. EDNOS/exercise addiction is not just a healthy desire to “lose 10 pounds in 30 days.” These are both serious diseases that can lead a person to a dark and ugly place.
If you’re exercising to “get thin” or “be muscular” or “feel sexy,” I just urge you to always be aware of your behaviors and patterns. I urge you to do a weekly check-in with yourself. Are your workouts taking over your life? Are you counting calories even when you don’t need to? Are you restricting food? Starting to feel hopeless or anxious? Unable to participate in activities you once enjoyed because you have to go to the gym?
Let me be a lesson to you. Please reach out for help before you get to a place where your life is unsustainable. Please find a friend, a parent, a partner, or a doctor who can help you.
Not all skinny people have anorexia. And not all eating disorders look like anorexia either. But there’s a fine line.
If fitness is your identity, ask yourself: why? And what else can you add into your life that is just as enriching, just as rewarding, as winning a race or squatting heavier?
I wish you nothing but body love for this eating disorders awareness week—and all weeks to come.
Stay hungry,
*In this case dry salads and Clif’s Bars
**Random story that still embarrasses/haunts me for some reason to this day: when I was 17, I used to throw a lot of “parties” on the beach with my friends. I was the captain of the cross country team, and good at medium distance running on grass (3-5 miles). A friend of mine challenged me to a sprint across the sand, and I lost in front of everyone. That was literally 10 years ago, and I still remember how it felt to be made fun of for not being as “fit” as I had made my identity out to be. Sick, huh?
***More on that in another post very soon!
The post Is it Fitness, EDNOS, or Anorexia? Differentiating Disordered Behavior appeared first on In My Skinny Genes.