A day in the life of someone with an eating disorderMar 20 '01 (Updated Jul 08 '01) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line What it is like for someone who has an eating disorder
I guess this should be called two days in the life of someone with an eating disorder. I am a dietitian who has the unfortunate history of suffering from an eating disorder. I am "cured" I guess, as cured as anyone who has had an eating disorder gets. What I am going to describe to you is my life about 8 years ago. I am not suggesting that this diet be followed by anyone, I am hoping that others may gain insight into what it is like to have an eating disorder and possible help others with this. 8:30 Wake up. Shower and get ready for class. 9:00 Go to class. 9:50 Leave class. Avoid going back to the dorm because breakfast is being served until 10:30. The thought of toast is too tempting. Instead go to the SAC (Student activity center) and walk. 10:10 At SAC. Step on scale. Scale says 119. Can't eat today. Go to track and begin to walk. 11:25 Feeling really dizzy and sick. Stop walking on track and get a drink of water. Go to the rest room and sit on the toilet for a couple of minutes. Try to hide from the world how horrible you feel. 11:35 Begin walking on the track again. 12:30 Shower at the SAC and head off to class. 1:00 Sit in class. You are so hungry that you can barely concentrate on what the teacher is talking about. Your head is already pounding. Luckily you picked up a died coke on the way to class and you have some Tylenol in your backpack. You take it. Hopefully that will make you feel better. 1:50 Head off to work. You are now somewhat safe because the dinning commons at the dorm is closed until 4:00. That means that you can't get food for a few hours, thus you are safe. 4:30 Get off work. You run back to the dorm just long enough to drop your bag off and pick up another diet coke. You can smell the food in the dinning hall. It smells wonderful. Your roommates are talking about what they are going to have for dinner and the ask if you want to join them. It is Turkey tonight. You love turkey, but the scale said 119. You can't eat. You did something bad and that scale jumped up to 119. You make an excuse and watch them head off for dinner. You put on some comfortable clothing and head out for a walk. 4:50 You begin your walk. While waking, you realize just how wonderful it is to not have to eat. Everyone else has to eat but you don't. Not eating makes you feel wonderful and full of energy. You feel like you are worthy of having friends and having a wonderful life. Not having to eat makes you special! You could walk all night if the SAC was open all night! Maybe tonight you will walk until midnight!! That would burn off a lot of calories. 5:00 You get at the SAC. You begin with 45 minutes on the stair climber. You can watch the calories get burned away on that monitor! Wow! You have already burned 45 calories and it has only been like five minutes!!! You keep going your full 45 minutes. You hope no one realizes you are on that long for you are only supposed to be on for 30 minutes. 5:45 Done with the stair climber! You feel great. You have just burned off almost 600 calories!!! Now it is time to walk. You get a drink of water and the begin walking on the track. You feel so proud of yourself!! You haven't consumed any calories today!!! That is wonderful. You have been good today. 8:00 You no longer can walk another step so you head back to the dorm. You have homework to do and you have one heck of a headache. You are very tiered, but you are not real sleepy. 8:20 You start your homework. 11:10 You finish your homework. You think you are one of the only people in college who does all their reading the night it is assigned. Now you have nothing to do. Your head hurts and your entire body hurts, but you can't sleep because you are to ach too much. All you can think about is food at this point. Thank God you have nothing to eat. You decide to clean the room. You scrub everything down. 1:15am. Everything is clean but you are still can't sleep. You are exhausted, but you just can't sleep. This is the "high" of not eating and over exercising. You go into the bathroom and pull out an old toothbrush. You decide that the floor may not be clean enough so you scrub the bathroom and the center room with that toothbrush. 2:50 You are done with scrubbing the floor. You decide to curl up in your bed and force yourself to sleep. Finally, at around 4:00 am you fall asleep. Next day. 7:20 you get up and shower and head off to class. You really feel great about yourself because you didn't eat yesterday. You feel light and free. You feel happy. Your head hurts and your body aches, but you feel great. 8:00 You go to class. Your head hurts so bad that the looking at things hurts. Ah, well. That is just the way it is. 9:00 Another class. You know that you will not get back before breakfast is over!! You don't have to worry about that. You sit in class and think about what is being served for dinner at the dinning commons. You know exactly what is being served everyday. You decide that you should eat today. You decide that you are going to have a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with lettuce and a serving of rice. That is what you will eat today. You begin to focus on 4:00 when dinner starts. 10:00 You go to work. You work just out of habit. All you can think about is that sandwich you are going to have for dinner. You obsess about it. 2:00 You are done with work and classes. You decide to go to the SAC to exercise before dinner. You get there and you weigh yourself. 116! That is great! You feel wonderful!!! You feel like you can do anything!!! You begin to walk. 3:50 You get done walking and go back to the dorm. Dinner is to begin at 4:00. You can't wait. 4:00 You go to the dinning commons and get exactly what you said you were going to get. You eat it, savoring every bite. It taste wonderful. You wash it down with diet coke. You don't want any extra calories from your drink. 4:20 You are done eating and you realize what you have done. You feel yourself begin to bloat and you feel the fat forming on your body. How could you have been so bad to let yourself eat. You know that you can go three days without eating anything before you start passing out or having seizures. How could you have been so weak and bad? 4:25 You are back in your room. Your body begins to bloat because that is what your body does now when you eat. It is so used to not eating that it tries to conserve every calorie it can. Your headache is gone, and your bones are beginning to stop aching, but you hate yourself. You no longer feel light and special. You no longer feel like you can take on the world. You hate yourself. 4:30 You are in the bathroom and you are pulling out the box of Correctol. You look at it and read "The mild laxative so many women prefer." Mild? Yah right. You take out four pills and swallow them quickly with some water. You know that in about four hours there is going to be nothing mild about what is going to be going on in your GI tract. You put on some work out clothing and head out to the SAC. 4:40 You start exercising. You don't have any energy. It is all because of that stupid sandwich. Why did you allow yourself to eat that sandwich? Why did you have the rice with it too? What is wrong with you? Why do you have to be so stupid and worthless to let yourself do something like that? You step up your pace. Yah it hurts but you deserve everything bad that happens to you. It is your own fault. 7:50 You honestly can't take another step. You are dizzy and you begin to feel that gurgle in your intestines. You know it won't be long now. You don't want to have that happen in a public bathroom so you head back to the dorm. You hope and pray that one of your roommates isn't taking a shower. You don't know if you can hold it until they are done. 8:00 You are back in your room. The roommates aren't there. You head off to the bathroom to get rid of dinner. You wish you could just vomit after you eat, but you can't. You tried that before and that never works. You sit there in agony for about 30 minutes while you swear your GI tract has turned to mush. It hurts, but you deserve this feeling. It is your own fault for letting yourself eat. 8:30 You are sick to your stomach, covered in sweat, and shaking all over. You stand up and the world begins to darken and you fall to your knees. You stay on all fours for about 30 seconds. The world starts coming back and the prickly feeling is no longer all over your body. You slowly stand up and go to your room. You put on your night gown and go to sleep. That was my life seven years ago. So many people have no clue what it is like to have an eating disorder. They don't fully understand it. Maybe this will help you to better understand what a loved one who has an eating disorder is going through.  |
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