I struggled with an eating disorder for almost 7 years (clinically), though it was probably present for a couple of years prior to that. During the early stages of my illness, my eating disorder was pretty much characterized by food restriction, excessive exercising, and weight loss (classic of anorexia nervosa). During the past seven years, I engaged in a plethora of different behaviors.
Bingeing, starving, the abuse of diet pills and/or diuretics, vomiting (only three times...but still three times too many), over-exercising, fasting, the abuse of laxatives, occassional periods of actually eating "normally," etc. But that is all beside the point. The fact of the matter is this...I had an eating disorder. For all of you that are caught up in the actual diagnosis, I was diagnosed as ED-NOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified). I was in active outpatient treatment for 6 full years, finally ending my journey in November of '05. I had one brief inpatient hospitalization in Dec. '03 through Jan. '04, but have otherwise managed to avoid that. I have posted my thoughts of the recovery process after 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 4 years of being in treatment. A lot of issues came to the surface during that time. Some issues that I honestly wish would've stayed buried forever. But alas, such is not so.
To read about some of my background leading up to the eating disorder, click here |
