W i s h b o n e (page 3, also pg 1; pg 2 and pg 4)
The Secret Wish To Be or Continue To Be Anorexic
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Hello there,
I know that secret desire to remain anorexic because it is how I live everyday. Normally I am able to maintain at a certain weight and not necessarily be healthy but maintain just the same. I have always continued to purge (10 years now) no matter if I was involved in the anorexia or not.
Vomiting was a way to hold on to the disease in one way or another plus it helped me control my weight. After an episode of intense anorexia, I often look back at that period with fondness and anger. I am angry at myself because I allowed myself to get better. I lost the willpower that I had. Whatever the underlying feelings, I just always missed the anorexia when it was gone.
This summer I started losing weight again. I would starve myself for days on end, abuse diet pills and diuretics. I lost a lot of weight. I could not tell I still felt fat. People started talking about me and I could not understand why. I felt heavy and did not think I deserved to eat. I spent
Christmas and New Years in the hospital and I gained a lot of weight. Now everyone says I look good and that I do not look like I gained weight. They tell me that I have my color back and I am a nice person etc. Inside though I am dying. I feel like I failed at anorexia. I cry because I am so fat and disgusting, I am embarrassed by my looks. I hate everything about myself.
I feel angry at myself because I have to eat. MY mission has become to lose the weight I gained in the hospital.
SO I know the desire to remain anorexia. Anorexia can be very seductive. I would rather die than give this up. I cannot tell anyone this because some people will be mad that I am trying to do this again. But more people would probably laugh at me because I never looked anorexic in the first place.
I have come to terms with the fact that the disease will eventually kill me.
I believe death cannot come soon enough.
Thanks for the website. -Rebecca
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Subject: Wishbone...
Dear Lisa,
I read the section of your site, Wishbone, with interest. I feel the same way you do about these "proud anorexics," and I admit to sometimes lurking at their groups out of morbid curiosity. But did you know that your website is one of their primary "inspirations"? I don't think pictures of emaciated women are really necessary to get your point across. I remember you saying elsewhere that you post them so that people looking to be triggered might read the recovery material. Understood, but the people who go there because they want to recover might end up triggered and set back. It's your website, and you can put whatever you want on it, but since you asked for opinions, here you go. :)
Respectfully, Kelley
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God, I feel like you are totally talking to me as I read this section of your Anorexic Web Page as well as all the other places I have visited while here.
For me, the whole "Wishbone" factor is so true. It all started when I was inspired to "fool" around with my weight when I first met my boyfriend's Mom 8 years ago. She would comment on everything that I would put in my mouth, telling me that I was going to get fat from it. She - an active bulimic -- may have noticed how we were similar in height and body structure and was trying to shield me from becoming what she always feared she would be - FAT. Or maybe she sensed that I was a little sensitive about my weight (I was 5 foot 1 inch and 115 pounds at the time -- my highest ever) and started to pick on me because it was her way of getting back at me for taking all the attention from her son away from her... After much therapy I still can't figure her out! But she obsessed over her weight and mine for so long that I was almost conditioned into thinking that I was gross and ugly because that was the way she felt about her own body -- and again, our bodies WERE similar... That is, until I did something about it... I began running and running and running some more to get rid of my thighs and ass but you guessed it - I just got more muscular. She then asks if I was afraid that I was going to "bulk" up from all that running, and that ended that. So, I cut back on all things that had fat (she told me fat was evil) and that helped a bit, but I was still not achieving what I was so determined to. Next came eating much less...
One day she sat my boyfriend and I down and told us she had big news: her dream of getting beautiful legs was going to finally be realized -- she was going in for liposuction and would we be able to take her! Right away I felt like she was not playing fair because most people (like myself) do not have the money to compete with cosmetic surgery. But instead of acting all jealous, I became obsessed with it and asked her millions of questions. I would go on the Internet and just drool over before and after pictures of women who once had huge saddle bags dripping from their outer thighs but now had beautifully sculpted ballerina legs. That freaked me out because it meant that she was going to win and look thinner than me!
The big day came and we took her to the outpatient hospital. Just before she went into the little pre-op room, she turned to me and said, "Next time you see me I will have perfectly beautiful legs!" I could have died right there from the seething jealousy bubbling up from my stomach. Little did I know then but her legs, as it turned out, were not that fab because the damn woman was 53 and the elasticity in her skin was not so good which leaves one with less than desirable results... Well, guess what I did a few months later? I took some of the money I had gotten from a scholarship, begged my boyfriend for a few grand, and went under the knife myself! And you know what she said when I told her? She said,"I hope that they do you butt!" So, at 108 pounds I had four pounds of fat removed from my inner and outer thighs, UNDER my butt (the doctor said my butt was more than fine), and my inner knees... As I got undressed to get into the hospital gown, I remember the nurse saying very angrily, "Another one of you skinnies! Why in the hell are you here?" I really did not care though because I knew that she probably could not see all the fat I was hiding.
The recovery was a bitch - I was a bloody black and blue mess for over a month, plus I had no feeling in those areas for quite a bit beyond that -- but the results were earth shattering! Let's put it this way, I caught the glimpse of a shadow casts from someone's legs and it took a few moments to realize that they were mine! I was more than thrilled with my new contours but now a major fear that the fat would come back set in...
Around that time I discovered her stash of laxatives and realized what she does with her many varieties. I went from just a few to over 50 a day. I was out of control with either eating everything or eating absolutely nothing. By this time also, she was making comments like I was getting too thin and crap -- but so were other people. So I got help. And it stuck for a while until just recently when I enrolled at the University of Maryland - 200 miles away from my home.
My fiancee (we got engaged) and I moved there and the first semester went just fine. I got a 4.0, was not obsessing about food or weight, and told his mother off for the first time about how she constantly talks about food and weight which does not help me in my recovery. But I really, really missed my family.
This past semester was a total wash because I was so homesick that I relapsed into my old anorexic ways and dropped a number of pounds in four weeks. In addition, I over dosed on laxatives and almost died. I had to leave the school and my fiancee so that I could get treatment where I live in New York.
Now I am going to get to the Wishbone part - I promise! I have been going to an outpatient eating disorder clinic for the past five months and my therapist just asked me yesterday if I actually want to get better. I told her I am not sure because now that I have failed at school and with my
fiancee -- what identity will I have left if I am not anorexic? I can't even work. Like, I am so worried that when I eventually see his family again and his Mom that they won't think I am thin enough to be anorexic and I am not really sick. Right now I am at 100 pounds at 5 feet 1 inch and I really want to drop to at least 90 before I see them. Or perhaps they will think that he and I had relationship problems so I just used my eating disorder as an excuse. I just don't know and I am frightened.
One thing that I did to help take the focus off of me and my anorexia was get a puppy. Lucy (a beautiful imperial Shih Tzu) gives meaning to my life which helps me to get up each day because I am responsible for her. She also aids me in coming outside of myself by being a huge part of me, but one that I can actually squeeze and love -- unlike my eating disorder. I can just look at her and bask in the understanding that I "brought her up" all by myself and she has turned out to be one of the most loving, gentle, obedient, smart, funny, beautiful, and independent young dog that I have ever seen.
Sometimes I wish I could be more like her! I take her with me everywhere I go -- like shopping, visiting, and/or any other place that will allow small furkids! I can't help but notice that I feel like I am protected by her when I don't feel totally up to a situation which requires me to go out when I am feeling real down. She is a great distraction because people go to her first before they bother with me and sometimes I need that buffer.
The more I reveal my feelings about Lucy, it really is becoming evident to me how much she is like a substitute for my eating disorder -- but in a good, less destructive way. I use my ED to hold people away from me the same as I do when I bring Lucy everywhere. Wow. Never really thought it out like I just did. Another example is when my Mom calls her "big girl" because she is bigger than my mom's Chihuahua. I know that she is just clearly comparing my 6.5 pound Lucy to her 3 pound dog, but it irks me because I feel like my Mom is saying that about me because Lucy represents me in a way. I also know that Lucy (like me) is underweight for her age as well as her breed. My doctors want me to be at least 105 pounds to 115 pounds and I am 23, but I will not do that -- no way no how. Lucy should be about 8 or 9 pounds by now and she is 6 months, but she is a picky eater.
Very interesting to say the least! Hey, and I did not even have to fork over the $175 for my "session" of sorts here! And you know what? I feel like I understand myself a bit better. Thank you so much for listening and having this web site because unlike the others I have hunted down, this one actually speaks to me the person and not me the patient. Also, the photo gallery was done in exquisite taste and was not at all triggering for me because the text that you included with it was so powerful and realistic.
Love and Luck. Stacey
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Subject: the desire to be, or stay, anorexic
OMGosh, this happened to me as a hint even before they diagnosed me with anorexia. I was at the Doctors office when they still didnt know what was wrong with me(niether did I), and I weighed like... low, way way under. This overweight nurse precedes to lift up my shirt and say"whew, I wish I had a waistline like that". I said nothing, but felt great about what she said, yet felt that I might need to loose a bit more.
Than a nurse at the hospital, medical hospital when I was first diagnosed and did not believe I was anorexic, well she was mean to me all of the time but mentioned how she wished she could have my problem for just a week. Talk about encouragement!! I have had several nurses tell me that, and also friends. When I lost alot of weight and I came back to school this fall I literally had girls chasing me around the halls in the cafeteria asking for my "secret". I told them it was nothing good, and I wouldn't tell them the so-called secret.
KRAZI WORLD!!
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NEW as of 4.8.00 below:
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Subject: Wishing to be anorexic
I was just sitting here reading your web page about wishing to be anorexic... crying because that is me. And I never thought that other's felt the same way I did. It was like my deep dark secret that I kept inside. I actually looked at your web site after reading about in People. I went to look... not for support in NOT becoming anorexic and all the bad things about it... but in hope to find some tips on HOW TO BE anorexic. Isn't that sick? I can't believe that I am actually admitting it outloud.
I feel so bad about myself, and never thought that I had a "problem", but reading your web site is making open my eyes. I was always a very normal and healthy weight and never felt bad about myself. But, when I started to have children (I have 3) I gained 60 pounds and have suffered enormously ever since. I have dreamed about, planned and honestly, even prayed that I could have anorexia or some sickness that would help me loose weight. It is horrible. And I am embarrassed to admit it. I hate my body, am embarrassed to go into public or to even have my husband see me undress. It consumes my life. Every minute. I am finally starting to realize I have a problem. Especially when two days ago, my five year old who is very thin naturally, looked in the mirror and said, I can't wear this, it makes me look fat! I know she has gotten that from me. I don't want her to be like me.
I don't know why I am writting only I guess to express feelings that I have never told anyone before. Thank you for your web site.
Melanie D.
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And on to Wishbone page 4 !!!
Thank you all so much for writing! If you want to help keep these thoughts rolling, and give us all something to think about while we are fighting the war between hunger and satisfaction.. write me (click here)...
