Out Loud

I’ve mentioned a few times before that I have a hard time admitting that I have an eating disorder. It’s even harder to talk about it out loud to another person. I tried talking openly with my boyfriend last night. I asked him if he wanted to hear about my new homework for my therapy, and he said, “…sure.” I could tell he was trying, but he really has a hard time understanding.

Yeah.. he didn’t really understand the importance of me working on my homework either. He mentioned that as long as he’s known me, this is a different ‘phase’ than he’s ever seen. According to him, I have a regular eating phase, an eat everything phase, and an eat next to nothing phase. This is a “weird” phase where he thinks I’m eating “normally” but I’m still obsessing like I would be if I was in an ‘eat next to nothing phase’.

I think that is actually a small victory. I’m in a different phase. I’m TRYING to break the cycle. I’m working toward finding that happy medium, and living there.

I told one of my co-workers. The one to whom I’ve been talking about my frustration with my boyfriend where mental illness is involved. She understands the need for therapy, so why wouldn’t she understand my reason? So I told her. I’ve been diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia Nervosa. and she said, “Oh my god. That’s so terrible. But wait… I thought you always eat supper.”, and she proceeded to try to give me constructive ideas on how to fix my problems. 😐

People may be more understanding of mental health now a days… but boy, they don’t really understand mental illnesses. Anorexic people eat. Bulimic people can keep food in their stomachs. And sometimes… you just don’t fit into a category at all. So they call you atypical.

It’s conversations like these that give me doubt. Even my Primary Doctor noted that I have a possibility of an eating disorder. Sometimes, I really wonder if I’m just making it worse than it really is. Maybe, I’m just a normal, healthy, 26 year-old woman experiencing normal thoughts for a healthy 26 year-old woman.

Or maybe I trust the therapist and acknowledge that I indeed have a problem. That this is not normal. That I am so stubborn, that I wouldn’t have even considered talking to a doctor about this if I wasn’t concerned, or thought I could do it myself. . .But I can have hope that one day, I will be able to have a boring, regular NORMAL life! There’s plenty of other things to make my life exciting. And I want to enjoy them.