My Roar.

Hi.

First I would like to extend an apology for making you read this. I know it’s not going to be pleasant, and it’s not Sherry who is telling you this stuff. It’s just me, Crazy Des. Sherry asked me to write some of my story for you, and I will be honest, I had serious reservations. I do want to share, but I know that sharing the worst part of me will change what you think of me, and that is terrifying. But sometimes people go through crap, and their experiences can be useful, maybe even inspirational, for other people. So here I go.

I don’t want to provide a fake illusion for you in any way. I haven’t stepped on top triumphantly. I am not displaying a successful turnaround, and in fact, nothing of the sort. I have made progress, but only inside my head. I think a lot about these things, but I lack the ability to follow through. I think I am weak as ever. The student status has been unkind to me in seeking help, which is something I have always wanted, but I do promise you, you people who are reading this, that I really will seek help when the bank account is more willing.

I guess I could start at the beginning, for simplicity’s sake. I think I could say the problems began around 10 years ago, when I was in Grade 8 or 9. It began, first, with a tendency to eat lots of food and in secret, and eventually when the preoccupation for the “perfect body” settled itself in my mind, the obsession with eating and being skinny grew. Now, it’s a twisted two-sided issue.

But if we go back down memory lane, I think I can pinpoint the beginnings of “overeating” to a very, very young age, maybe like 10 or younger. I remember sitting on a beach with my family, and having just eaten lunch, I asked Mom, “hey, what’s for supper?” And she looked at me and said, “Des, you just ate.”

A couple of years later I taught piano lessons to my younger brother, and I bought candy as an incentive for him to practice, but I ate the bags of candy before it even made it to a single lesson. And worst of all, I remember making cake batter, loving eating it, and hiding it in my closet so I could keep eating it away from judging eyes. 

Then came the self-loathing. I grew up. My body changed. I gained weight. I lost weight. I gained weight. Back and forth, never happy, ever consumed. Having an addictive tendency for food and having a preoccupation with being skinny do not mesh well together. It’s a constant battle in my head: what do I really want? I want both. Well, I can’t win. Either way I am miserable in some way. Either way I will lose sacrifice something, but how badly do I want to lose one thing to get the other? I'm trying to have both, but I can’t have both. By trying to restrict the food in order to get the body, I go nowhere. Moreover, my weight loss attempts are intense and short-lived, and yet I hate the alternative lifestyle. Messy.

I don’t blame anyone for these problems. I don’t even blame myself. If I didn’t have this problem, I would have another problem. It’s part of life, being given hard things to deal with. Some of the worst parts of an eating disorder, though, is not feeling that you really have the control of what goes in your mouth, and how worthless you feel in the eyes of others, or when you look in the mirror, or when you see pictures of yourself. The worst part about my eating disorder, is that I feel I have zero chance at marriage because of what I look like. And there is so much more to me than what I weigh! Nasty, nasty stuff.

So after having beaten myself up I think it’s clear that has to stop. But when you have complex problems in which there are many ways to attack to make it better it gets overwhelming if you try all at once. One thing to work on at a time is the only way, I found, to really work on an issue.

And that is what I am doing now. I am working on one or two things. It’s hard. I also try to remember that what you look like is only one part of you. Albeit it’s important to many people, it’s not important to everyone.

Anyway, I hope that helped, or something. It definitely helped me to write it out! Thanks!

DP