My eating disorder background

I have an eating disorder. Binge eating disorder. It colors everything in my world. It completely affects the way I see myself and how I assume others see me. It is insidious and destructive to my mind, relationships, and body.

I have had this disorder since I was 9, but it wasn't diagnosed until I was 27. My particular form of binge eating disorder hibernates. From 9 until 14 that meant that I only binged when I was visiting my mom over summer break--and from June to August I routinely put on 15-20 lbs. When I went back to live with my dad during the school year, I would lose the weight without trying to. I didn't completely understand why I binged when with my mom, but I always felt like my summers with her were incredibly chaotic and confusing. I turned to books and binging to deal.

When I was 14 my family was moving from Alaska to North Carolina and that summer I made rules for myself about what I could and couldn't eat and at what times of day I was allowed to eat. It was the first time I started restricting. At the end of the summer I had maintained my weight and would start a new school, in a new state, without appearing fat. Of course, in my own mind, I was fat whether or not I actually gained weight from binging. In fact, I am conscious of believing I was fat from at least the first grade, when a girl in ballet asked me if I was pregnant. I remember practicing sucking in my stomach in front of the mirror by the fourth grade.

Anyway, from sophomore through senior years I lost weight and my binging subsided, as I followed my new eating rules. After my senior year my boyfriend and I broke up and that summer I ate very little, which dropped me to a significantly lower size for the first time in my "adult" life. I was complemented repeatedly, which fed into my disordered eating. I was not anorexic, as I did not weigh 15% below the acceptable weight for my height, but I had eating habits in line with those suffering from anorexia. I was afraid of fat and stopped eating most meat because I believed I could see and feel the fat in it. My freshman year in college went well, but sophomore year I began binging again when my world was turned upside down. I slowly put on weight, got married that summer, and the binging exploded. I was scared about being married and my dad's family not supporting or speaking to me. Even though I found greater success in school after I was married, the binging was on fire and it didn't end until after I graduated and started my first job teaching.

The pressure I put on myself and the terrorizing fear I felt about teaching that first year combined with a 40 day fast my church was doing to make a dangerous eating situation. For some reason I literally thought that if I fasted everything but dinner for 20 days, I would not lose a single pound. So I signed up to do that. And I lost approximately 20 pounds in 20 days. (Healthy weight loss is considered 1-2 pounds per week.) I dropped three clothing sizes and I didn't even notice it. The entire time I still saw myself as fat. I didn't notice that my clothes were hanging off of me. I was so preoccupied with teaching and eating that one meal a day, which was what I spent every free moment thinking about. I ravenously planned and guarded that time and even turned down dinner invites from friends who I thought would pick "bad" restaurants because I couldn't "waste" the meal. I finally realized that I had lost weight when other teachers and secretaries commented on it. I went home, pulled out clothes from my senior year in high school and found they easily fit me. After the fast ended, I did go back to eating other meals, but I began restricting and keeping a notebook so that I knew how much I ate and how many calories I burned while exercising. I kept this up throughout grad school too, where I also maintained a 4.0 GPA. I did one more year of teaching in NC and then we moved to Ohio.

I didn't especially want to move to Cleveland. The name of my blog, Oh, Cle! is obviously a reference to Cleveland, OH--a place I (unjustifiably) blamed for all sorts of unhappiness in my life. For a long time I thought that if we could just move back to NC, things would get better. I know that's not true. Cleveland is my home. And Cleveland is where I plan to overcome binge eating disorder, which started creeping back into my life in 2005 when we moved here. It hit full-throttle, debilitating mode soon after moving into our new home in 2007.

That late summer/fall my uncle died of a heart attack at 50, my house was broken into twice, I had a student teacher that I didn't really know how to help the way I wanted to, goals that I had in my personal life were unmet, and my husband was traveling for long stretches of time (weeks and months at a time). I didn't know how to deal with the chaos, fear, loneliness, anger, and hurt in a healthy way. So I ate. And ate. And ate. There are so many things I can say about this, and it really still feels right at the surface for me, so I'm sure I will over the course of this blog. But suffice it to say, I was eating secretly until I felt in physical pain and I would collapse asleep for 2-3 hours. Then I started fantasizing about purging. I imagined that puking up all the food would make me feel so much better, but I knew that puking was a sure-fire sign of bulimia. I knew bulimia was an eating disorder, so I finally told a close friend who is a doctor how I was feeling/eating and he told me that I probably had binge eating disorder and needed to see my doctor immediately.

From ages 9-27 I just thought I was a weak-willed, undisciplined slob when it came to eating. Now I know that I have major psychological issues that need to be dealt with. I also know that binge eating was my mechanism for emotional survival when I didn't know of any other way to deal with life. I'm trying to rewire my brain chemistry, my body, and thought process to respond to my world in a healthy way, but it is really, really hard for me. This blog is an attempt to look back at and deal with my binge eating disorder so that I can view the world, myself, and my relationships in a healthy way.