Chapter 30: Ghost of Chase Past

Well things are finally getting a little bit easier. I'm still stressed at work, but I'm really trying not to let it get to me. For those of you that read my very early blogs then you would have read something you may have just read over. It was in reference to my being an eating disorder sufferer. It started several years ago and has since been the cause of many problems that I have had. You may be wondering what I suffered from, well it started as binge eating, which is why I gained alot of weight, then it turned into bulimia then from there it grew into anorexia. I suffered from all three, at the same time. I would skip meals and only eat around 500 calories per day and then when I did eat, I would binge and then purge. It was a nightmare, but I couldn't stop. This went on for a while and I hid it extremely well. Not even my closest friends or family knew. Well one thing led to another and I ended up in the hospital because my body was beginning to "eat itself" from the words of my doctor. I got out, got better and maintained a healthy lifestyle. Now, keep in mind I was never 90lbs so it was really easy to hide, because I was a fat anorexic bulimic lol. Nobody had any idea.

I moved to Memphis in August of last year and I realized I had total control over my life...or so I thought. I started trying to lose weight again. I started working out and before I knew it I had slide back into the old rut and I had relapsed. I spent alot of my time in the bathroom or at Krystal eating as many little hamburgers as I could stuff in my mouth. I would then commence to go to an abandoned parking lot that I knew of and I would purge so that my roommate wouldn't know. This happened several times a week. I finally started going to therapy there on campus and it helped. I slowly started getting better and by the end of the semester I was once again back on a recovering track. This was around December, when I had my "medical scare" and it was then that I realized that I was only hurting my body and in order to lose weight I must do it the healthy way.

When I came back for Spring Semester it took every ounce of being that I had to fight off my EDs and to eat healthy and work out. Eating healthy was not really a big issue, but making sure I ate enough was. I went from eating 300-500 calories per day to 1500 calories per day. It was a big change. Many days I even found myself scrounging for food at the end of the day because I didn't have my calorie intake in. However, the more I worked out and ate healthy, the more weight I dropped. I realized I was finally doing it, and I felt great in the process.

The reason I'm writing this now is because for the past few days it seems everywhere I look something about Eating Disorders is popping up. I got a magazine the other day and it talked about men with EDs...I got a newspaper today and there was an article about teenage anorexics. The scary part is that I'm worried I'll relapse again. I'm terrified that I'll end up down that same road. If you'd like to know more, in depth stuff I'll be happy to tell you, but it's a long story and I'll prob. have to make it into another chapter lol. I know it hurts my body, but it was the eurphoria I got from binging and purging, it was the feeling of being in control. With this new job and my family and financial problems I don't feel that I'm in control and that scares me. We'll see how it goes I guess...thanks for reading :)