Laxatives! Anorexia! Weight!
The title is excited because it just is, okay?
Last time i relapsed to anorexia it took me a little under 2 months to make my body physically sick…or rather, physically sick enough that i got the “your gonna die” talk from people. I only got to abuse laxatives for 5 days before i went inpatient again but in that time i took large amounts of laxatives every day. I think i started on a Saturday or Sunday..whatever day it was, my sister had come to visit and i ate cupcakes and i hadn’t been pooping because i hadn’t been eating but then i ate and i was so sore and uncomfortable and sore i convinced them to drive me the local shopping center. I think i told them i needed some groceries or needed more meds. Whatever i told them doesn’t really matter because i went straight to the pharmacy and stood in front of the laxatives. Bought two different kinds and was so excited i wanted to run home so i could take them.
I think i lost about 3kg’s in those 5 days before inpatient. I was dehydrated before i took the laxatives, by the time i was admitted to hospital for treatment i’d collapsed and cracked my head open running to the toilet and my skin was a grey-blue colour. The next week was hell. My entire body bloated. Arms, legs, feet, face, neck, stomach…everything started holding water and i gained 4kg’s in a little over a week (if memory serves correct). As a result of the laxative abuse and then my bowel not working properly i developed anal fissures (anal tear just inside your arsehole, incredibly painful). I’ve only just started pooping again properly this past week even though i stopped taking laxatives in late August-early September last year. …and i still keep getting anal fissures.
Laxatives really are not glamorous at all but i loved the sensation. The stomach cramps, the nausea, the then empty feeling. My stomach would be empty before the laxatives finished working so i’d just be shitting water. I’d feel so weak afterwards…my entire body would be heavy and kind of sore, an airy feeling. Like you’re gonna die but by this point you’re so completely fucking exhausted you don’t care. Laxatives do not actually aid in weight loss. The majority of what you lose is water and then once you stop taking the laxatives your body holds onto the water which is a horrible, kind of painful sensation.
Lea and Dianna: Real bodies vs. their Photoshopped counterparts
Here’s a comparison of two photos of Lea and Dianna: one was the photo taken of them in the studio, and the other the final Photoshopped photo scanned from a magazine.
Lea, Glamour,December 2011:
- Eye makeup was adjusted
- Eyebrows were trimmed
- Some skin spots removed
- Wrinkles on nose removed
- Wrinkles on wrists removed
- Tone added to legs and arms
- Breasts accentuated
- Waist and back made dramatically smaller
Dianna, Cosmopolitan,September 2011:
- Wrinkles from dress removed
- Elbow has been reshaped
- Mouth tension erased
- Armpits are smoother
- Arms are skinnier and more toned
- Collarbones less noticeable
- Nose reshaped
- Breasts augmented
- Stomach made smaller (it’s cropped out from this picture, but her waistline is at least 3 inches smaller)
(Source: sugar-plums)
Weight comparison- I was going through old photos in my external hard drive, found photos from my last anorexia relapse, was rather shocked.
The first photo is from about two days before my last hospital admission (early-mid September, 2011) for depression (while hospitalised diagnosed bipolar type 2 and borderline personality disorder) and anorexia. I weighed 48.3kg the day i was admitted so i must have been pretty close to that in the first picture. My eyes were sunken, my jaw line is sunken, i don’t think i look very alive. ..this is also a few days after my ‘laxative and dehydration induced collapse’ when i cracked my forehead open running to the toilet.
The second photo is taken about 2 weeks ago, weight restored and stable at 59.3kg. I am happy, i am healthy, i am more sane than i have been in years.
Reblogging because i can’t get over the difference. I showed mum the photos last night, she said i look grey in the first photo and she’s right. I was so dehydrated…i was grey.
Today at the GP he wanted to weigh me
I was so unprepared. When i see my dietitian i always were a short dress and either not stockings or stockings. That is it. I take off my glasses and my shoes and if i’m wearing a hat i take off my hat too and then only after hours or sometimes even days of psyching myself up i can then step onto the scale and find out my weight. I’ve been doing it this way almost since i started seeing my dietitian in 2010. Today at the doctors though…i was wearing jeans, a shirt, a cardigan, a hat and my glasses and socks and the doctor was like “Can you please step on the scale i need to know your weight” i just stopped. Sat there. Looked at him. And said “I’d rather not be weighed…PLUS i was already weighed yesterday!” He asked how much and i told him so then he didn’t make me step on the scales in his office. I have a set of scales at home but even to step on them i hate to psych myself up for it and now i only ever weigh myself before going to my dietitian. Not because i want to cheat the scale but just to see what mine say and what hers say. So that was my panic moment for the day. The internal dialogue was like “step on the scale??! He wants me to STEP ON THE SCALE? No way. Not happening. Not stepping on the scales. I’ll sooner walk out of the room without a script than step on the scale in front of him.” I can’t help but analyse this new doctors weight, either. He is quite large…fat. And it makes me uncomfortable. Like when i was inpatient back in August at the public hospital and there was a guy so huge he had to have a special bed. I hated eating in the same room with him and seeing what was on his plate. Like his weight would magically float off him and onto me or the absolute terror of losing control in my binges and getting as huge as that guy was. My doctor invokes that same feeling…not to the same degree, but still that feeling.
Dietitian appointment
Weighed in at 58.6kg which means i have gained 1.9kg in the past 5 weeks.
We went over the past two weeks of meals and i told Anne i felt like i have been over eating. She asked why and i said because while i have been busy and sick, i haven’t been getting any real exercise. She asked “What do you mean by real exercise?” I told her my normal workout regime and what i’ve been doing for the past two weeks and she said while i haven’t been doing actual exercise i have been doing accidental exercise with all my walking around. She looked back over my meals and said she thinks i’m doing pretty well, eating a good amount of foods. She said i am more than likely over-analysing everything (part of the anorexia).
She is happy with my current meals and was impressed with how quickly my body had started positively reacting to the FODMAP diet. In 1 week, to see if my body can handle apples, i’ll be having one apple a day for three days and if that goes okay with my body i’ll be allowed to have two apples a day, but i don’t have to do that every day if i don’t want to. That was the only dietary change today.
I told her i have been having potatoes which were a fear food and she was glad and that yesterday when i had banana bread for lunch, the cafe also gave me a little tray of butter and as a challenge, i used 1/2 serve of butter on my banana bread.
…apparently i’m doing really well.
Seeing my dietitian today
I am nervous because i have no idea what to expect. I’ve been sick for most of the past 2 weeks with the flu and then a swollen throat (today it is no where near as bad as it was on Sunday and Monday!) so i have been eating more because i have been hungrier and i haven’t been working out as much because i haven’t had the time or the energy after all the running around town i’ve been doing. Part of me says i’ll be fine because i have been doing a lot but the other part of me says i have had a few minor binges and i haven’t been working out as much so i’m really nervous about weigh-in. Just so long as it is below 60kg i’ll be okay is what i am telling myself..i can handle below 60kg. I really just have no idea what to expect. I think i’ll weigh myself on my home scale before i go..at least then i can be partly prepared for it at my dietitian’s. I just have to breath. I know i won’t be getting any meal increases.
Here is some lovely anorexia reality!
I have been weight restored for about 6 months now (longest i’ve ever managed to maintain my weight!) and i am going well in my recovery but that doesn’t mean the physical effects aren’t still there. I have depleted nerve endings meaning the nerves in my joints are damaged from starvation, my bowel doesn’t work properly and my collapsing episodes have gotten worse over the years from anorexia and laxative abuse and for the next 24 hours, i’ll be wearing this heart monitor (holter monitor) to make sure my heart is working okay.
I’ve been having collapsing episodes since i was about 13 years old but last August in anorexia relapse a few days before i went inpatient for the fourth time (second time for anorexia), i was about 48kg, abusing laxatives. I woke up at about 7am, feeling the laxatives and ran to the bathroom where i promptly collapsed face first into the bathroom wall, splitting my head open:
It was then i got a referral to the neurology department to check my brain was working okay.
Today i had an ECG and i spoke to the lady hooking up all my cords, she told me it was nice to be working on someone who isn’t a fat hairy man, that it was a nice change for a Slender…thin girl to come in. It was a little embarrassing because laying there, i knew i was horribly bloated and constipated. We talked about my Seroquel and i told her that sometimes at night after i take my seroquel my heart races and feels like it is pounding out of my chest. She mentioned it could be heart palpitations and if it happens tonight, they will catch it. …so it is possible that as a result of my last suicide attempt, laxative abuse and starvation i have actually damaged my heart.
Part of why i am posting all of this is to show you that anorexia is not some glamorous ‘lifestyle choice’. Anorexia is a mental illness. It is not a choice. It is tormenting, it is cruel, it can kill you. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. If i could, i would go back in time and catch myself in my first anorexic tendencies and i would stop myself from wasting so many years of my life going in and out of hospitals, in and out of bathrooms, in and out of grocery stores to binge.
This is the reality. Gaining the weight back is only part of the battle.
Here is some lovely anorexia reality!
I have been weight restored for about 6 months now (longest i’ve ever managed to maintain my weight!) and i am going well in my recovery but that doesn’t mean the physical effects aren’t still there. I have depleted nerve endings meaning the nerves in my joints are damaged from starvation, my bowel doesn’t work properly and my collapsing episodes have gotten worse over the years from anorexia and laxative abuse and for the next 24 hours, i’ll be wearing this heart monitor (holter monitor) to make sure my heart is working okay.
I’ve been having collapsing episodes since i was about 13 years old but last August in anorexia relapse a few days before i went inpatient for the fourth time (second time for anorexia), i was about 48kg, abusing laxatives. I woke up at about 7am, feeling the laxatives and ran to the bathroom where i promptly collapsed face first into the bathroom wall, splitting my head open:
It was then i got a referral to the neurology department to check my brain was working okay.
Today i had an ECG and i spoke to the lady hooking up all my cords, she told me it was nice to be working on someone who isn’t a fat hairy man, that it was a nice change for a Slender…thin girl to come in. It was a little embarrassing because laying there, i knew i was horribly bloated and constipated. We talked about my Seroquel and i told her that sometimes at night after i take my seroquel my heart races and feels like it is pounding out of my chest. She mentioned it could be heart palpitations and if it happens tonight, they will catch it. …so it is possible that as a result of my last suicide attempt, laxative abuse and starvation i have actually damaged my heart.
Part of why i am posting all of this is to show you that anorexia is not some glamorous ‘lifestyle choice’. Anorexia is a mental illness. It is not a choice. It is tormenting, it is cruel, it can kill you. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. If i could, i would go back in time and catch myself in my first anorexic tendencies and i would stop myself from wasting so many years of my life going in and out of hospitals, in and out of bathrooms, in and out of grocery stores to binge.
This is the reality. Gaining the weight back is only part of the battle.
Here is some lovely anorexia reality!
I have been weight restored for about 6 months now (longest i’ve ever managed to maintain my weight!) and i am going well in my recovery but that doesn’t mean the physical effects aren’t still there. I have depleted nerve endings meaning the nerves in my joints are damaged from starvation, my bowel doesn’t work properly and my collapsing episodes have gotten worse over the years from anorexia and laxative abuse and for the next 24 hours, i’ll be wearing this heart monitor (holter monitor) to make sure my heart is working okay.
I’ve been having collapsing episodes since i was about 13 years old but last August in anorexia relapse a few days before i went inpatient for the fourth time (second time for anorexia), i was about 48kg, abusing laxatives. I woke up at about 7am, feeling the laxatives and ran to the bathroom where i promptly collapsed face first into the bathroom wall, splitting my head open:
It was then i got a referral to the neurology department to check my brain was working okay.
Today i had an ECG and i spoke to the lady hooking up all my cords, she told me it was nice to be working on someone who isn’t a fat hairy man, that it was a nice change for a Slender…thin girl to come in. It was a little embarrassing because laying there, i knew i was horribly bloated and constipated. We talked about my Seroquel and i told her that sometimes at night after i take my seroquel my heart races and feels like it is pounding out of my chest. She mentioned it could be heart palpitations and if it happens tonight, they will catch it. …so it is possible that as a result of my last suicide attempt, laxative abuse and starvation i have actually damaged my heart.
Part of why i am posting all of this is to show you that anorexia is not some glamorous ‘lifestyle choice’. Anorexia is a mental illness. It is not a choice. It is tormenting, it is cruel, it can kill you. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. If i could, i would go back in time and catch myself in my first anorexic tendencies and i would stop myself from wasting so many years of my life going in and out of hospitals, in and out of bathrooms, in and out of grocery stores to binge.
This is the reality. Gaining the weight back is only part of the battle.
Here is some lovely anorexia reality!
I have been weight restored for about 6 months now (longest i’ve ever managed to maintain my weight!) and i am going well in my recovery but that doesn’t mean the physical effects aren’t still there. I have depleted nerve endings meaning the nerves in my joints are damaged from starvation, my bowel doesn’t work properly and my collapsing episodes have gotten worse over the years from anorexia and laxative abuse and for the next 24 hours, i’ll be wearing this heart monitor (holter monitor) to make sure my heart is working okay.
I’ve been having collapsing episodes since i was about 13 years old but last August in anorexia relapse a few days before i went inpatient for the fourth time (second time for anorexia), i was about 48kg, abusing laxatives. I woke up at about 7am, feeling the laxatives and ran to the bathroom where i promptly collapsed face first into the bathroom wall, splitting my head open:
It was then i got a referral to the neurology department to check my brain was working okay.
Today i had an ECG and i spoke to the lady hooking up all my cords, she told me it was nice to be working on someone who isn’t a fat hairy man, that it was a nice change for a Slender…thin girl to come in. It was a little embarrassing because laying there, i knew i was horribly bloated and constipated. We talked about my Seroquel and i told her that sometimes at night after i take my seroquel my heart races and feels like it is pounding out of my chest. She mentioned it could be heart palpitations and if it happens tonight, they will catch it. …so it is possible that as a result of my last suicide attempt, laxative abuse and starvation i have actually damaged my heart.
Part of why i am posting all of this is to show you that anorexia is not some glamorous ‘lifestyle choice’. Anorexia is a mental illness. It is not a choice. It is tormenting, it is cruel, it can kill you. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. If i could, i would go back in time and catch myself in my first anorexic tendencies and i would stop myself from wasting so many years of my life going in and out of hospitals, in and out of bathrooms, in and out of grocery stores to binge.
This is the reality. Gaining the weight back is only part of the battle.
I stepped on and off my scale 4 times
First it said 59.7kg but the next 3 times it said 57.6kg which means i’ve lost weight in the past week which i don’t think is possible. I think my scale is lying to me.
