The following rant brought to you by National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.



While going through old pictures I stop at one from 2003. It' my own eyes in the picture. Haunted and empty, pleading- See me. Love me and take away this struggle for me because I sure as hell can't.

It's a mantra that's been repeated so many times through my head throughout life. It's part of me and stemming from deep rooted anxiety issues and the occasional bout of depression. It's a plea for help from some primal part of my brain that realizes I can't live like I am. The outside of me and the surface of my brain loves the roller coaster ride my emotions are on. One moment, loving life. I'm NORMAL. Functioning and making eye contact with the outside world. The next- and who knows what precipitates this, be it an unexpected glimpse of myself in a large mirror, a minor error at work, the shrinking of a favourite shirt in the wash-- but it's all over.

to the scale.

to the measuring tape.

to the laxatives.

to the toilet, hand down my throat.

again with the plans to never eat as long as I shall live. 

again with the drama

It all seems cliche and dramatic and the truth is, that at times living with an eating disorder can be that way. Certainly, it is when it is put onto paper and laid out in stark back and white. The person living with the disorder doesn't write it to sound like this but it sure isn't an easy disorder to live with. It's a disorder that's hard to understand to somebody without issues. Food is energy. It's fuel. It's not love, how can it be punishment? How can it be used as a weapon? Especially as a weapon against oneself?


I lived with an eating disorder for years. Decades, in fact and again and again on this blog, I have mentioned that my children have saved my life and changed me for the better. Again and again, they have. They teach me how prcious life is and how WORTH IT it is to remain conscious and happy. This is not a lifesaving device that most people can use, it's just something that has worked for me.


 As a person surviving an eating disorder, I have to admit that it's never truly gone. It can be shoved to the background and ignored like a bratty child but it can never truly be let go. It taunts me daily for brief fleeting nagging moments and then I get on with my day. The regret after every meal never seems to let up though it's disappeared to a dull murmur that I can quickly backhand out of the picture so I can live the rest of the day. It's like all addictions. Never truly gone.

Therapists and wondering people will always ask the following: How did you become like this? what happened to you?


I have always had body issues. One of my earliest memories was self consciousness in a bikini at the age of 4. By the age of 11, I was bullied so mercilessly at elementary school that I began throwing up to prove to my parents that I was sick and could stay home from school. Let us forget momentarily the fact that this was a catholic elementary school where we were taught to love each other.... and that the teachers turned a blind eye to my suffering and allowed it to continue.... never mind that. Seriously. They were dark days for me... days where I honestly remember nothing but clouds and dread upon going to school.

By the time I was 13, I was purging regularly to lose weight. I don't think it worked for weight loss but going through a growth spurt at the time, I maintained a low weight while getting ever taller and in the end, I was underweight. Not a big deal at the time- I think everybody was gangly and still growing into their bodies. It was more of a hobby to me than a true endeavor.   

Through the next 8 years or so, I was okay. Teetering on the edge of an eating disorder. Toying with the idea. I read every book about anorexia in the library. I kept my weight stable with purging and by walking EVERYWHERE.

The real trouble began in 2003 when I moved away from home. I'm talking an 8 hour drive over mountain passes to get home to see mum and family. It was a hard time. I was always fully conscious of the distance. As a result, Body images, anxiety and depression all spiralled into one big emo-fuck-black-hole and I just... Willingly fell into it. Oh, let's add my first car (no more walking) and an inability to meal plan and cook for myself into the mix and well- I was fucked. First, I gained 30 pounds in a short amount of time eating instant crap and comfort foods. Upon realizing this, I stopped eating entirely.

As I mentioned before, I gained 30 pounds really quickly when I moved. Food is how I learned to cope. The day my brother died, mum took us to McDonalds on the way home from the hospital. She then went straight to the kitchen and made a roast AND pork chops, salad, buns and veggies. We ate it ALL. As a family. In a robotic haze. I remember it so vividly. Food is how we as humans connect. I'm sure it's a long lost primal urge to gather around a kill and feast before it went bad. We celebrate everything with food. Women cry over ice cream. Dudes commiserate over wings and beer. People in general pass the time with coffee and scones. Young people dance while holding alcohol aka liquid calories. Then, we brag about how we will fight the hangover the next day with a fast food breakfast. We celebrate, medicate,  Dull ourselves, sharpen and connect over food. It's a primitive urge from the primal part of our brains. We can't help it. Some people like me though, we can't handle it.


 The day I 'broke' and fell headlong into hell was late summer. I was waiting to get into the on-air booth at the station I worked at as a producer there. I loved my job and still miss it today and regret the loss of my career promise when I began idolizing food.

For some reason, there was a full length mirror at the end of the upstairs hallway in that station.--The reason I question the full length mirror is because we were a RADIO station-- I was musing this as I looked over and accidentally caught a full length glace of myself. My apartment being so small and shitty, I barely had a shard of glass above my bathroom sink to look at myself in.

This glance of myself in a mirror caught me off guard and I saw all extra 30 pounds in their full oily fatty wiggly glory. It was an awful moment. I actually had a tummy flap and  my clothes were straining. The pencil skirt and shirt I wore daily (in different variations) had fit perfectly when I left home. Now, it was too small and ridiculous on me. The shirt was too short and My growing out shaggy pixie cut just added to my own horror. There are moments in life you jut don't forget easily and this was one of them.

The rest of that day was a blur but over the next few months, I slowly went crazy. Eating nothing for days on end. Introducing myself to laxatives, purging one carrot one evening because it wasn't on my 5 day fasting plan.

It came to a point where I couldn't focus on my work. I was making stupid mistakes.  I took illegal diet supplements. I drank liters of diet pop every day. I was on eating disorder help message boards looking for ways to get out. At the same time, it was my comfort. The excitement of losing one more pound, the games I'd play with myself and the planning involved.

My boyfriend was worried and we'd have all-out arguments over stupid things like V8. Is it FOOD? or a DRINK? I was convinced it was food since it's basically ground up vegetables. He disagreed.

There was a point where my body just couldn't take starvation any more and it naturally turned to food. In retaliation, I turned to bulimia. The binge-purge cycle took over my days and nights. I'd wake up in the morning with open cans of Diet Coke next to my bed and no recollection of how They got there. I think it was my brain starving. It needed food and I wouldn't eat any. In fact, I didn't know how to eat normally.


Purging and laxatives combined with the stimulants I was taking to lose weight gave me my very of heart murmur. I still have it, 10 years later. Mum would call and ask how I was, and I'd answer 'Oh GREAT, everything is awesome!" as I washed puke off my hands. I'd demolish $50 of groceries in a night and as a result, I'd have no money for my bills and my credit card was put into collections, my phone was cut off and the car's gas was continually on empty.


I don't think I can get into much more detail without glorifying the whole experience. It was not glamorous. It was not fun. I lost 50 pounds between end of September and Christmas. Some days, I ached to my bones with the lack of nutrition. I lived off coffee and chicken broth.

I honestly don't remember when I'd had enough. What tipped me off. I just walked into my boss's office and gave him my notice.

It was a moment of relief and one of panic. I was to move in with my boyfriend. I knew Brian loved me unconditionally. I knew it was the end of my personal control. The end of my freedom. However, it was the beginning of life, I guess. A transition to normal life.

It was hard, moving in with Brian and adapting to meal times and to grocery shopping for two normal people and not for one manic person. I gained weight like crazy due to something called metabolic damage. to date, I'm up 100 pounds from when we moved in but down 40 of that.

Again, it's my children who have stopped all crazy eating habits. I want them to see their mother and remember me growing up as a loving mother. Not a crazy woman who's never eats or is always throwing up. I want them to have a healthy image when it comes to food. A good role model. fter my children were born, I stopped and thanked my body for the first time ever. It had grown them for me. All my life, I'd hated it cursed it and tried to get rid of it. Now, it had done something extraordinary.
I could almost love it. No, I'm not there yet but I'm getting there. <3