Anorexic Tendencies

I've been reading that most people with eating disorders go back and forth between anorexia and bulimia.

Until now, I've always had anorexic tendencies but now I'm not so sure.

I remember at the very beginning fasting for days, exercising until dawn, and always lying about what I ate.

I started taking diet pills and energy powders months later. Exercise was the only way I got rid of the food I ate.

Last May, I was on the elliptical after work and I felt my heart beat so loud. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I stopped and looked at my friend. I told her I didn't feel so well and I have not gotten on that machine again.

I knew that I couldn't keep taking the diet pills, and exercising on an empty stomach.

That was the day, I quit using exercise to lose weight.

Since I couldn't exercise, I started to use laxatives in addition to diet pills and restriction.

I was going to wait until the summer to go into treatment but now I think I might have to go in earlier.

Something happened this week. I've had these urges, these thoughts to binge.

Until now, I've never known how it feels to binge or the anxiety that makes a person binge.

It feels like a fire in your heart, or a string that's nagging at your insides.

It's like all the hunger that you've denied in the past has built up and is demanding to be fed. It's the scariest feeling in the world; to feel your heart pound through your chest and feel your skin grow warm.

There is only one thought in your head, the one that's there at both extremes; the exit.

Neither extremes (anorexia/bulimia) are where I should be but this fire feels so foreign.

Every part of me it telling me to go back to my anorexia.

I am sitting here, with all of the dinner and dessert gone from my plate.

There's nothing left to consume and i'm craving for thoughts that I can't get back.

I'm going in circles and I can't find the straight line to recovery.

I was pumping gas today and I saw a homeless drug addict. She was clutching her bottle and relief was painted on her face. I didn't look at her with pity like the others around me. I saw myself reflected through her skin and bones, frail hair and sunken cheeks.

For the life of me, I can't think of what makes me different from her.