Chelsea, 21
I can’t even remember when my relationship with food turned into something that was not what would be considered normal. I wish I could write out a timeline of my eating disorder that could be laid out neatly and perfectly, like a row of toy soldiers. But that would be far too easy. Being able to pinpoint the eye of this hurricane is an impossible task.
One of my earliest memories is sitting underneath the table in my dining room with the jar of brown sugar used for baking. Peering out through the chair legs surrounding me like jail bars, I had to make sure there was nobody around. I was hiding from my mom and grandmother. I started eating the chunks that form in brown sugar because of moisture. Popping them into my mouth over and over and over, like pieces of candy. When the chunks were gone, I stuffed handful after handful of sticky brown sugar into my mouth until I felt sick. I knew that this was somehow not something I should be doing, although I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why this was wrong. I was three years old and this must have been my first binge.
Obviously, developing a binge eating disorder at such a young age resulted in my being an overweight child. I was never obese, never stood out that much… just enough to make me an easy target for bullying. I was constantly bullied every single day from fourth grade onward to seventh grade. My ENTIRE CLASS decided to make me their scapegoat for every little issue that cropped up. I was perpetually ostracized and the concept of friends was beyond me. Finally, in eighth grade I moved on to a new school and made some wonderful friends that changed my life. I moved on to high school hoping that my worst days of self consciousness and body image were behind me.
Then, at the age of fifteen, I suddenly and inexplicably dropped a large amount of weight. I wasn’t doing anything to facilitate this, but my GOD, I wasn’t going to question it. I was getting compliments left and right. I had never gone through such a drastic change and I was loving all the attention. I completely ignored the fact that I was dehydrated as all hell, could never get enough water into me, and could not cross the room without stopping for breath. My friends noticed and pointed out to me that all my hair was falling out - it was everywhere. They all told me that I had diabetes, or at least was on the way to becoming a full blown diabetic. I ignored them because something wonderful was finally happening in my life. I was becoming thin… until I went on a family trip and my parents could not ignore what was happening to their oldest daughter when she had to stop and take bathroom breaks every fifteen minutes, and her entire stash of spending money went towards water and soda. Luckily, my parents recognized the signs before I went into full blown diabetic ketoacidosis because my father had type 2 diabetes. We tested my blood sugar and I was rushed to the hospital with a reading of “HI”.
This changed my life in more ways than I can even count. Starting insulin made me feel immensely physically better. I actually had energy again. My hair stopped falling out. My skin glowed, and the nagging nausea feeling always lurking around the edges of my life, left me. But the weight creeped back on, even higher than I was before. I don’t think I made the connection between diabetes control and weight gain, at least not at first. All I knew was that insulin was bad and I was bad. So I began rebelling.
I only rebelled a little at first. I was testing my limits. I did not forget how awful I felt before diagnosis, and I knew that feeling that way again should not be an option. But eating disorders don’t allow you to set limits. My limits creeped farther and farther back until I was only taking one long acting shot of insulin every few days. I manipulated my blood sugar meter with the test solution and frantically fabricated my records last minute, before my appointment with the diabetes nurse. This only worked for awhile until my a1c readings gave me away to my doctors, and I was subjected to hundreds and hundreds of lectures about diabetes control and how I was throwing my life away. I was asked over and over again if I was doing this to control my weight, and every single time I declared that NO. It was NOT about my weight, I couldn’t possibly be that stupid, silly or petty. I did NOT KNOW WHY I did this, I PROMISE TO TRY BETTER. And of course I never did. This went on for a few years. Cycles of lying and manipulating, then really, honest-to-god trying, and gaining weight. I would freak out, without fail, and slip back into the restricting cycle.
In 2008, my first year of college, I hit my lowest point. My doctor informed me that my triglycerides were dangerously high and I was treading a thin line. He told me that pancreatitis was 100% in my near future, and to get my sugars under control immediately. I went on a regime of cholesterol meds. I only took them for a week before I went back to self destruct mode. I didn’t care what happened to me. I was severely depressed and cutting myself every single day. My high school friends had grown tired of my constant excuses to get out of seeing them and my episodes of argumentative and irrational behaviour. My college friends had no idea what was going on and I worked very hard to make sure they only saw me as a normal, happy, girl. Until one morning, I woke up with agonizing pain in my abdomen. I could not stand, I could not sit, I could not lie down without screaming in pain. I vomited over and over and over again and I was convinced I was dying. I cried and regretted every single decision I had ever made to get to this point, and this notion flashed through my head over and over. “OF COURSE THIS IS ABOUT WEIGHT. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT WEIGHT. I CAN’T GET FAT. THE HOSPITAL IS GOING TO MAKE ME FAT. PLEASE LET ME DIE.”
My father rushed me to the emergency room. I made him pull the car over more than a few times so I could empty the contents of my stomach on the side of the road. I could not stop crying. I didn’t want to die. But I did not want to be put back on insulin. This was the last thing I wanted in the world.
This day and the few weeks that followed were a complete blur. I was told that if I had waited just a few hours, the fluid surrounding my pancreas could have caused necrosis, and I could have died. I spent two and a half weeks lying in a hospital bed on every narcotic possible. The treatment for this particular disorder was to limit every single thing that went into my mouth to give my pancreas, the digesting organ, a break. I did not eat a single thing for an entire week, and only clear fluids for the next week. Of course I lost a significant amount of weight while I was there. Nobody connected anything. Nobody asked me why I neglected my diabetes so long to get to this point. Nobody was concerned that they were feeding my eating disorder by not feeding me a thing. The second I got home, I binged massively on macaroni and cheese and ground beef and spent that first night curled up in pain, wondering if I did it again. I followed my treatment plan for the next few weeks and inevitably fell back into my old ways. Pancreatitis no longer scared me. After all, I made it through ONCE. I could definitely do it again. And after all - you lose weight by treating it. (I did stay on my cholesterol meds for a while. I guess I didn’t think I was that indestructible, after all.)
The years after this were much more of the same. I flunked out of my college program because I stopped attending classes. I somehow managed to scrape a certificate out of my diploma program, but I was lucky. I then convinced myself and everyone around me that I was well enough to go away to college, and I did. I managed to do wonderfully for the first semester until my father got sick, triggering me back into destruct mode. I dropped out and moved home. My father, my rock, died from diabetes complications and I could not even gather the motivation from this earth shattering event to get my shit under control. My eating disorder had possessed every cell in my body and I was no longer in control, not whatsoever.
Then something clicked, and I decided to get help. I begged my doctor over and over again to help me. I finally admitted that my poor diabetes control and perpetually high a1c’s were because I would rather die than gain weight. Years and years of mistreating my body, of pushing away every single person in my life, of manipulating my family and friends into believing I was fine, was actually taking it’s toll on me. I had no friends. I had no energy to do anything. I threw away thousands of dollars in wasted education. My hair had almost completely fallen out and my once beautiful thick hair had turned into a sparse wig of straw. My heart was starting to do funny things and I was scared. And after all this, I was still not thin. So I started outpatient therapy at the clinic in town.
This was two years ago. I’d be lying if I said I’m fixed. I am nowhere near okay, and the road has been a long and rough struggle. I’ve gone through periods of one hundred percent recovery and subsequent relapse. My depression and various other mental illnesses fight my recovery every single time I make an attempt, and more often than not, I fall back down.
This is not to say that recovery is not possible. I KNOW it’s possible - I’ve been there. It’s wonderful and beautiful and everything I’ve ever imagined life to be. The only reason I’m even still here today is because I’ve been helped by beautiful women across the world. Diabulimia Helpline and the UK leg, DWED, have saved my life. Getting help was the best decision I’ve ever made for my future. I now have the skills and tools to keep going and to keep fighting when I’m convinced I have nothing left in me. Not only that, but connecting with other women like me, from all over the world, has restored my faith in humanity. I see the beauty in the world now, and I honestly cannot say that I ever recognized it when I was in the throes of my ED. So please. If you’re reading this, you suffer from the same thing. Or you know someone who does. Just know that recovery is worth it, and is one hundred percent possible. And it’s not too late to get help. Life is beautiful when you’re healthy!
(Side note: When I was diagnosed with diabetes, they never actually said I was type one. I was referred to as a type 1.5 - and this was never elaborated on. After some research, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason that I’ve never gone into full blown DKA was because my pancreas still produces a miniscule bit of insulin for my body to use, and somehow miraculously saved me from being at deaths door every day.)
One of my earliest memories is sitting underneath the table in my dining room with the jar of brown sugar used for baking. Peering out through the chair legs surrounding me like jail bars, I had to make sure there was nobody around. I was hiding from my mom and grandmother. I started eating the chunks that form in brown sugar because of moisture. Popping them into my mouth over and over and over, like pieces of candy. When the chunks were gone, I stuffed handful after handful of sticky brown sugar into my mouth until I felt sick. I knew that this was somehow not something I should be doing, although I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why this was wrong. I was three years old and this must have been my first binge.
Obviously, developing a binge eating disorder at such a young age resulted in my being an overweight child. I was never obese, never stood out that much… just enough to make me an easy target for bullying. I was constantly bullied every single day from fourth grade onward to seventh grade. My ENTIRE CLASS decided to make me their scapegoat for every little issue that cropped up. I was perpetually ostracized and the concept of friends was beyond me. Finally, in eighth grade I moved on to a new school and made some wonderful friends that changed my life. I moved on to high school hoping that my worst days of self consciousness and body image were behind me.
Then, at the age of fifteen, I suddenly and inexplicably dropped a large amount of weight. I wasn’t doing anything to facilitate this, but my GOD, I wasn’t going to question it. I was getting compliments left and right. I had never gone through such a drastic change and I was loving all the attention. I completely ignored the fact that I was dehydrated as all hell, could never get enough water into me, and could not cross the room without stopping for breath. My friends noticed and pointed out to me that all my hair was falling out - it was everywhere. They all told me that I had diabetes, or at least was on the way to becoming a full blown diabetic. I ignored them because something wonderful was finally happening in my life. I was becoming thin… until I went on a family trip and my parents could not ignore what was happening to their oldest daughter when she had to stop and take bathroom breaks every fifteen minutes, and her entire stash of spending money went towards water and soda. Luckily, my parents recognized the signs before I went into full blown diabetic ketoacidosis because my father had type 2 diabetes. We tested my blood sugar and I was rushed to the hospital with a reading of “HI”.
This changed my life in more ways than I can even count. Starting insulin made me feel immensely physically better. I actually had energy again. My hair stopped falling out. My skin glowed, and the nagging nausea feeling always lurking around the edges of my life, left me. But the weight creeped back on, even higher than I was before. I don’t think I made the connection between diabetes control and weight gain, at least not at first. All I knew was that insulin was bad and I was bad. So I began rebelling.
I only rebelled a little at first. I was testing my limits. I did not forget how awful I felt before diagnosis, and I knew that feeling that way again should not be an option. But eating disorders don’t allow you to set limits. My limits creeped farther and farther back until I was only taking one long acting shot of insulin every few days. I manipulated my blood sugar meter with the test solution and frantically fabricated my records last minute, before my appointment with the diabetes nurse. This only worked for awhile until my a1c readings gave me away to my doctors, and I was subjected to hundreds and hundreds of lectures about diabetes control and how I was throwing my life away. I was asked over and over again if I was doing this to control my weight, and every single time I declared that NO. It was NOT about my weight, I couldn’t possibly be that stupid, silly or petty. I did NOT KNOW WHY I did this, I PROMISE TO TRY BETTER. And of course I never did. This went on for a few years. Cycles of lying and manipulating, then really, honest-to-god trying, and gaining weight. I would freak out, without fail, and slip back into the restricting cycle.
In 2008, my first year of college, I hit my lowest point. My doctor informed me that my triglycerides were dangerously high and I was treading a thin line. He told me that pancreatitis was 100% in my near future, and to get my sugars under control immediately. I went on a regime of cholesterol meds. I only took them for a week before I went back to self destruct mode. I didn’t care what happened to me. I was severely depressed and cutting myself every single day. My high school friends had grown tired of my constant excuses to get out of seeing them and my episodes of argumentative and irrational behaviour. My college friends had no idea what was going on and I worked very hard to make sure they only saw me as a normal, happy, girl. Until one morning, I woke up with agonizing pain in my abdomen. I could not stand, I could not sit, I could not lie down without screaming in pain. I vomited over and over and over again and I was convinced I was dying. I cried and regretted every single decision I had ever made to get to this point, and this notion flashed through my head over and over. “OF COURSE THIS IS ABOUT WEIGHT. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT WEIGHT. I CAN’T GET FAT. THE HOSPITAL IS GOING TO MAKE ME FAT. PLEASE LET ME DIE.”
My father rushed me to the emergency room. I made him pull the car over more than a few times so I could empty the contents of my stomach on the side of the road. I could not stop crying. I didn’t want to die. But I did not want to be put back on insulin. This was the last thing I wanted in the world.
This day and the few weeks that followed were a complete blur. I was told that if I had waited just a few hours, the fluid surrounding my pancreas could have caused necrosis, and I could have died. I spent two and a half weeks lying in a hospital bed on every narcotic possible. The treatment for this particular disorder was to limit every single thing that went into my mouth to give my pancreas, the digesting organ, a break. I did not eat a single thing for an entire week, and only clear fluids for the next week. Of course I lost a significant amount of weight while I was there. Nobody connected anything. Nobody asked me why I neglected my diabetes so long to get to this point. Nobody was concerned that they were feeding my eating disorder by not feeding me a thing. The second I got home, I binged massively on macaroni and cheese and ground beef and spent that first night curled up in pain, wondering if I did it again. I followed my treatment plan for the next few weeks and inevitably fell back into my old ways. Pancreatitis no longer scared me. After all, I made it through ONCE. I could definitely do it again. And after all - you lose weight by treating it. (I did stay on my cholesterol meds for a while. I guess I didn’t think I was that indestructible, after all.)
The years after this were much more of the same. I flunked out of my college program because I stopped attending classes. I somehow managed to scrape a certificate out of my diploma program, but I was lucky. I then convinced myself and everyone around me that I was well enough to go away to college, and I did. I managed to do wonderfully for the first semester until my father got sick, triggering me back into destruct mode. I dropped out and moved home. My father, my rock, died from diabetes complications and I could not even gather the motivation from this earth shattering event to get my shit under control. My eating disorder had possessed every cell in my body and I was no longer in control, not whatsoever.
Then something clicked, and I decided to get help. I begged my doctor over and over again to help me. I finally admitted that my poor diabetes control and perpetually high a1c’s were because I would rather die than gain weight. Years and years of mistreating my body, of pushing away every single person in my life, of manipulating my family and friends into believing I was fine, was actually taking it’s toll on me. I had no friends. I had no energy to do anything. I threw away thousands of dollars in wasted education. My hair had almost completely fallen out and my once beautiful thick hair had turned into a sparse wig of straw. My heart was starting to do funny things and I was scared. And after all this, I was still not thin. So I started outpatient therapy at the clinic in town.
This was two years ago. I’d be lying if I said I’m fixed. I am nowhere near okay, and the road has been a long and rough struggle. I’ve gone through periods of one hundred percent recovery and subsequent relapse. My depression and various other mental illnesses fight my recovery every single time I make an attempt, and more often than not, I fall back down.
This is not to say that recovery is not possible. I KNOW it’s possible - I’ve been there. It’s wonderful and beautiful and everything I’ve ever imagined life to be. The only reason I’m even still here today is because I’ve been helped by beautiful women across the world. Diabulimia Helpline and the UK leg, DWED, have saved my life. Getting help was the best decision I’ve ever made for my future. I now have the skills and tools to keep going and to keep fighting when I’m convinced I have nothing left in me. Not only that, but connecting with other women like me, from all over the world, has restored my faith in humanity. I see the beauty in the world now, and I honestly cannot say that I ever recognized it when I was in the throes of my ED. So please. If you’re reading this, you suffer from the same thing. Or you know someone who does. Just know that recovery is worth it, and is one hundred percent possible. And it’s not too late to get help. Life is beautiful when you’re healthy!
(Side note: When I was diagnosed with diabetes, they never actually said I was type one. I was referred to as a type 1.5 - and this was never elaborated on. After some research, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason that I’ve never gone into full blown DKA was because my pancreas still produces a miniscule bit of insulin for my body to use, and somehow miraculously saved me from being at deaths door every day.)