Living with an Eating Disorder

It doesn't go away. My life revolves around purging and binging, good times, and bad. I go days eating next to nothing, only to eat everything in my entire pantry the moment I am triggered. I'll be great for months, only to relapse and hit rock bottom again. It is a never-ending cycle. 

I was diagnosed this past year, my first year in college. I had gone in to do some studies for a psychology 101 participation credit and did not expect to have this talk with the researchers after. I had been living with this for much longer though. Looking back now, my first purges and binges probably started when I was at the beginning of middle school, maybe even younger. I would hide food, I would eat with no control, I would start a diet. Now I notice the patterns. I would purge to punish myself for being "fat" and then reward myself for losing weight only to lose control and eat everything once again. Now that I am aware of my illness, it is much easier to notice the patterns.

Right now, I am in the middle of that cycle. I had been so good, no binges for almost all of the COVID quarantine. Then I went on a trip and lost control. I ate just how I had when it was at its worst. I got back and purged, partly because of punishing myself for eating so bad and partly because I had been dumped and lost all desire to eat at all. But right now, I'm in this weird in-between phase. I'm eating, not a lot, but also not as little as I was. I'm scared that any moment though I will get triggered. But I can't live my life with this constant fear of binging.        

Slowly I am learning to take control. Writing about it is one of these ways. Being open about it is one of these ways. I am not ashamed to hide this part of myself because I am not my eating disorder, but it is a part of me the same way my eye color is a part of me. I never expect it to fully go away, on the contrary, I expect it to be a constant struggle that I must learn to control.