It was September 2018, and I was in A&E after collapsing at work. The doctor said I was severely dehydrated and needed IV fluids, but he couldn’t explain why – I looked healthy.
He was also concerned that my heart rate was extremely low and at risk of giving up, but again, he had no diagnosis.
I wasn’t listening. All I could think about was how many calories might be in the fluids. Was it going to make me gain weight? How could I burn it off? It was actually these types of thoughts that had landed me in hospital in the first place.
The doctor left the room and my husband broke down next to me. He looked me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘Can you really not see what this is doing to you? It’s killing you.’
For 14 years, I have struggled with atypical anorexia. Despite having the symptoms clinicians usually look for to diagnose anorexia – restricted eating, excessive exercise and fear of gaining weight – my weight has mainly stayed within the normal range, while my BMI is at the top end of healthy, and actually the lower end of overweight.
I consistently find myself having to validate my illness, however, because I am ‘not slim enough’ – or I am ‘too fat’ – to have an eating disorder (ED). Over the years I have felt wrong, invalidated, and questioned whether I am making it all up.
I was 14 when my ED first manifested. I started a diet and constantly compared my body to others. I had been bullied and felt like it was all my fault, my body’s fault – maybe if I looked different I might be treated better, too.
I resorted to bingeing, purging and restricting my food, measuring it out and monitoring my weight very closely. I was trying to feel in control of things that were out of my hands, but the sad truth was that my ED actually had complete control over me.
By the time I was 25, I was exercising excessively and abusing laxatives, as well as use diet pills I had bought online.
My BMI remained normal but weight loss had become addictive. Friends complimented me on how well I was doing on my latest ‘diet’ and because I didn’t ‘look sick’, no one suspected that I had been up all night thinking about food, torturing myself by looking at recipes and memorising calorie contents.
If I dared to go out, to enjoy myself, I would come home and the scales would tell me I had failed and didn’t deserve to eat. It tore my self-esteem apart.
By May 2018, I was unable to work and experiencing crippling chest pains. When my periods stopped, I finally plucked up the courage to visit my GP.
I told him everything, and he confirmed what I had started to suspect. ‘This sounds like an eating disorder. Let’s check your BMI and go from there.’
He weighed me, and measured me, and concluded, ‘You aren’t slim enough for an eating disorder. Drink a full fat can of Coke a day to stop you from collapsing.’
I burst into tears but he shrugged his shoulders, adamant that I didn’t need help. I spiralled and upped all my efforts to lose weight.
My husband was so unhappy at the GP’s comments that he contacted the eating disorder charity Beat, who clarified that you do not need to be underweight to struggle with an ED. Anorexia is a serious mental illness that can’t be diagnosed just by looking at someone, and this is exacerbated in patients who are not underweight, potentially leading to dangerous delays in accessing treatment.
Beat helped me seek a referral and I entered treatment, eventually having cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for over a year and a half, and attending a day programme three days a week, where I was taught how to handle the ED voice, and worked through past traumas.
Initially, it was hard to accept even for me to realise that I was ill – the BMI chart showed I was healthy – but I couldn’t have been further from it, both healthy physically and mentally.
Having treatment helped me gain acceptance but since opening up about my illness, I have been greeted with the same damaging phrase time and time again: ‘But you don’t look like you have an eating disorder.’
I’ve had to explain to so many people what atypical anorexia is, including nurses and doctors. When I was having tests for long-term damage on my heart and fertility, my diagnosis was met with confusion. One nurse looked me up and down, and said, ‘You clearly don’t have a problem now!’
I nearly lost my life due to atypical anorexia but I was not taken seriously because my weight was ‘healthy’. If I had been smaller, and lost weight more quickly, I suspect there would have been more alarm but I was missed, congratulated and praised instead of helped.
Whilst I am mostly recovered, my ED has destroyed my reproductive system. I am on medication and hope that one day I can carry a child.
We have an image of what EDs look like: the painfully thin, drawn and usually female stereotype. It’s so dangerous – anyone who is struggling may hold back from getting help because they don’t fit the aesthetic profile.
We need to shatter that image. Had I know that others were also living with atypical anorexia, I might have reached out earlier. I may not have felt so alone.
On my journey through recovery I have met men with EDs as well as people of all shapes and sizes. Everyone’s struggle is real, valid, and can be fatal.
Find support
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can get in touch with the national eating disorders charity Beat by calling 0808 0801 0677 or through their website at beateatingdisorders.org.uk
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing platform@metro.co.uk
Share your views in the comments below.
MORE: What is Pica Syndrome? The eating disorder that makes sufferers eat chalk and ice
MORE: I was obsessed with ‘clean eating’ and it caused my eating disorder
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/05/eating-disorders-awareness-atypical-anorexia-12333290/?ITO=squid
0 Comments