Anonymous Story #26

My sister was diagnosed with an eating disorder. She became distant. She was always angry. I was afraid of her because whenever I said anything to her she made fun of me and she always made me feel really horrible about myself.

At age eight I started sucking in my stomach. I hated how I looked in my school photo. I thought I was huge.  And I hated myself. I used to wish with all of my heart that I would be pretty but I didn’t know what to do about it and I hated everything about myself. I had to get myself up and ready and I had to get my older sister up too because my mom had to drive my oldest sister to school. I stayed upstairs until they left. When I woke my sister up she’d yell at me then too. I skipped breakfast a lot.

My sister was diagnosed with depression. She was angry and always exercising and not eating and throwing a fit when we tried to make her. She stayed away from me. That’s what I wanted. Because if she didn’t then she was mean to me. I saw her attempt suicide. I stayed by myself the night they took my sister to the hospital. Both of my parents were gone.  My sister became extremely angry all of the time. She would yell and scream and push people around and throw things. I watched my sister exercise in secret. I listened to her purge in the bathroom. I watched everyone live not knowing what to do. Everyone was lost. My two sisters were both diagnosed with depression. They were both in therapy. They were both angry all of the time. They both screamed at me most of the time. They fought all of the time. My older sister used me as her punching bag. Sometimes literally, more often figuratively. Whenever she was angry she found me. My oldest sister did nothing but talk down to me or about me. She watched me eat. She commented on what I ate and yelled at me if I ate something she didn’t want me too. My parents told me that she was going through a rough time so I should just let her do what she was doing. And that’s all my parents could handle. I felt more and more unsafe in my life. I stopped inviting friends over because I was afraid that my sister would make a scene. I was embarrassed. 

When I was eleven I never ate in front of people except at lunch and even that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t talk to people. I never ate anything anyone offered me. I restricted my food slightly. I felt like I was huge. I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror checking how I looked. I sucked in my stomach. Eventually I thought I was so huge that there was no point in restricting so I tried to eat normally but I wasn’t sure what that was. I ate a lot and gained weight and hated myself because of it, but I didn’t want to be my sister so I tried not to notice. I became extremely depressed and thought of killing myself for the first time. I wanted other people to like me but I was so scared of them judging me I never spoke. I had one friend and I was completely quiet throughout most of the day. I wanted more than anything to be liked, or to be enough for someone but I never was. My grades were just average. I stayed after school every day doing work to make my grades better. I also didn’t want to go home, because if I went home I’d be alone. I got myself up in the morning and I got myself ready for the day because my mom had to drive my sister to school. And when I got home I had to wait an hour before anyone would be home. I was terrified of being home alone but when I told my parents they told me I’d be fine. I didn’t tell anyone that I stayed after school every day, because I was afraid they would make fun of me.

When I was fourteen, I started isolating.  I had flashbacks to when my sister was really sick and I was scared all of the time. I because extremely depressed and suicidal and I started self-injuring. I self- injured regularly. My friends started worrying about me, telling me I needed to eat but I lied and told them there was nothing wrong. I laughed and told them I was too fat to have an eating disorder. They didn’t believe me, but they kind of did. I was extremely depressed and restricted and binged (minimally). I started restricting and exercising a lot over the summer. When I went back to school everyone told me I looked great. That was really nice to hear. I counted calories a lot. I started self-inuring on and off throughout the whole year. 

 My sister was doing better. My family was more stable. Everyone thought I was fine. My high school teacher told me I needed to eat. But I ignored him and told him I was fine. So did everyone else.

When I was fifteen I restricted a lot. My entire life was about restricting. It was all I thought about every day.  I worked out at least once a day, sometimes more. I would be really hardcore for a while, but then I would back off. I realized what I was doing wasn’t really great, but I didn’t think I had an eating disorder. I didn’t accept it. I thought I was normal. And I’d convince myself I was healthy, and then go back into everything. But I never was healthy. Even when I tried to be I didn’t know how. And I couldn’t bear to make myself eat more than normal. If I did I panicked and needed to get rid of it, but I didn't purge yet. I was too scared. So normally in the beginning I just self- injured a lot when I felt that I ate too much. I purged once or twice throughout the entire year, but very rarely, I just did it after I felt I binged. I was so scared of it. I counted calories more than ever and I knew my calories burned as well. Over the summer I did that same as the summer before and I lost weight. I started purging a lot more at the beginning of sophomore year. I self-injured several times a month. I went to therapy and she told me I was fine. I stopped purging and just restricted just as I had before. I worked out every day, twice. 

When I was sixteen I purged and I restricted and self-injured a lot. I stopped going to therapy after three months because no one really seemed to think I needed it and I didn’t want to get better anymore. My therapist didn’t believe that anything was wrong, and she had told my parents there was nothing to worry about. So I told them she wasn’t helping and I went off the rails. The only time I ate was when I was with my family. And I exercised a lot. My parents realized something was wrong, but not how wrong it was. I went to the hospital and was inpatient. I was diagnosed with an eating disorder, major depression and two anxiety disorders. And I thought I could be okay. Then I got angry and I decided to fake my way out of the hospital. I knew it was wrong but I was feeling too self-destructive to care. I don't recommend it. After I left things started getting horrible. I was extremely depressed. I started restricting again. I hated myself and every weekend I had to fight to keep myself from killing myself because I was so depressed. I started using behaviors again a lot. Then I attempted suicide. I was hospitalized again. 

Now I'm working to truly recover. It's hard, but I can only hope I'll get there one day.