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Anonymous
Copyright, Anonymous
I am a 22 y/o female from the Caribbean. My problems were initiated since my childhood, case being; I was molested from the ages of 6 - 10 by a friend of the family. After this age, these incidents were completely blocked from my memory until I reached the age of 15. Depression overtook me at this time.
As a result of what happened, I was of the impression that all men were evil and I should stay away. Because of this, I thought I would make myself look ugly by eating and getting fat. But at 13 years old, I lost the weight and any relationship I got myself into, I ended up hurting them. At 15 - 16 years old, I kept on losing weight until I started to become pale and skinny. I was terribly depressed and was put on anti-depressants. All I knew, was that I always felt a pain deep inside of me.
So that's when I started cutting myself and drinking alot. I would spend most of my time sleeping so I just wouldnt feel the pain and on the days that I had no choice but to be awake, I would take a razor and pierce my skin just. It gave me a comfort I think; that there was a pain worse than what I was feeling in my heart and this was a pain that I could control (depending on how deep I cut).
But the more I cut, the pain in my heart grew so I was forced to cut more. Twice, I attepted suicide. One of the times, I remember taking a box (20) caffiene tabs while also drinking. The next morning, my body was completely numb and started turning blue. I was hospitalised for a few days. This is where I met a young nurse who took personal interest in me. She was awed by the way I spent every moment of the day crying. I did this because, at the hospital, I was out of control of my actions. Food was being forced, I couldnt sleep and my self injury was exposed.
She spent an entire night talking to me and eventually got the truth out of me about my childhood, which brought on tons of horrid memories that I had been blocking for years. She made me tell my mom, but I knew it would not make things better. Not that my mom doesn't care for me. She loves me very much, but she is not the type of person to deal with things like that. It was easier for her to pretend she didnt hear. She cried when she found out, and I know she wanted to help, but I understand the way she is, and I knew she couldnt do much.
After a few weeks, I pretended that I was fine, just so she wouldnt feel badly; it didnt make any sense for both of us to be going through the pain. She had more than enough to deal with, since my dad was not an easy person to live with at all! Also, to show that I could control things, I stopped eating. Then, when people started becoming suspicious, I tried vomiting. I started becoming obsessed with it. And started cutting out pictures of skinny girls from magazines and sticking them up, just so I would be motivated.
I have been in this condition for 7 years now. I have been on different medications and been hospitalized many times. I may not be as obsessed, but I am still depressed alot, I vomit most of the times (not always), and ocassionally I still cut myself. I have scars on my arms and I know they will never go away. I am not proud of them and I know it is wrong. I hope that one day I will start changing, but this have become a way of life for me. I see things to an extreme. If someone tells me I look fatter, I feel like hurting myself because I think that I'm unworthy of being alive and happy for putting on as much as one pound.
I've spoken to doctors about this, but I honestly don't think that you can really understand this, till you've lived it. I think that other people think that we don't understand how unhealthy it is to do this. My doctors and family try giving me advice on healtly low-fat foods. They try giving me exercise tips and stuff like that. *sigh*
They've got it all wrong. We know all this. Maybe even more so, cause we feel the effects and the pain our body feels. They don't realize that the reason we do this is so that we can feel the pain; we want to punish ourselves! Maybe, if we didnt know the damage it causes, we wouldnt do it. Most of you people have it all wrong like that. We dont do this because we're selfish, we dont care, we have nothing better to do or we just want attention or think it's the "hip" thing to do. It is a disease. I know there are the silly ones out there who think it is cool and it's fun. I dont understand for the life of me, why anyone would choose to be like this! It's ruined my life in many ways. I have nasty scars on my arms that I'll have to see for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, wondering why my heart is beating so fast and if I'll make it to the morning. This is not fun!
It's so hard to explain. I hate it, but if I dont do these things, I get breakdowns and start feeling ugly and insecure. I hate that I need this, but I have tried. And I'm still hoping that one day I will see things normally.