My book about my eating disorder is now complete. Although the official publication is yet to take place, I no longer want to keep my experiences to myself. Below, I share excerpts from various chapters, in the hope that they may already offer support to others and provide a first glimpse into the journey I’ve been through.

The Introduction

Having an eating disorder has been one of the most lonely and hopeless situations I have ever found myself in. Constantly being preoccupied with how my body looks was the daily norm for me for years. The idea that a day without judging  myself in the mirror or thinking about it for hours could be possible is almost unimaginable. It’s been too long to truly remember what it’s like to live without the traits of an eating disorder. My eating disorder still has a place in my thoughts, feelings, and behavior. I am still, in some way, dealing with it on a daily basis. When I started writing this book, I thought I would be writing about an eating disorder I had. As I wrote more on paper, however, I realized that it is not completely gone. I had to rewrite this part of my book. It is not gone, and in a certain way, it will always be a part of my life. It is certainly not what it used to be. The extent to which I could starve myself or push myself to exhaustion is certainly no longer present. Also, I no longer torment myself by deliberately throwing up after eating, although this is a very recent development and I did it for a long time. I am most grateful that this is no longer a part of my life. What remains is behavior that, unfortunately, is part of life for many people, given that we still live in a world with certain popular body ideals. Sometimes my eating disorder still manifests as insecurity about my body, causing me to fear rejection. Or I still feel the need to exercise every day to feel good, or to compensate for moments when I think I have eaten too much. It is not entirely gone, and I wonder if it ever will be. The awareness I have developed about my body, eating, exercising, and more is something I cannot just remove from my mind. It is very hard for me to imagine ever looking at a pizza, a donut, a glass of cola, or even a slice of bread and seeing it only as food. It will always evoke certain thoughts, after which I must make a choice: to act on those thoughts or not. That might sound familiar. In fact, as humans, we are often involved in making such decisions. Not only when it comes to eating and losing weight but also in other choices, such as drinking alcohol or entering a relationship that we know is not good for us. Ultimately, it’s all about struggles that we all experience as human beings. Only, during the most intense times of my eating disorder, I was completely controlled by my eating disorder. Looking back and being able to make the choice myself, I realise that was centainly not the case back then.  My eating disorder made decided for me, and every choice was meant to sustain my eating disorder.