Health & Fitness

Understanding Anorexia: The 5 Stages

Anorexia Nervosa is a life threatening mental illness; research has found that 20% of anorexia sufferers will die prematurely from their condition. Families and friends have to watch their loved ones intentionally starve themselves and fade away to nothing, causing them feelings of helplessness and incomprehension. As an anorexia survivor, I'd like to share all the information my experience has given me to help people understand what's going on inside an anorexia sufferer's mind.

Understanding Anorexia: The 5 Stages

Stage One: The Root Issues

Body comparison


Anorexia often begins with what I like to call 'skinny envy'. I was slightly overweight and had to lose some pounds to be more healthy, during this time I'd look at skinny girls and want their body. This motivated me to keep on losing, more quickly and more drastically which became an addictive and rewarding 'past-time'. Even though I had reached a healthy weight, I'd see girls who were slimmer and was never content.

Need of control

When basically everything in your life is out of your control, you tend to cling on to something that is. For anorexics, that's their weight. Saying to yourself that you will not eat and that you will look skinny, simply because you decided it, is surprisingly empowering for a while (until your illness gets out of hand).

Depression

Many anorexics are fully aware that they could end up very ill in hospital. They know all too well that they could die. That's the point; for sufferers like I was it was a very pleasurable and dramatic way to end their life. We are so sad that this slow subtle suicide is what we want. It's also a cry for help, we're letting people get the opportunity to heal us before it's too late.

Understanding Anorexia: The 5 Stages

Stage Two: the short-lived taste of so-called weight shedding 'success'

By this point your body's so used to losing weight that you feed on the process. Each time you lose a pound or so your body sends out bursts of energy so you feel great and don't even notice the harmful side effects of your new mania. What you don't know is that this is your body going into emergency mode and that your permanent health is in a lot of danger. When you look in the mirror, you simply can't see how skinny you are and think you're doing fine.

Losing weight is second nature to you now, different people with anorexia have different techniques not to take food in. I was losing a frightening 0.5 kg (around one pound) a day and at my lowest reached a spine shivering 38 kg (only 6 stone). You may ask how on earth did I get to such horrible extremes of weight? Pure mental strength. When I was forced to eat, I'd trick my body into thinking that every single food I was taking in was like a bad shrimp, ie. I didn't digest anything. So when I eat, it came in one way and out the other in a matter of minutes. Basically making myself have a permanent tummy bug was such a terrible thing to do, and to this day I still don't fully know how it got to that stage.

Stage Three: Outside intervention

Be it a doctor at a checkup, a member of your family or even just a concerned friend, someone is bound to notice what you're doing to yourself. This moment is often taken with anger and a refusal to accept that you have an illness. Some anorexics never accept that they have a problem but thankfully a lot of them (like myself) eventually come round to the idea. You now have a web of support and a glimmer of hope.

Understanding Anorexia: The 5 Stages

Stage Four: Recovery

This is the time where you know you have anorexia, and you don't want it anymore. You now feel like you need to gain weight and understand the dangers of what you've been putting yourself through. This is a very scary and hard time for anorexia recoverers, you want to be a normal healthy weight so badly but it's extremely hard for you and it takes time. Slowly and painfully you start to gain weight, every meal is torture and you feel like giving up. You may relapse, you may cry, you may hurt. But your loved ones are there for you, often your therapist gives you good recovery and coping techniques. You deal with those emotional issues and blockages along the way. You worry that your body will never be the same again, that your health will suffer even after you recover. For me, recovery took a year and half.

Stage Five: All better now

You've finally reached a healthy weight, you look and feel so much better. You've built up your self confidence, you look in the mirror and the image isn't distorted anymore. You're finally happy with yourself. Everyone is so relieved and proud of you. You can now talk openly about what you've been through and strive to help others with similar problems. You feel like a strong, beautiful person who can go through anything. And most importantly, you've survived.

Understanding Anorexia: The 5 Stages
Understanding Anorexia: The 5 Stages
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