Rejection. Humiliation.

Fear of rejection is part of an ED, but don't forget fear of humiliation that goes hand in hand with it. 

From humiliation comes anger, but to take it out on the one(s) who humiliated us is fruitless so where do we direct it? The body that also was a part of why the humiliation happened in the first place. We can not control other people, but we can try to prevent it from happening again. Hence making us look child-like, innocent, pretty or cool so people will less likely think of attacking us again. Every time I felt humiliated I looked at myself from the outside and I saw what I felt; big. Humiliation feels like exposure, enlarged under a magnifying glass and scrutinised. We don't want this humiliation to happen again. We also want to heal from the experiences, but we don't know how to do any of those things so we reduce our own body. We simply don't know better and those who were suppose to take care of us did not either.

I can give you two examples from my own life. My dad left me when I was 10 and when he came back to see me 6 years later he just stood in the other end of the living room and looked at me. He did not come to hug me and said nothing. Just looked at me for a long time. It was uncomfortable. I felt exposed. Then he said: You have grown. He did not look happy. I thought he was unhappy with how my body had turned out. I felt rejected. He did not come closer, he said nothing more. Yes, so I felt humiliated, exposed, scrutinised. (My dad was a weird man. He never hugged me, held me, I never got to hold his hand even when I asked him to. My mum never touched me either. Not even when I had hurt myself did she try to calm me down by touching me a little. )

Another time I felt humiliated was when a 44 year old man exposed himself to me when I was 16. He had sat his chair into the hallway where he knew I would come before bedtime so I could see him when I passed by. There he sat with an open dressing gown and his hand on his penis, sleeping. I thought God was behind this, showing me myself from the outside, so when I went into the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror I saw a fat pig there instead. 

That is when I started restricting food. First pig meat. The woman in the house thought I was dieting when I said I didn't want the pork dinner she served me and suggested I avoided bread with cheese instead. So I did. And thought I should go on a restrictive diet since she thought I was dieting. She would never think that unless I needed it, I thought. 

Too hard to accept reality

People with an ED do not accept reality.

It is just too hard not to be loved by anybody.

They feel rejected, powerless and disappointed. 

They take a look down on themselves,

spot something they can change and feel some power again.

Now the disappointment is placed on the body instead.

They make a plan to change how they look,

hoping others might find them adorable enough

to give them enough attention to be able to see 

enough of them to finally love them. 

As their appearance change 

they do get attention from some,

but it never passes the surface.

How dreary when the plan doesn't work out,

but then they try harder, lose more weight

and try to make themselves more interesting

under the surface as well.

If they only accepted the reality

by understanding some people do not have insight enough

to see others passed the surface.

A loving person can see you and love you just like that. 

You don't have to do anything to make that happen.

Never give up finding someone who can love

and in the meantime find the love inside.

 

What is your top priority in life?

My highest priority in life has been to be thin and fit. It has really bothered me. I even had a child and my highest priority was you know what and I was ashamed and could not tell anyone. When I was pregnant I was scared I had to put my kid before myself, his needs before mine, and I was crying because I had no idea how to do that without being grumpy. I decided to see our needs as equal before I was ready to have a baby. My mindset did work out most of the time, but not always. I have done some questionable things. But when my x husband criticised me and I saw myself through his eyes as a bad mum I did not see a reason to live. If I failed as a mum I was worthless in my own eyes. I got out of his sight and eyes after a while and found I did not think I was a bad mum myself so I kept going.

I have been a religious person for very long and my anorexia has been both holy and wordly. Earlier my ideal was to serve others every second of day and night and never pay attention to myself while reality was the complete opposite, because I did not accept that my body, which I called I, had needs. I was very unhappy for living so far from my ideal. I blamed my body for it because it did not have the energy to help me serve and took so much attention as it was always hungry and tired or sleepy. I understood one day it was very unrealistic to expect to live life at earth as if it was heaven, literally, and to believe I could manipulate the body to have no needs. 

Lately I realised I am surprisingly selfish. I understood this for real when I witnessed how I dealt with my son, now 18, when he didn't want to see or talk to me. To be rejected by my son has been the worst ever. I say rejected because I took it very personally. Because I suffered so deeply I first thought: Wow, I love him so deeply. Later I realised my love was selfish because I could not leave him alone like he wanted me to. I could not accept the rejection because I wanted to see him. To realise that I am so selfish made me depressed for a while. I felt like a prisoner of my own ego. I wanted to to love him on his terms, but my ego with its emotions did not allow it to happen. I understood to be selfless my ego had to be out of my mind. My life did not change much anyway. I just payed more attention to my husband. Then something happened.

I watched a Youtube video where a guy had been dead, come back to life at earth and said he had heard three important messages in heaven. One of them was: Just love! I needed to hear that because my love has been a selective one. I have not understood I must love absolutely all the time. I must be my true self which is always loving. God has already told me earlier that it is not the action itself that matters, it is the love that is shared through the actions, but I did not think that I should stop being selective with my love so that video was much needed. I have not put to love as my highest priority. I have put stupid things like eating a certain way and exercise as my top priority. Vanity as number one. My self as number one. I meditated today and understood what it means to love a body. It is not to like how it looks, but to listen to its needs, be careful with it, accept its needs, give it rest when it needs rest and enough food and the type of food it needs and so on. 

My body was never to blame for me not serving all the time. The reason why I did not serve others was because I ignored my tool to do it. I did not love others because I was trapped in my intolerant and discriminating ego. I could have served my body and people. Then I could have loved every second of the time. 

The essence of anorexia in a poem

When you don't love me 

I feel so deprived

I can't eat

and the feeling get intensified.

Take care, friends say,

but why should I

when you don't?

Doc tells me I have anorexia,

but I don't have anything

when I don't have your love.

What can make me well from my ED?

I just realised that what I thought was the causes of my anorexia really was not. I thought it was neglect and trauma. Partly yes, but I think the main cause was simply that what I saw as my main focus in life was taken away from me when I was 12 and never replaced with something else I loved and was time consuming as that. I was obsessed with classical ballet and hoped to be a professional dancer in the future. Then suddenly my mum said she could no longer afford to pay ballet lessons so I had to quit. She looked so sad when she said it so I decided to be selfless and not protest. A few months later I discover she has used money on plastic surgery. I was mad and felt betrayed, but I didn't say anything. I just rejected her from my heart. My life was empty then because everything I had done earlier was to perfect my dancing skills by improving my jumps, strength, flexibility, technique and grace. No point in doing that anymore so I looked at what my best friend was into. She was into food. So I started making food as a hobby together with her, but after a while I gained weight and I was not happy. I got into food on my own way instead, by becoming vegetarian and dieting. When that became hell I thought if I started doing drugs I might forget about the food, so I tried that for a year, but I just got occupied with both instead and eating way too little.

Maybe I need something time consuming to perfect, little by little. To perfect being skinny must as we know end in death because perfectly skinny is the skinniest, is it not? The recent years I have tried to perfect being healthy more than to perfect being skinny, but it is nothing to write home about, you know. To accomplish something that helps people or improves the world slightly would be so much better. Healthy people focus on their work, trying to perfect it. At least those who have the perfectionistic personality as many with anorexia has. I did get into poetry and God for many years and after that taking care of a son. I was not too focused on food then. It was still a priority to be skinny, but it was not the most important thing in my life to think about. I just ate habitually. So do I just need something to focus on and perfect to get rid of my ED? 

I thought so for a few minutes, but if that was the case I should have been well while having my son, but I was at my lowest weight then. I remember now there was something else in the center of my life before I got obsessed with ballet. Dad, my rock. He chose to not be my dad anymore when I was ten and left, hoping my mum would find another dad for me. He did not say that before he was about to die many years later, but I was shocked the one I thought loved me and that I loved so much would suddenly leave me as if we had no history together. I never got over it. I cried for so many years as an adult because I missed him and could not understand why he left me. So I don't know what to do to get back to how it was before I developed an ED. 

I think it is too late to get the same result by going back to something similar as in my childhood, though because I know people are not to be trusted now. I loved my son, but I was still obsessed with my ED. I was very into God and poetry, but I was still having an ED. It is not about being loved either because I am married to a man who loves me, but I am not attached. We are both individualists, both neglected and rejected by both our parents. So what can make me well now? I have thought I need another man, someone who can love me the way I think I need. Someone more emotionally available, someone who can see me on a deeper level, but even that won't help me to get rid of the ED, probably. 

If I should take a guess it is only by my decision to throw the ED out of my inner house I can get well. Just like I decided to start dieting I can stop it. By no longer give a fuck about how much fat is on my body and prioritise selfless actions for others. I think my ED is me, but in reality it is the voice of my mum. She is very careful with what she eats and always pay attention to how much fat is on her stomach. She is so tiny now at age 85. I can have God and the service of mankind as the center of my life. I know God heals me if I let him. He has healed me bit by bit each time I said I was ready for it. But it is not only the love I receive that will save me. It is the love I give. When I give selflessly I am free from myself. It is freedom. It is love. Appearance doesn't matter then. What matters then is we are united and love is all there is.

Reverse dieting with updates

9 september 2024 I had a weird experience today. I mentioned in my update yesterday I found my new medication take away my stress. Today it has made me think so differently about my body even! My husband said I looked stronger today after I had been to the gym, but I said he probably just imagined it because he thought I trained heavier than I actually do. I felt sad he thought I lifted heavier and heavier and that I had to tell him I can not, that I am not strong, I am not having enough fuel to replenish afterwards, I get too much pain and what not. Really unhappy because I could not train to get stronger as he thought. I asked myself later why I got sad because of that since it was so odd; I have always wanted to look skinny and not be muscular. Then I saw an image of myself as bigger, with more muscles and more fat and I loved that image of myself. I was like: What? How is that possible? That has never happened before! It must be the medication that makes me think differently as it removes my fear. Without the constant fear I no longer see the need to be skinny. It is so weird! But it is also great. It means I can get much healthier. I can allow myself to increase my calories even when I start to gain weight from the number of calories I eat in the reverse diet that I do, because I will use that energy to get healthy and strong. OMG! I then asked myself: If I knew before taking the medication it would make me want to. gain weight willingly would I still take it? The answer is no, no way.! But now I am happy I am one step ahead.


This ED is just fear based. When the fear is gone the ED is out the window with it. Before this happened, at the gym, something happened that can be related to the change of mindset, though. I had to cry and an image of my mum looking malicious came up. It was like she came up through my throat and I had to feel her on the way out of me. By seeing and feeling this evil aspect of her I felt so much better afterwards. Like relieved from the cause of my fear. She used to scorn me. Always hanging over my shoulder to look for something to criticise me for. It made me into a perfectionist, constantly stressed and afraid of criticism ever since. Seems like my ED is an evil spirit still alive and has made such a big impact on me she has become a part of me. Just like she harassed me in my childhood she harasses me in my adult life as a spirit within, making me just as unfree as when she hung over my shoulder in my young years. Well, that was up until now. She is out now. Earlier I thought medication is just bad and the pill industry is evil. It is not that black and white obviously. I said I will eat 1880 calories for three weeks to see if I gain from this increased amount or not. If I do I have decided I will not stop, but continue increasing to get well. Step by step to not get overwhelmed.

15 september 2024 My reverse diet continues: This week I have eaten 1900 calories on average! I dared to increase already after a week. I am little proud and a tiny bit scared, but I am hopeful. The monster (my internal mum) is out. I don't see the big danger in gaining a little anymore. Next week I will eat 1920 on average. Cause I am hungry for more. I weighed 52,4 yesterday (BMI 17,9) so no difference really as I have been weighing between 51,5 and 53 for a while now. Will continue weighing myself and see how this effects my weight.

I weighed 52,7 yesterday so I may or may not have gained any. Do not know before I weight more than 53 as my weight fluctuates between 51 and 53 all the time. I upped my calorie intake to 1920 last week from 1900 the one before. Felt kinda dizzy looking at the number, but I felt fueled up enough to start lifting weights that week, not just body weight, so in theory that extra fuel could go to the muscle tissue instead of the fat tissue.

I am just a tiny bit hungry for more than I eat now so I will increase my intake to 1940 this week. I want to feel strong and healthy as well as having energy to others. Just not have more body fat. Hopefully I manage to tweak this successfully. The minute I see I have gained I will go back to a little less unless I am convinced I gained muscle mass.

I went all in when I tried to recover earlier because reverse dieting became too difficult when I had starved for too long. Hard because I got very hungry when giving the body more. Now I acted right in time and I am so happy I did. This is exciting because I am so bored of being hungry. I may not ever stop counting calories, but at least I will function better now.

Reverse diet update: I have reached 2000 calories a day and I have not gained anything. My weight today was 51,7 kg. That is a BMI of 17, something as my height is 171 cm. I can almost not believe it because I used to think my metabolism was special, that I could never eat more than 1500 a day ever to stay underweight. Very happy about it. My body burns carbs efficiently so carbs is what it will get. I think the success is caused by keeping it low fat, loads of fruits and enough calcium. Also increasing calories extra slowly helps to make sure the body adjusts and keeping me as relaxed as possible so I don't go back to lower calories. I did have times where I was body checking like crazy partly because I had to exercise less because of some pain, but I kept eating. Glad I did. I hope I inspire others to try as well and not go back when you see the result of water fluctuation on the scale. Why eat 1500 when you can eat 2000 and weigh the same? Just feel better. I am not finished though. I may increase even 100 to 200 more.

Struggles to accept your bigger body?

It helps to look for beauty in everything, in every body, instead of looking for flaws. A shift from a negative mindset to a positive one. We can remind us that to be fixated on fat is the crazy part that stems from experiences with people with a critical mindset. Mindsets we incorporated into ourselves and can get rid of. We don't want to be critical and judgemental and cause others to not accept themselves. We can say fuck you to the haters, the judgemental ones, the critical ones. Reject them and reject the critical thoughts in us and choose love and acceptance. We are perfect. So called flaws is invented by the beauty industry to make money on. Stretch marks, fat, cellulites, wrinkles, loose skin, acne is all natural, there is nothing wrong with it at all. Whats wrong is to look for flaws, to judge, to criticise, to not accept and love everything and everybody.

Stop following body fixers (those who use their looks to earn money on talking about diets and exercise) and start following body positive people on social media or those who don't focus on looks at all. Stop comparing. Start embracing differences. Make the best out of what you got. Get yourself a nice haircut and find some clothes you love that fits your body shape. Show some love. No one is unhappy with their body when they are happy.