Coming from someone who has been there done that…here’s the reality because I’m currently in the aftermath of it all.
Here’s my story.
(Also, I have no idea why I decided to rant on this…lmao. I just got the urge. Shhh.)

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So, I won’t lie to you through this. Which sucks because I know a lot of pro-ana people don’t care about their health or future and ONLY care about being skinny. But I’m not gonna lie.

Well, just to put this out there, I DO. NOT. promote the ana or mia lifestyle. At all. I follow tons of thinspo blogs and I constantly favourite things from them. But do you ever see me reblogging anything? HELL. NO. Why? Because I do NOT support it! At all.

Ever since I was little I’ve been starving myself. When I was in about the 1st grade, I wasn’t really aware of weight. I didn’t really know that the numbers correlated to anything in my mind, but I hated food. I always did ever since I was little. I had no reason to; my mom is a little overweight and my dad is quite fit so I got a little of both sides growing up. I also got quite enough food as well. But I always hated it. For some reason, food was the enemy. In about the 1st grade was when it started to show up. I went on a paper diet. I had no idea it was a diet or anything at the time. I also had no idea what I was doing. But instead of eating food, I ate paper. For weeks. Until it made me really, really, really fucking sick and I had to be hospitalized and the adults were all mad at me and I was a perfect little kid back then so it made me really scared. Ahaha.

Now that I’m older, I’ve experienced the full spectrum of anorexia. I didn’t realize I was suffering from anorexia until I got forced into therapy for my third time. What made this time different from the other two was the fact that I /wanted/ help this time. But I didn’t go in for anorexia. I went in for depression and suicidal tendencies, which were very severe.

But that’s not what this is about.

Halfway through my sessions, my psychologist started talking to me about anorexia. Even though I’m 20 years old, I still had that thought in my mind that only really skinny people could be anorexic so I had no idea that it would even apply to me because I have never seen myself as skinny. I was about 130 pounds at the time, give or take. (I never admitted this to anyone until now because I was so ashamed of my weight.)

I remember always getting nagged at for eating really small portions and sometimes starving myself for days. And I was doing it on purpose and suffering. I was living the ana lifestyle fully and completely and around the age of 17, it started becoming a conscious decision. I experimented with bulimia for a while but throwing up sends me into violent panic attacks so that didn’t last for long.

My weight was one of the main reasons I was suicidal, but I hadn’t a clue the entire time till my psychologist (very recently) brought it to my attention.

I had been trying to get off drugs at the time…but my home life wasn’t too great. Things were going on; very severe things and I lasted for a little less than a month before I caved entirely and got back on drugs harder than ever. But this time, it changed my body.

Starvation never bothered me because I had started drinking, cutting, smoking, and doing drugs in my early teen years…so health wasn’t on my mind. Now, at 20 years old, it is.

Anyways, I was on drugs. Hard. (Still am somewhat.) I was also on anti-depressants and a few other meds that all had a side effect of curbing hunger. And, well…my appetite disappeared. Completely disappeared. I can say that I have not experienced the feeling of “hunger” in over a month now. It still has not returned even while I am off these meds and the drugs. So the starvation became unintentional…only this time, it got extreme.

I ended up starving myself for weeks at a time. Literally. Sometimes I would go 8 days without even touching food before my mom would remind me. Now she reminds me to eat every couple days because…well, since my feeling of hunger is gone, I have no indicator to tell me when to eat.

This is the part I was worried about pro ana people reading. But I guess they wouldn’t read this anyways because they don’t want to see the truth of their lifestyle…But regardless, here’s the truth.

Starvation worked. I dropped to 102lbs from about 130lbs in less than 2 weeks. And I haven’t gained it back. I can’t seem to put on any weight. My goal weight was 90 pounds…but now that I’m almost there, it’s scaring me.

I can see most of the bones in my body. I still do not have a thigh gap (I’m 5’1) and I’m not a size 0 yet. (I’m a size 2.) I’m not satisfied, no, but…I’m “severely underweight” according to doctors. I disagree, but they’re concerned.

It’s been about a week or two since this super drastic drop and I’m still losing. And it’s scary.

I’m having ridiculous health issues. My liver is messed up, my kidneys are messed up, my gallbladder is messed up, my teeth feel like they are going to fall out and are always sore, my hair has been falling out a little bit, my joints constantly hurt, I always have a mild headache, I can’t walk/stand for more than 5 minutes without feeling faint, I can’t really run at all anymore, my bones are really weak, my blood sugar is in hypoglycemic range which has caused me to black out and get rushed to the hospital twice now, I’m dehydrated, I’m always ALWAYS tired to an extent where I literally cannot do anything productive and this is my last week of summer semester in my college courses and I might fail because of this fatigue, my body is sleeping a lot (14-16 hours a day, when I normally slept anywhere from 4-8 at most) and I’m at risk of going into a coma so my parents constantly have to come in and wake me up, my skin has always been pale but now it’s taken on a yellow-y tint (almost like jaundice), my eyes are constantly stinging, and I feel nauseous all the time. Whenever I stretch or move or suck in my belly, it feels like I’m putting pressure on all my organs and like they’re going to break. I’m also pretty much on the verge of dying. I actually had to sway from my vegetarian views because my body is so messed up. Everything feels cold even when it’s warm and I’m constantly shivering/shaking. I can’t go out with my friends or anything because of the exhaustion.

Just saying, if you plan on starving yourself, say goodbye to your social life because all the things that go wrong with your body prevent you from being out and having a good time…

On top of this, there’s the trivial things.

None of my clothes fit anymore and I have to spend money that I don’t have on an entirely new wardrobe. I look sickly and there are heavy, HEAVY bags under my eyes that I can’t get rid of.

I’m also at a high risk of heart attack so I had to learn all the symptoms to that and be prepared to tell my mom if it happens so she could rush me to the hospital.

It puts a severe strain on EVERYONE around you. Not just because they’re worried about you, but because when you really get trapped in a cycle of starvation, they end up pretty much taking care of you. At 20 years old, I should be out having fun and partying like I have been before I lost my feeling of hunger and starved myself. Instead, I’m stuck inside constantly feeling like I have a very severe form of the flu and having to have my parents dote on me a lot.

To be perfectly honest…it was worth it.

I know, it’s downright sickening to say that but my depression is pretty much cured now. I don’t feel like I want to kill myself anymore. Sure, I still get my bouts of depression but the suicidal tendencies are pretty much gone. And because I can say that I have experienced happiness now after 20 years, however brief it was, I feel like it was worth it. Because that’s all I ever wanted…was to feel what happiness felt like once in my whole life.

Of course…I might die because of it. I might get my life cut short at a mere 20 years old because of it…but at least I can say that I’ve experienced an emotion I never, ever thought I’d be able to experience.

So, yeah, there’s my story.

I constantly feel like I’m dying. It really sucks… I didn’t enter in this lifestyle just out of societal pressures or anything like that. It just kind of happened…it’s just how my mind has worked since I was little. There are tons of people like me out there who are very literally trapped with this curse. If you’re one of those people who just want to starve themselves and be skinny so they look good and can be “loved”, fucking stop. Seriously. Just fucking stop. As much as you want to deny it, unlike the tons of people like me out there, you have a choice. You have a fucking choice and that’s more than any of us could ever, EVER wish for. So please. Please just fucking stop. It’s the stupidest decision you’ll ever make and you’ll regret it for the rest of your fucking life, if you even live past a year or so after you seriously starve yourself.

Meh, whatever.

There’s my story. -shrug- Take from it what you will… :/