I have been a bigger person since I was in fifth grade. Back then I had just a little belly on my growing frame, but once puberty hit — and it hit me hard — my weight ballooned. Fast forward to high school, my parents had divorced, and I was living with my mother. At the time, I was unaware she was bipolar [1] and refused medication. She would go through manic periods with food and would only buy one type of food for weeks on end. There was one month where I ate nothing but frozen corn dogs. I was horrifically ill by the end of that month, which only worsened my diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
I felt awful, but what I did not notice at the time was the unhealthy relationship I was developing with food. When my mom would break from these manic food periods, I become a ravenous monster. I began to equate certain foods as "good," and if those were in the house, I would eat them as fast as I could. Eventually, this developed into binge-eating [2]. This was even more exacerbated when I began working and had my own money. I would sit in my car and eat fast food until I felt ill, then I would go home and if there was "good" food there, I would eat that too.
After several years of doing this and my weight increasing, I finally had a breakdown. This breakdown was not wholly associated with the eating disorder, but it played a part. When you have a parent who is bipolar, the odds of you having it are increased by 50 percent. I was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder and binge-eating disorder in January 2016. In the four months prior to the diagnosis, I was manic. I could not sleep, and I ate everything in sight. I eventually started having auditory hallucinations due to the lack of sleep. I was very close to taking myself to the hospital. I went to my doctor, and he sent me to the therapist who diagnosed me.
The nine months after my diagnosis were awful. I was put on more medications than I can remember, and by September I had tried 20 different ones. The psychiatrist I was seeing then told me I seem to be sensitive to medication and that I would just have to keep trying to see what would work. I am not a person who likes taking heavy medications. The medications that I was being prescribed made me feel terrible in so many ways. I decided that I did not want to be a lab rat anymore and maybe I needed to find an alternative to medication. The alternative I decided on was therapy. I did therapy monthly for about a year.
I do not care about losing weight, but I miss being strong.
Therapy helped tremendously and made me feel like I had the power to control how I acted and reacted to things. However, even though I was fine talking about all the issues with my emotions swinging back and forth, I did not talk about my binge-eating. This therapist did not know about the diagnosis of binge-eating. I never told her. I would talk a bit about how I feel like I don't have much control over my eating, but it was never fully vetted and I was happy about that.
Honestly, the biggest thing in my life that I am embarrassed about is my binge-eating. I never talk about it. I never tell people. I think I only understand a few reasons why. The first reason that always comes to my mind is that people will think I am using that as a cop-out. I think it is also how our society views bigger people. Many people view us as lazy and unhealthy. They view us as defective. I feel like if I tell people about my eating disorder, they will think that I am trying to get out of dealing with the issue. This judgment has been debilitating.
For the first time, I am opening up about what is going on and how I need to change to make myself healthier. I do not care about losing weight, but I miss being strong. Over the past couple of years, I have become so weak and I do not go out as much. I hate that I get so tired easily and do not have much energy, but what I hate the most is that food has so much control over my life. I hate that I am so secretive with it. I still feel so guilty about it, and I want and need that to stop.
My plan is to tackle this issue with courageous honesty. I am going to start documenting my journey. Every month, I will write an update on my progress. I have already started by sending for a DNA test with FitnessGenes that will hopefully help me design a fitness plan and meal plan that will work specifically for me. I am going to exercise with the goal of strengthening my body. I am going to talk to people more openly, which is what I think I will struggle with the most. I hope that by the combination of all of this, the most important being the documentation to keep me on track, I can become healthier and happier. I also hope that over time I can forgive myself. I hold this guilt that I did this to myself so fervently that I think I will struggle tremendously to let it go. I hope that this can inspire at least one person to know that change is possible and that change is not bad.