My Eating Disorder

Many of you might not know, some might have some idea but I hid it. I hid it well, I hid my eating disorder. As a dancer, having the right body shape is necessary to dance efficiently and effectively, but most importantly, for the visual aesthetics. As a child, I have never been big or overweight, I danced since I was 4 years old and had so much fun, enjoying myself everyday I put on my ballet shoes. However, stress starts to kick in when I have more and more expectations of what my dance standard should be when I started dancing more seriously.

When I was 15 years old, I joined a private dance studio and was told to lose weight. I was only 50kg then. I lost 7kg as a “newbie dieter” by cutting my meals and going for runs more. I was dangerously thin and I lost my period for 1.5years. My school teachers saw me and told me to seek professional help. I was told to gain weight, but I know I can’t for the sake of my teachers and dance. I crumbled. As I was still very young and wanted to remain skinny as I believed that was what I needed to be a great dancer, I told my mum to work with me to tell the doctors that nothing was wrong. Afterwards, I was prescribed hormonal medication to trigger my period to come while still being strict with my diet. However, such low calorie diets can never last long and I started eating more and gaining weight. When I saw this, I immediately went again with a diet to cut my weight. Cycles and cycles of such behaviour resulted in my yo-yo diet and weight. I was never happy, I love food but when I eat something, I immediately gain weight due to the extreme diet I was on. Then, this stress became mentally distressing and I was constantly thinking about eating food, but also the repercussions of it.

I watched tons of fitness and diet videos to educate myself about what is a good way to keep a long lasting diet, many said balance but I could never understand how they can do it while maintaining their figure. I have never had more than 1000calories in a long time and I was so scared of gaining weight. I told myself I would never have an eating disorder because I thought I knew everything about food. Calories in, calories out, calories in food, consistency and many more, I was confident with myself in keeping a strict diet regime.

I hated myself for needing to eat so little

However, one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I binged. I ate bags of cereals, breads, snacks, peanut butters to fill the emptiness in me. I hated myself for needing to eat so little whereas everyone else was eating normally. I ate all the food that I was scared of eating for the fear of gaining weight. I then realised after finishing all the food that I felt sickly full, and I did not think about anything during that process. I was just inhaling food and not enjoying it at all. I was shocked at myself, not because of the reasons behind my actions but at the amount of foods I ate. I didn’t know what happened was a result of strict dieting and I just felt so awful about myself, my self hatred piled up. I was still 47kg but I looked in the mirror, in my underwear, tummy bloated and cried. I thought to myself “I’m crazy, I’m fat, I cannot do this again”, and immediately starved myself the next day as punishment to myself. However, 1-2 days of starvation kicks off my binging thoughts again, thinking, if I just ate those foods again for just 1 day is still ok if I restrict myself again. Although I knew about the idea of calories, I was already too deep into my mental disorder, I didn’t care about anything else except finishing all that food on a weekend. Slowly but surely, I started gaining so much weight. I was so embarrassed and I didn’t know what to do. I was so hungry because I was starving myself but when I got home after being at school, I binged on my snacks because it was the only thing that made me happy. When I am full at a satisfied level, I think that I have already gone past my calorie limit and give up on dieting that day and go all-in and binge until I become sickly full. To me, it was either I was under my calorie intake or I went over. So even if I went over my calories by 200, I would think I have failed myself and go on to have another 2000 calories. I became more and more sick and often had stomach aches and skipped school more often. I felt useless and I had no meaning in life. I never wanted anyone to look at me and I didn’t wear clothes that I liked. I hated myself and used food to fill up the emptiness in me. This endless cycle continued and at the end of it, I gained so much weight that I was unrecognisable.

Always, always never say "It's Easy"

When I went back home to Singapore, people were shocked, angry and sad. I tried to explain my eating disorder to them but they brushed it off by saying that I was giving mere excuses and there is no such thing as an eating disorder. I was just unable to control my eating habits and that was it. For a moment, I believed that it was really just my fault, I thought that yes, it does seem so simple, just to stop my hand from reaching that snack! But why couldn’t I do it? Why can everyone else do it but not me? I felt helpless, I can’t even help myself, I can’t even control my own body and behaviour and this is what I can control! I fell in deep. I was upset, depressed and just wanted to end it all. However, I love dance, I really do and people often say it is such a rarity to do something that is your passion as your work. And everyone has to make sacrifices and for me, I would need to sacrifice my eating habits to eat less. My body is naturally bigger built with larger hips and I would need to work even harder in terms of my diet to look smaller like other petite dancers. Nonetheless, such thoughts were equally unhealthy and after I lost about 8kgs, I rebounded back, harder than ever and gained even more. The fact that I was constantly surrounded by small, thin girls in my class just made it worse for me and my confidence. I just wanted to skip school everyday and I did not want to be judged by anyone.

Anyone can have an eating disorder. Even those who looked normal.

I almost gave up, I really wanted to. This behaviour and cycle and mental illness has stuck by me for almost 2 years. I was in a mess, I just wanted to get high so I can just forget about my worries. I could never tell my parents about this because they would never understand because I tried but it failed. I just felt more and more lonely like I was the only one battling this disorder alone.

Thankfully, I met my current boyfriend and he was the first person I opened up my binge eating disorder to. I then started getting more comfortable with it and self hatred feelings decreased. I slowly started to get better, although there are many times when I fall back in but I felt more happy. Now that we are in quarantine, I had a lot of opportunities to know more about myself, my habits, my triggers, my emotions and try to find ways so that I do not fall back into my disorder.

I’m still in the process by self-recovering but I can definitely say that I am feeling happier, more satisfied and more motivated than ever to recover fully and be stronger mentally and physically again. I’ll definitely write another blog about how I found ways to recover but until then, please push me on and always, always, never say “It’s easy”.